NASAMS: New American Air Defense System That Shocked Russia

NASAMS (National/Norwegian Advanced Surface to Air Missile System) is a distributed and networked short- to medium-range ground-based air defense system developed by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA) and Raytheon. The system defends against unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), helicopters, cruise missiles, unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), and aircraft.

NASAMS was the first application of a surface-launched AIM-120 AMRAAM (Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile). NASAMS 2 is an upgraded version of the system capable of using Link 16, which has been operational since 2007. As of 2022 NASAMS 3 is the latest upgrade; deployed in 2019, it adds capability to fire AIM-9 Sidewinder and IRIS-T SLS short-range missiles and AMRAAM-ER extended-range missiles, and introduces mobile air-liftable launchers. NASAMS has proven interoperability with longer range systems such as Patriot.

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