Lockheed Martin awarded $723 million Hellfire missile contract for France, Lebanon and the Netherlands.

Lockheed Martin was awarded a $723,550,174 modification to domestic and Foreign Military Sales (Lebanon, Netherlands and France) contract to procure a variety of HELLFIRE II missile variants.

US Army Soldiers loading an AGM-114 Hellfire missile on an AH-64E Apache helicopter (Picture source: US Army)

In October 2018, Lockheed was awarded a nearly $632 million contract to procure a variety of Hellfire II missile variants for the Netherlands and Japan. The Dutch government originally requested 180 AGM-114R Hellfire II missiles and training missiles but in 2017 was approved for an additional 70 Hellfires.

The missiles are set to be deployed on the Royal Netherlands Air Force AH-54D Apache helicopters.
France has requested 112 AGM-114K1A and 102 AGM-114N1A Hellfire missiles along with training and related equipment for its Tigre Attack helicopters.

It is mainly used on helicopters, including the AH-64 Apache, but also on drones such as the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper and, since 2017, on board warships. Very versatile, it can be used against any type of vehicle, but also against buildings. Its relatively long reach allows the launcher to stay safe, even invisible.