Japan’s Improved Land-Based Type 12 Missile Completes U.S. Tests for Extended Naval Deterrence.

Japan says it has secured completion prospects for the land-based Improved Type 12 anti-ship missile after seven live-fire tests in the United States. The extended-range weapon significantly expands the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force's coastal strike reach and complicates naval operations across the East China Sea.

According to the Japanese Ministry of Defense, on 19 December 2025, the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency (ATLA) announced it has secured the prospect of completing development of the land-based variant of the Improved Type 12 Surface-to-Ship Missile after a series of live firings in the United States. The ministry’s release links the milestone to seven launches conducted between October 8 and November 27 in southern California, aimed at collecting performance data and confirming the missile’s planned behavior in flight.
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Japan's improved Type 12 land-based anti-ship missile offers a mobile, low-observable stand-off strike capability, with networked targeting and a reported 900-1,000 km class range to engage enemy warships far beyond Japan's coastal waters (Picture source: Japan MoD).

For the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force's coastal units, the operational leap is straightforward: the Improved Type 12 turns a traditionally short-range shore defense weapon into a standoff strike tool that can reach far beyond local sea lanes. The baseline Type 12 is widely described as a roughly 200 km class missile. At the same time, Japanese defense reporting has repeatedly linked the upgraded weapon to a 900-1,000 km class ambition, placing it in a range bracket normally associated with land-attack cruise missiles rather than classic coastal defense rounds. In practical terms, that means a launcher dispersed on Kyushu or the Ryukyu island chain can threaten surface action groups operating across much of the East China Sea, complicating any attempt to mass forces for coercive patrols, blockades, or amphibious cover operations.

The missile family is evolving toward a low-observable, multi-platform design. ATLA has publicly described the upgraded Type 12 as a domestically produced stand-off missile with long-distance flight capability, designed for stealth and intended for launch from aircraft, naval vessels, and ground launchers. Earlier Japanese defense coverage of the Type 12 provides useful engineering anchors: a missile around 5 meters long, about 700 kg in weight, carrying a 225 kg class high-explosive warhead, and guided by an inertial navigation system with an active radar seeker for terminal homing. The land-based configuration shown in official imagery features a truck-mounted, canisterized launcher built for shoot-and-scoot tactics, letting crews displace quickly after firing to survive counter-battery strikes and loitering munitions.

What the completed development phase really buys Japan is confidence in employability at scale. A long-range anti-ship missile is only as credible as its ability to be cued in real time and threaded through contested air and electronic warfare environments. With the Improved Type 12, Japan can fuse offboard sensing from maritime patrol aircraft, destroyers, space-based surveillance, and island radars into a joint targeting chain, then fire from positions that are harder to preempt. Even without firing a shot, that forces an adversary to allocate escorts, jammers, decoys, and air defense missiles to every major naval movement, raising cost and risk.

Compared with Western competitors, Japan is clearly prioritizing reach. Kongsberg’s Naval Strike Missile, now widely adopted in NATO, lists a range of more than 300 km, paired with a compact missile optimized for coastal and littoral lethality. MBDA’s Exocet MM40 Block 3c positions itself in a roughly 250 km class with sophisticated terminal guidance and low observability features. Even the U.S. Navy’s long-range anti-ship workhorse, LRASM, is commonly described in open literature as at least a 200 nautical mile class weapon, built around autonomous targeting and survivability rather than sheer distance. Harpoon upgrades remain relevant and affordable, but published unclassified figures still place extended-range concepts well below the range attributed to the Improved Type 12. In this comparison, Japan’s missile is less a conventional Harpoon successor and more a regional sea-denial cruise missile.

Japan’s cabinet has backed record defense spending as it accelerates stand-off missiles and related enablers, explicitly in a security climate shaped by sustained Chinese military pressure around Taiwan and Japan’s southwestern approaches. Japanese reporting also indicates the land-based improved missile is moving toward production and fielding timelines that begin in the second half of the decade, aligning with Tokyo’s broader push to harden remote-island defense and develop counterstrike options. In parallel, Japan is pairing domestic missile programs with long-range imports such as Tomahawk, underscoring that Tokyo now sees long-range precision strike as a core deterrence pillar rather than an exception.