French FREMM Alsace Fires Aster 30 Missile to Intercept Supersonic Sea-Skimmer.

The French Navy says air-defense FREMM Alsace fired an Aster 30 on October 7, 2025, and destroyed a supersonic, sea-skimming target during a high-intensity exercise under DGA control off the French coast. The shot underlines the FREMM DA’s role as fleet shield and reinforces Europe’s layered air defense progress that NATO surface forces, including U.S. partners, watch closely.

The Marine nationale reports its air-defense FREMM Alsace, hull number D656, executed a detect-decide-engage sequence in seconds and downed a supersonic target launched by a Rafale Marine during a live exercise on October 7 off metropolitan France. The drill, overseen on a DGA range, replicated a sea-skimming anti-ship profile and used the ship’s Héraklès radar paired to SYLVER A50 vertical launch cells to cue an Aster 30 interceptor. While Alsace has already proven the weapon family in combat during Red Sea operations earlier in 2024, the latest home-waters shot mirrors recent French training that stresses complex, low-altitude, high-speed threats.
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FREMM air-defense frigate Alsace (D656) launches an Aster 30 during a high-intensity drill off the French coast, October 7, 2025. (Picture source: French MoD)

Alsace, the air-defense variant of the FREMM program, is a recent ship launched on April 18, 2019, tested at sea in autumn 2020, delivered in April 2021, and declared fully operational on November 22, 2021. A member of the Aquitaine class, it displaces over 6,000 tons, measures 142 meters in length with a 20-meter beam and a 7.6-meter draft. These dimensions provide stability for sustained radar and weapons use while keeping a reduced signature. Propulsion combines MTU Series 4000 generators rated at 2.2 MW each with a CODLOG architecture, giving 27 knots maximum speed, an economical 15.6-knot cruise, and a 6,000-nautical-mile range at that speed. The typical crew is over 145 personnel.

At the core of the sensor suite, the active-array Héraklès multifunction radar provides 3D surveillance and feeds fire control, with a stated range beyond 300 km for air targets and around 80 km for surface targets, useful against very low-altitude vectors. Alsace also carries the Thales STIR EO Mk 2 fire-control radar, the CAPTAS-4 towed sonar, and the UMS 4110 CL hull sonar, maintaining anti-submarine capability even with an air-defense primary role.

Armament includes a 76 mm Super Rapid gun, three 20 mm Narwhal remote stations, thirty-two SYLVER A50 cells for Aster 15/30, eight Exocet MM40 Block 3 anti-ship missiles, and two B-515 launchers for MU90 torpedoes. The Aster 30, central to Tuesday’s firing, combines inertial navigation with mid-course updates, an active radar seeker in the terminal phase, and PIF-PAF control, enabling high-energy vector changes to defeat sea-skimming anti-ship missile kinematics.

On the missile side, Aster 30 is designed for high-energy interception. It pairs a high-impulse solid-propellant booster with a 4.9-meter, roughly 450-kg airframe, reaching speeds near Mach 4 and an engagement envelope beyond 100 km according to the manufacturer. Inertial navigation receives in-flight corrections via an uplink from the launching ship before the active radar seeker takes over in the terminal phase. Its defining feature is PIF-PAF control, combining aerodynamic surfaces and small attitude thrusters to generate strong lateral accelerations against maneuvering or sea-skimming targets. The directed-fragmentation warhead is coupled to a proximity fuze that optimizes burst timing for fragment density across the target’s path.

Within the naval architecture, Aster 30 is launched from SYLVER A50 vertical cells, allowing rapid, sequenced salvos and multiple simultaneous engagements thanks to active terminal guidance. The missile has demonstrated effects against aircraft, drones, and cruise missiles, with a 360-degree intercept volume and electronic counter-countermeasure algorithms for contested environments. The family’s recent evolution toward the B1NT variant, core to the land-based SAMP/T NG, introduces a new-generation seeker and extends coverage to short-range ballistic threats, increasing useful range and target discrimination. On a FREMM DA such as Alsace, this performance supports a layered air-defense posture.

A supersonic target released by a Rafale Marine replicates the approach of a modern sea-skimming anti-ship missile. In this profile, Héraklès detects and initiates the track and feeds SETIS; engagement is ordered once range-safety conditions and intercept geometry are met; the Aster 30 exits the VLS and receives mid-course updates. The low-altitude profile compresses the decision window to a few seconds. Capabilities already observed in operations, including against ballistic threats in the Red Sea, reinforce the credibility of the October 7 training sequence.

Alsace provides a defense-of-area bubble for a carrier group, convoy, or amphibious force. The combination of a powerful surveillance radar and an active seeker reduces reliance on continuous illumination and enables management of simultaneous threats. In coalition settings, the frigate cooperates with embarked aviation to extend forward detection, close radar-horizon gaps, and force less efficient attack geometries, increasing the probability of a first-salvo intercept. With CAPTAS-4 and UMS 4110 CL, the ship retains robust ASW capability, avoiding the usual trade-off between air defense and submarine protection.

This event occurs amid increased use of combined threats involving drones, cruise missiles, supersonic and quasi-ballistic systems around strategic waterways and energy routes. For France, demonstrating that a FREMM DA intercepts a supersonic target supports carrier-group escort posture and reassures European allies and Indo-Pacific partners regarding convoy and task group resilience. At the NATO level, parallel developments of naval Aster systems and the land-based derivatives contribute to a continuous air-and-missile-defense architecture from littoral to blue water.