New Sea Venom Missile Boosts British Royal Navy’s Anti-Ship Warfare Capability.

The British Royal Navy’s new Sea Venom missile is entering service as a precision anti-ship weapon developed with France under the FASGW program. The advanced missile expands Britain’s ability to strike enemy vessels from greater distances, reinforcing its maritime edge in contested waters.

London, UK, October 29, 2025 - The British Royal Navy has fielded the Sea Venom, a next-generation anti-ship missile designed to replace the legacy Sea Skua system aboard Wildcat helicopters. Developed jointly by the United Kingdom and France through the Future Anti-Surface Guided Weapon program, the Sea Venom features digital targeting, advanced infrared imaging guidance, and a range exceeding 20 kilometers. Defense officials describe it as a key upgrade that allows British helicopters to engage fast attack craft and corvettes while staying outside hostile air defenses, marking a major leap in the Navy’s strike precision and survivability.
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Sea Venom is a next-generation lightweight anti-ship missile developed by the United Kingdom and France to equip naval helicopters like the British Royal Navy’s AW159 Wildcat. (Picture source: Wikimedia)

At its core, Sea Venom is a lightweight, high-subsonic missile engineered for precision strikes against a range of surface threats, from fast attack craft to corvette-class warships. Its design prioritizes agility, smart targeting, and operational flexibility, making it especially suited to the UK's expeditionary naval strategy. Fired from the AW159 Wildcat helicopter, the missile brings long-range, standoff strike capability to platforms previously limited to line-of-sight engagements.

What distinguishes Sea Venom technologically is its dual-mode guidance and advanced targeting suite. The missile incorporates an imaging infrared (IIR) seeker with autonomous target recognition, supported by an optional two-way datalink that allows for real-time operator control via a secure radio connection. This “man-in-the-loop” feature enables the crew to receive live video feeds during missile flight, assess the target scene, and redirect the missile mid-course. Operators can choose or change the impact point during terminal phase, discriminate between military and civilian vessels in dense maritime environments, and abort engagement if necessary.

Measuring approximately 2.5 meters in length and weighing just over 110 kilograms, Sea Venom has a stated range in excess of 20 kilometers, with some estimates suggesting operational performance beyond 25 kilometers under favorable conditions. The missile cruises at high subsonic speed and uses inertial navigation during midcourse flight, transitioning to infrared homing in the final seconds of approach. This method allows it to strike accurately under heavy electronic warfare conditions, with minimal exposure to hostile sensors or countermeasures.

Its warhead, a 30 kg high-explosive blast-fragmentation charge, is designed to inflict critical damage on a wide range of naval targets, including patrol boats, missile boats, and medium-displacement corvettes. It has the capability to penetrate hull plating, detonate within vital compartments, and disable essential systems such as radar and communications arrays, effectively neutralizing a ship without necessarily sinking it. Against more heavily armed vessels, multiple Sea Venom missiles can be launched in rapid succession to overwhelm defenses or precisely target key areas of the superstructure and propulsion systems.

Sea Venom’s combat flexibility extends beyond traditional anti-ship roles. Its precision and low-collateral profile make it suitable for engaging coastal defense sites, mobile radar stations, and fast-moving targets near civilian infrastructure. In amphibious operations or grey zone confrontations, this capability enables commanders to apply force with surgical precision, reducing strategic risk while increasing tactical pressure.

Launch integration has so far been completed exclusively on the AW159 Wildcat HMA2 helicopter, which serves as the British Royal Navy’s primary maritime strike rotorcraft. Each Wildcat can carry up to four Sea Venom missiles on wing-mounted hardpoints, in addition to alternative configurations that include the Martlet Lightweight Multirole Missile (LMM) for swarm defense. The helicopter’s Leonardo Seaspray AESA radar provides long-range maritime surveillance and target tracking, giving the crew the ability to identify, classify, and engage contacts well before hostile ships come within range to return fire.

Future expansion of Sea Venom's launch envelope remains a possibility. Though not currently fielded on fixed-wing aircraft or surface vessels, its modular architecture, compact dimensions, and datalink compatibility could make it suitable for integration on UAVs, small combatant ships, or fast patrol craft, especially within allied navies. France, as a co-developer, plans to field Sea Venom aboard its own NH90 and Panther helicopters, indicating strong potential for interoperability across NATO maritime forces.

Operationally, Sea Venom is now deployed with Wildcat helicopters embarked aboard major British Royal Navy platforms including the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, Type 45 destroyers, and Type 23 frigates. During Operation Highmast, the system achieved Initial Operating Capability with four Wildcats from 815 Naval Air Squadron equipped across HMS Prince of Wales, HMS Dauntless, and the Norwegian frigate HNoMS Roald Amundsen.

In combination with the lighter Martlet missile, which is optimized for engaging fast inshore attack craft and small boats, Sea Venom forms the long-range punch of the British Royal Navy’s layered maritime strike capability. Together, they allow the Wildcat to dominate the surface battlespace from 0 to over 20 kilometers, providing seamless target engagement across threat spectrums.

The British Royal Navy's deployment of Sea Venom anti-ship missiles marks a critical shift in British maritime doctrine. Rather than rely solely on frigates or destroyers for offensive power, the British Royal Navy now distributes its striking capability across air-mobile platforms, enabling rapid, asymmetric response against surface threats worldwide. For a Navy increasingly tasked with presence operations in the Indo-Pacific and Baltic, Sea Venom represents not just a missile, but a force multiplier offering reach, control, and selective lethality in one digitally networked package.