France Deploys RAPIDFire 40 mm Naval Gun to Defeat Drones and Fast Attack Craft.

France has validated a new software standard for its 40 mm S40SA naval weapon system following live-fire trials completed in January 2026. The update strengthens close-in ship defense against drones and fast attack craft as navies face growing low-cost aerial and surface threats.

France has taken another decisive step in strengthening the close-in protection of its naval forces with the validation of a new software standard for the 40 mm S40SA naval weapon system in January 2026. The upgrade follows a dedicated firing campaign designed to incorporate operational feedback from early deployments, confirming the system’s maturity against emerging threats such as drones, loitering munitions, and fast inshore attack craft. This milestone signals the transition of RAPIDFire from a developmental capability into a robust and repeatable self-defense solution tailored for the French Navy’s logistics and patrol vessels operating in increasingly contested maritime environments.
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The RAPIDFire S40SA naval system combines a gyro-stabilized 40 mm CTA cannon with cased telescoped ammunition, delivering up to 180 rounds per minute, a 4 km engagement range, and a large ready-to-fire magazine that enables dozens of counter-drone and close-in defense interceptions without reloading (Picture source: French MoD).

At the heart of S40SA is the 40 mm CTA cannon firing cased telescoped ammunition, a design in which the projectile sits recessed inside the cartridge. That geometry is not a trivia detail: it lets the system pack 40 mm performance into a far more compact feed architecture than conventional 40 mm guns, helping explain why the turret can be integrated on ships that cannot afford the weight, volume, or crew burden of larger mounts. The cannon is gyro-stabilized, a prerequisite for consistent accuracy at sea, particularly when the ship is maneuvering or operating in heavy sea states. In the validated configuration, S40SA is credited with a rate of fire up to 180 rounds per minute and an engagement reach out to 4,000 meters against aerial targets, placing it squarely in the very-short-range air defense and close-in surface defense bracket.

What makes RAPIDFire tactically interesting is not just the gun, but the way the turret is packaged as an autonomous sensor-shooter module. The fire control system is integrated directly on the mount, allowing rapid target acquisition and engagement without the ship having to dedicate scarce combat-system resources for every small track. In practical terms, this architecture supports two modes: slaved to the ship’s combat management system when the wider sensor picture is needed, or operating with a high degree of autonomy for local self-defense, with the added option of coordinating with another S40SA on the same hull. The recent trial series was specifically meant to prove that the updated software resolved issues identified during qualification reviews, while delivering stable acquisition and tracking, firing accuracy, robustness, and credible air-burst employment.

Ammunition is the other half of the story: the system’s ready-to-fire capacity is frequently cited as a decisive advantage in the counter-drone fight. Thales and KNDS have stated that a ready rack of up to 140 rounds corresponds to dozens of target interceptions without reloading. For a navy facing the prospect of low-cost drones arriving in waves, that magazine depth matters as much as the nominal rate of fire: it buys time, preserves higher-end missiles for higher-end threats, and reduces the risk that a ship exhausts its short-range defenses during a prolonged harassment sequence. The planned integration of the future A3B air-burst anti-aerial munition is central to that logic. Further upgrades are already on the roadmap, with A3B intended to bring S40SA to full operational performance. This ammunition is designed to optimize lethality against small and agile aerial targets through a programmable air-burst effect, a critical capability in the fight against UAVs.

France’s need for this class of weapon is straightforward. Second-rank ships such as fleet replenishment tankers and offshore patrol vessels are indispensable in day-to-day presence missions and, in crisis, they become high-value nodes that must survive long enough to do their job. S40SA is explicitly framed as a self-protection solution for these platforms. The latest software standard was installed on the second Jacques Chevallier-class replenishment ship Jacques Stosskopf before a long-duration deployment, with live firing against air and surface targets conducted immediately afterward. The system has been in service since 2023, and its iterative upgrade cycle reflects a familiar French pattern: field early on a representative platform, harvest feedback, then harden the software and engagement modes until the weapon behaves predictably under operational stress.

The wider program trajectory also hints at export and fleet-standardization ambitions. S40SA is positioned as standard equipment for Greece’s Kimon-class frigates and is planned for French OPV patrol vessels under construction, underscoring that RAPIDFire is being treated less as a niche fit and more as a scalable building block for layered defense. For France, the immediate payoff is a credible, compact, and magazine-rich last line of defense that is better matched to the economics of drones and asymmetric threats than expending expensive interceptors. For the fleet, the longer-term payoff is doctrinal: a common, upgradable 40 mm close-in system that can be tuned through software and munitions to meet a threat set that is evolving faster than traditional naval gun programs.