SNA 2025 sees Northrop Grumman push ARES: a containerized, ground-launched AARGM-ER 22/01/2025 | Gabriele Molinelli

At the Surface Navy Association's National Symposium held near Washington DC between January 13 and 15 Northrop Grumman has pushed its Advanced Reactive Strike (AReS) concept for a highly deployable surface-launch weapon system centered on the AARGM-ER anti-radar missile.

ARES is designed to to attack land and sea targets in a complex A2/AD environment, offering a new layer of protection for friendly forces. First proposed in 2021, ARES envisions a containerized launcher that could be easily and discreetly moved on land and positioned to offer an additional layer of strike capability for friendly forces.

The image shown by Northrop Grumman shows an elevable 4-cell launcher erected through the top of an otherwise anonymous shipping container. In the past, a different launcher concept with 9 missiles had been displayed, but the actual number of weapons will depend on the final configuration of the adapted missile.

The baseline AARGM-ER has been developed for the US Navy as modern successor of the original AGM-88 HARM and its successive evolutions, and is now finding other users abroad: Germany and Italy plan to adopt it and several other countries have already requested and obtained permission to procure stocks of the new weapon, including Finland, Australia, Poland and the Netherlands. It is a high supersonic, long range weapon but designed purely for air launch. In order to launch from the ground and achieve the necessary speed and stand-off range, the missile will need a booster.

Northrop Grumman aims to use something already available and well proven, potentially the Mk 72 booster used by STANDARD surface to air missiles, as well as a “modified” interstage. Ideas for ARES also include a more powerful and multi-role warhead with enhanced lethality and potentially a enhanced multi-mode seeker to expand its targeting abilities, making the missile able to successfully track, hit and destroy a wider range of enemy assets.

AARGM-ER is in any case already AARGM-equipped with a multi-mode guidance package combining a GPS-assisted inertial navigation system with a millimeter-wave radar that can locate targets even if they stop emitting radiofrequency or begin to move. The US Air Force is working on a derivative missile known as the Stand-In Attack Weapon which already introduces an “improved” warhead/fuze package to make the missile deadly to a wider array of targets.

While details on the differences between AARGM-ER and SiAW are scarce, it’s taken substantial investment and time to mature the latter: the first SiAW was only delivered to the USAF in November 2024 ahead of the start of its test campaign, while AARGM-ER was first fired back in 2021. It’s probable that ARES leverages SiAW even more than it does the baseline AARGM-ER.

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