Italy has announced plans to equip the F-35B stealth fighters operated by its naval air arm with the Kongsberg Joint Strike Missile (JSM), among other weapons. Details of the armament for the Italian Navy’s short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35Bs emerge as the aircraft take part for the first time in the large-scale Pitch Black drills in Australia, aboard the aircraft carrier Cavour.
On July 15, the Italian government published details of the weapons to be acquired for Italian Navy F-35Bs, 15 of which are being procured. Meanwhile, the Italian Air Force is also getting a similar number of F-35Bs, which it will also take to sea, at least for some of the time, as well as receiving 60 of the conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) F-35As.
According to the Italian government, the plan “aims to equip the country with a fifth-generation aviation weapon system capable of replacing the legacy AV-8B line, with an operational time horizon of at least 30 years, to effectively cope with the increasing complexity of current and future operational scenarios.”
The aging AV-8B+ Harrier II is the Italian Navy’s current standard carrier-capable combat aircraft, with 14 examples (plus a single two-seat trainer) active. Italian Navy Harriers are also currently in Australia for the Pitch Black large-force air combat exercise, embarked alongside some of their fifth-generation cousins.
The most notable aspect of the Italian Navy’s F-35B armament plan involves the JSM, an air-launched multi-role missile derivative from the sea and ground-launched Naval Strike Missile (NSM), which is built by Norway’s Kongsberg.
Like the NSM, the JSM was developed in cooperation with U.S. defense contractor Raytheon and has a stated maximum range of around 350 miles at high altitude. If used in low-altitude penetration mode, the range is reduced by around half.
Carrying a 260-pound warhead, the JSM employs GPS, an inertial navigation system, and terrain mapping to navigate its way to a designated target area. On its way there, the missile can receive targeting updates during the mid-course portion of the flight, via a two-way datalink. This also allows the JSM to be re-tasked to a different target.
Once close to the target, the JSM uses an imaging infrared seeker for the terminal phase of the flight. Since the seeker is a passive sensor, the missile is immune to radiofrequency jamming and detection during this portion of the engagement. Meanwhile, the terrain-mapping function also helps it get to the target even in GPS-denied environments.
Also contributing to the survivability of the JSM is its agility and reduced-signature features, providing it with a degree of stealth.
On the other hand, the JSM can only be carried externally by the F-35B. The STOVL version has smaller internal weapon bays than the F-35A and carrier-based F-35C, which can both accommodate the missile internally.
Nevertheless, the long range and survivability of the JSM means that there are plenty of scenarios in which the F-35B can launch the missile without exposing itself to the most dangerous hostile air defenses and still prosecute the target.
Furthermore, the JSM is not just a standoff anti-ship missile but can also be used to engage targets on land, providing the Italian Navy’s F-35B with an important long-range strike capability.
Italy is the first JSM customer to select the missile for the F-35B variant, although Norway, Japan, Finland, and more recently the U.S. Air Force have announced plans to arm their F-35As with it.
Another offensive weapon announced for the Italian Navy’s F-35B is the SPEAR 3 precision-guided standoff munition. While we knew that there were plans to integrate SPEAR 3 on Italian Air Force F-35As and F-35Bs, it wasn’t previously clear that the Navy’s STOVL jets would get the same weapon as well.
Developed from the short-range Brimstone missile, the British-made SPEAR 3 (Selective Precision Effects At Range Capability 3) adds a small turbojet engine and pop-out wings that allow it to achieve a range of at least 87 miles flying at high subsonic speeds.
Thanks to its tri-mode seeker — combining radar, infrared, and laser homing functions — SPEAR 3 is able to engage static and moving targets on land and at sea in all weather, both day and night. It also flies to the target area under GPS and inertial navigation and can receive target coordinates via datalink once in flight. Furthermore, it’s able to autonomously identify and prosecute targets once it reaches the target area. The laser guidance option is especially relevant for moving targets or for picking a very precise impact point for the weapon, which can be laser-designated by an aircraft overhead the target area or by a suitably equipped team of soldiers on the ground nearby.
While not mentioned in the document, the SPEAR 3 is also being developed with an electronic warfare payload including jammer and decoy functions, transforming it from a ‘mini cruise missile’ to an electronic attack asset that can be used to both protect the launch aircraft and to fly ahead and disrupt enemy air defenses. You can read all about this system in this past article.
The other weapons announced for the Italian Navy’s F-35B were previously known, but are as follows:
- 250-pound GBU-53 Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II);
- 500-pound GBU-12 Paveway II, GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), and GBU-54 Laser JDAM precision-guided munitions with BLU-111 thermally insensitive bomb bodies;
- 1,000-pound class GBU-32 JDAM with BLU-110 thermally insensitive bomb body
Air-to-air weapons are listed as the short-range AIM-9X Sidewinder and medium-range AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, as well as the long-range Meteor.
As we have discussed in the past, the Meteor is among the most formidable beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles currently available. Joint plans to integrate the Meteor on the F-35B (as operated by the United Kingdom and Italy) and the conventional takeoff and landing F-35A (acquired by Italy, and many others, but not the United Kingdom), had previously been announced by those two countries.
It should be noted that plans to integrate the Meteor and SPEAR 3 (and presumably also the JSM) rely on the F-35 having the enhancements that are enshrined in the Block 4 upgrade. The status of when this will appear is currently unclear, due to delays with the new suite of hardware and software — known as Technology Refresh-3 (TR-3) — that underpins the Block 4 improvements. It was recently announced that F-35 deliveries, which had been paused for a year, would resume with an interim TR-3 configuration. As a result, it’s now possible that some elements of Block 4 will be delayed until the 2030s, while the overall scope of the upgrade may well have to be “reimagined.”
The Italian Navy will also receive ammunition for the 25mm GAU-22/A gun. Unlike the F-35A, the F-35B and F-35C lack internal guns. Instead, these versions can be armed with a GPU-9/A gun pod on their centerline stations, with the GAU-22/A gun being provided with 220 rounds of ammunition.
While quantities were not announced, the Italian government says that the proposed weapons numbers are designed to ensure the Navy’s F-35B fleet is able to conduct a “hypothetical six-month operational scenario.”
The various weapons will cost 682 million euros ($742 million) over the next 14 years, with 650 million euros ($707 million) having already been funded. Once all weapons are delivered and integrated, the F-35B will be rated as Fully Operationally Capable (FOC) in the carrier-based role. That milestone is planned for 2030, meaning that those various munitions will have to be in service by then. Again, that may well depend on the progress of the Block 4 upgrade.
These weapons promise to significantly enhance the capability of the Italian Navy, especially in comparison to the AV-8B, which currently lacks any kind of standoff anti-ship or land attack weapons.
The F-35B is already being prepared to replace the Harrier II aboard the aircraft carrier Cavour, the flagship of the Italian Navy.
While you can read more about the Cavour here, it’s notable that this vessel was developed from the outset to embark fixed-wing aircraft. This is in contrast to the Italian Navy’s previous flagship, the Giuseppe Garibaldi, which was developed with rotary-wing operations in mind.
The Cavour entered service in 2009 and is fitted with a ‘ski jump’ takeoff ramp to launch AV-8Bs and F-35Bs. The carrier can accommodate up to 36 aircraft, normally a mix of fixed-wing jets and helicopters. Currently, for Exercise Pitch Black, the carrier is embarking 13 jets (a mix of AV-8Bs and F-35Bs) as well as two NH90 helicopters.
Compared to the Harriers, the F-35B will offer significantly greater overall fixed-wing strike capability — including the ability to penetrate advanced enemy air defenses — and present a future in which the Italian Navy could have a much greater role to play in NATO maritime operations. It also opens up the possibility of closer cooperation between the Italian Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps, perhaps mirroring the situation with the U.K. Royal Navy, where a Marine Corps F-35B squadron will be embedded in the air wing during the first operational cruise for the HMS Queen Elizabeth.
As well as the Cavour, Italian F-35Bs will in the future also go to sea aboard another fixed-wing-capable Italian warship, the Trieste. This is a landing helicopter dock that is expected to enter service this year.
Despite the undoubted capabilities of the F-35B, there remain questions about the viability of such a small fleet. With only 15 examples going to the Italian Navy, three of which are assigned to a training unit in the United States, this is something of a token ‘silver bullet’ force. To support the kinds of missions anticipated, the Navy will have to rely on the Italian Air Force’s fleet of 15 F-35Bs, which are also allocated for land-based operations. This, again, might drive future cooperation with the U.S. Marine Corps, which might be able to bolster embarked F-35B capacity in certain contingencies.
While the Italian Navy’s F-35B fleet may be small, the ambitions of its expanding carrier force are impressive. The weapons plan that the Italian government has mapped out provides capabilities for a wide range of contingencies, in the air-to-air and air-to-surface domains — against both maritime and ground targets. Having a force of carrier-capable stealth jets able to conduct these kinds of missions will provide a significant boost to Italy and NATO, and a worthy successor to the Italian Navy’s aging AV-8Bs.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com