France wants to create its own 1000 km ballistic missile

France has begun to consider the possibility of developing its own medium-range ballistic missile to hit targets at a range of 1,000 km.

Here's What We Know

The French newspaper Challenges reported on discussions between the French Armed Forces Command and the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) on the design of a new missile system. Among the known details are a ground-based launcher, active manoeuvring of the missile at the terminal area before hitting the target, and means of breaking through missile defences.

It should be noted that France already has plans to develop a land-based cruise missile of similar range, the Land Cruise Misael, under the ELSA project.

There is currently no information on plans to create a hypersonic glider, such as the US LRHW system. This gives us hope for a faster implementation of the project. A missile with a range of 1,000 km should not be large in size, which should reduce the cost of its development and allow for the creation of a larger number of such missiles. A range of 1,000 km is quite sufficient: from the Baltic States, it can reach targets as far away as Nizhny Novgorod, and from Poland, it can reach Moscow.

It should be noted that France already has plans to develop a land-based cruise missile of similar range, the Land Cruise Misael, under the ELSA project.

Despite this pragmatic approach, the development of such a system will take years. Even if it uses existing technologies, such as the M51 intercontinental ballistic missile for submarines, France will have to start from scratch. The last time the country created a ground-based ballistic missile system was in the 60s and 70s, when it developed the Pluton system with a range of up to 120 km.

Europe does not currently have its own ballistic missile developments or ready-made ballistic missiles with a range of more than 300 km, except for the US ATACMS. The only exception is Turkey, which has developed a localised version of the B-611 called the J-600T Yıldırım since the 1990s through cooperation with China and is currently working on a missile with a range of 1,000 km.

Source: Challenges