An RGM-84L Harpoon missile on display at the Farnborough International Event and Conference Centre, in the UK. (Duncan Lennox)
Denmark is to supply a Harpoon anti-ship launcher and an undisclosed number of missiles to Ukraine to help defend its coast, the US Secretary of Defence Lloyd J Austin III announced on 23 May.
The announcement was made following the second meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, which was attended virtually by more than 40 ministers and chiefs of defence, including the Ukrainian minister of defence Oleksii Reznikov.
It is envisaged that Denmark will supply the Harpoon coastal defence System (HCDS), which integrates Boeing's RGM 84L Block II missiles. The subsonic missile, which has a speed of 0.85 Mach and a maximum range of 124 km, will be positioned on the coast of Odessa as a coastal battery system. The missile uses a fourth-generation seeker featuring surface-mounted technology with digital processing that makes it possible to adjust the radar seeker's search pattern to reduce land clutter effects.
The missile has an updated guidance control unit, consisting of a ring laser gyro-inertial measurement unit, an updated mission computer, and an integrated Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System (GPS/INS), which makes it highly effective in a littoral anti-surface warfare environment. It can also attack targets in ports.
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