The Navy budgeted $18 million for the first eight Over The Horizon (OTH) missiles for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) in its fiscal year 2019 Defense Department budget request.

The OTH is intended to help give the LCS and the follow-on future guided-missile frigate, the FFG(X), a longer range anti-ship weapon. The Navy’s Request for Proposals (RFP) was released last year and closed last June.

The Navy's test of the NSM on a Littoral Combat Ship last year. Photo: US Navy
The Navy’s test of the NSM on a Littoral Combat Ship last year. Photo: US Navy

Raytheon [RTN] and Kongberg Gruppen are the likely contract winners, offering their Naval Strike Missile (NSM).

Boeing [BA] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] previously competed for the contract, too, but dropped out last May when they said refinements to the original RFP changed top level requirements that undervalued their bids (Defense Daily, June 23, 2017).

Originally, Boeing [BA] was going to offer the Harpoon Block II Plus Extended Range (Block II+ER) and Lockheed martin [LMT] was going to offer the surface-launched model of its Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) (Defense Daily, Feb. 9, 2017).

The latest budget request documents show over the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) the service intends to procure a total of 64 OTH missiles: eight in FY ’19, 12 in FY ’20, ‘21, and ‘22, and another 20 missiles in FY ’23.

According to budget documents, the Navy expects each OTH to cost about $2.2 million each, including production engineering support.

The service intends to award a contract by December 2018 with first deliveries planned for December 2020. Thereafter, the delivery schedule plan has two missiles delivered each in December, March, June, and September 2021.

The documents note OTH is expected to have a 24-month manufacturing procurement lead time (PLT).

Norway has operated the NSM since 2012 and Raytheon previously said it plans to produce the missiles, launchers, and components in Louisville, Ky,. And Tuscon, Ariz., for the Navy.