July 16, 2024: Norwegian defense firm Kongsberg has regularly developed and sold lots of innovative weapons. The latest is NOMAD, a 29-ton self-propelled tracked air defense system vehicle that complements the older stationery or towed NASAMS system. The NOMAD vehicle has a payload of nine tons and a range of 600 kilometers on one load of fuel. The NOMAD vehicle is a modified version of the Norwegian army ACSV, or Armored Combat Support Vehicle that was designed for a crew of two and up to twelve passengers. The ACSV can be configured for other uses, like adaptation for use by NOMADs.

NOMAD is armed with four ready-to-launch Sidewinder missiles. This missile was designed for use by aircraft but has been adapted for ground launch several times. These Sidewinder missiles have a range of 20 kilometers. The NOMAD radar can spot targets out to 50 kilometers. There is also an optical spotting device with a laser range finder. This is used with the.50 caliber/12.7mm machine-gun mounted in an RWS (Remote Weapons System) that can be operated inside the NOMAD vehicle by the crew of three personnel. The aimed range of the 12.7mm machine-gun is 2,000 meters. NOMAD is most effective against UAVs (Unmanned aerial vehicles), cruise missiles and helicopters.

Kongsberg is delivering six NOMAD vehicles to the Norwegian military and some of these are probably headed for use in Ukraine. The older Kongsberg NASAMS system is already used in Ukraine. NASAMS is far superior to the similar Russian Buk M1 system Ukraine and Russia use. NASAMS is a system developed by Norway in the early 1990s and entered service in 1998. Norway pioneered the use of American AMRAAM air-to-air missiles as surface-to-air weapons and developed the fire control and launcher equipment needed to make it all work. It was a simple but very effective use of air-to-air missiles for air defense. Other air-to-air missiles have been used for ground-based air defense systems but the Norwegian version is seen as the best of the lot. Norway has six NASAMS batteries for its own defense. Eleven other nations, like Hungary, Spain, Holland, Chile, and the United States, Finland and Lithuania also use NASAMS and the system is still in production.

The NASAMS was initially developed for the Norwegian Air Force by Norwegian firm Kongsberg, in cooperation with American partner Raytheon, which produces AMRAAM. A major upgrade, NASAMS 2, officially entered service in 2007 and since then it has gained interest in more nations.

NASAMS popularity is due to a truly open architecture that, unlike competing systems, allows NASAMS to be used with a wide variety of radars. Initially NASAMS used the American made MPQ-64 Sentinel radar but some customers requested a system that can work with different radars and air-to-air missiles. NASAMS has been tested and configured to work with more than 25 different radar systems and can fire just about any air-to-air missile that can be fired from NATO aircraft. All that is required is modifications to the size and electrical connections in the NASAMS launcher cells and software modification of the fire control system. Since NATO has long-established standards for NATO weapons, NASAMS takes full advantage of this.

So far NASAMS has been configured with AIM-120 AMRAAM (together with the longer-range ER variant), AIM-9X Sidewinder and the European IRIS-T. The last one is an interesting story. Norway has a big stock of IRIS-T for their F-16 fighters but the new Norwegian F-35 is not compatible with IRIS-T, so they decided to use this very modern European missile as an anti-aircraft missile in NASAMS systems. This example clearly shows how flexible this system is while the competitor systems are tied to a limited number of missiles and radar.

Ukrainians were eager to obtain and use NASAMS because of its reputation. NASAMS is far superior to the similar Russian Buk M1 system Ukraine and Russia use, or anything else in its class. NASAM systems began arriving in Ukraine during November 2022 and, by late 2023, there were eight NASAMS batteries in Ukraine. In 2024 there will be more NASAMS for Ukraine as well as longer range AMRAAM ER missiles for it. NASAMS has been very effective against Russian missile attacks, often intercepting all the Russian missiles headed for an area defended by a NASAMS battery. The impact of NASAMS on Russian missile attacks led the Russians to try and detect and destroy NASAMS batteries or components of batteries. As of early 2024, only one NASAMS battery has come under heavy Russian attack and lost some components. So far NASAMS has intercepted several hundred Russian missiles and UAVs. The latest version of NASAMS has a missile range of 50 kilometers and a target detection radar with a range of 120 kilometers. The older and larger Patriot system has a missile with a range of 120 kilometers. NASAMS systems are more compact and mobile than Patriot and the Ukrainians have found that NASAMS and Patriot systems complement each other. In Ukraine Russia is having a difficult time finding worthy targets that are not defended by NASAMS, Patriot or both.

NASAMS was a system developed by Norway in the early 1990s and entered service in 1998. Norway pioneered the use of American AMRAAM air-to-air missiles as surface-to-air weapons and developed the fire control and launcher equipment needed to make it all work. It was a simple but very effective use of air-to-air missiles for air defense. Other air-to-air missiles have been used for ground-based air defense systems, but the Norwegian version is seen as the best of the lot. Norway has six NASAMS batteries for its own defense. Eleven other nations, like Hungary, Spain, Holland, Chile, and the United States, Finland, Lithuania, and Ukraine also use NASAMS, and the system is still in production.

A typical NASAMS battery consists of 12 launcher vehicles, each carrying six missiles, eight radar vehicles, one fire control center, and one tactical control vehicle. NASAMS does not provide protection for a large area because the max range of its missiles is 30-50 kilometers while range of battery radar target detection is up t0 160 kilometers. NASAMS batteries will be used to protect major cities. NASAMS is being used alongside existing Ukrainian S300 systems and American Patriot batteries Ukraine received as well. Patriot is especially effective at intercepting ballistic missiles.