Wildcat and Martlet: The deadly combination forming a ring of steel around warships

Ahead of a joint training exercise in Norway, the personnel from 815 Naval Air Squadron have been honing their skills with the Martlet missiles carried by their Wildcat helicopters.
The weapons system is part of the Wildcat helicopter's maritime attack role - providing a so-called ring of steel around warships.
The Martlet missile is released from the helicopter in 0.3 seconds and accelerates to one-and-a-half times the speed of sound towards its target.
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[@paulsteaven]

In South Korean and Philippine service, their Wildcats were armed with longer ranged Spike NLOS.

[@gunshipzeroone3546]

I didn't expect 20 missile.

[@user-qh4op7cq9e]

Excellent

[@SA-xf1eb]

Nice.

[@petesheppard1709]

HISTORICAL FUN FACT: 'Martlet' and 'Wildcat' were both names for the Grumman F4F, an American naval fighter used by the FAA in WWII. 😎

[@JohnCBobcat]

I'm so glad not to be the only one who remembered this.

[@amhuman5138]

@@JohnCBobcat I know, I saw Wildcat, then Martlet and clicked in a heartbeat. Had the good fortune to see a Martlet at the museum just out of RNAS Yeovilton one time, beautiful planes.

[@616CC]

Maybe it’s a nod to our American brothers 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 ✊

[@petesheppard1709]

@@616CC Yep, I'm a Yank and this tidbit is not widely known over here; in fact many Americans may not know that the F4F was flown by the British!

[@amhuman5138]

@@petesheppard1709 honestly it seems the F4F gets forgotten compared to the ore glamorous fighters of the war, the P-51, the F4U, even the wildcats brother the F6F all get loads of attention, meanwhile the F4F is rarely depicted let alone named. Such a shame considering it was arguably the best early WW2 American Fighter and a beautiful beast. (Also I'm pretty sure on this side of the pond most Brits don't know WE flew the thing, a lot of the glory goes to the Lancasters and Spitfires, and with how forgotten the Hurricane is, in spite of its heavy usage, you can imagine that the Martlet is almost unknown to a lot of us!)

[@VonMed]

Maybe it’s time to make more wildcats.

[@fToo]

what sort of self defence weaponry does the Lynx have ?

[@nathanielwhite8769]

Excellent news for this vital capability. Development work should now be progressed simaltanously, to develop and place an RF Seeker onto the Martlet missile, to provide an all-weather, fire and forget capability alongside the missile's current Laser Homing seeker.👍

[@lukedogwalker]

That will probably make it bigger and heavier and reduce the number of rounds you can carry. Perhaps better to take the same approach as on Mica and have a selection of different seekers, then mix the 20 round loadout between laser, thermal, radar as desired. An advantage of not going fire and forget is that you keep a human in the loop so that if they observe something about the target that changes, they can choose to disengage, such as identifying a fellow blue, or if the target disengages or if civilians are endangered.

[@nathanielwhite8769]

@@lukedogwalker Yes, a very good point, retaining the ability to recall the weapon if positive target identification cannot be achieved or the potential hostile threat stands down.

[@phooogle]

What's the cost per shot? Looks very good.

[@discipleaj]

Cost realisation is seen when it stops enemy threats that could do ten times the amount of damage to one of the navies' vessels if they hit, compared to the price of the missile. It just adds extra stand-off capability as part of the kill chain.

[@boejiden5933]

@@discipleajdon’t get pretentious, what’s the cost per launch

[@tat381]

1.5 mil is a lot cheaper compared to it's bigger brother the star streak at 3 mil

[@boejiden5933]

@@tat381 don’t know what your on about mate, 1.5 million?? Huh?? It’s 30,000USD per missile

[@maigepresents5840]

I think the cost is 2 UK citizens dead from a preventable health condition per missile...

[@everTriumph]

And if the target shoots back?

[@squirepraggerstope3591]

I.i.r.c. the Wildcat 'attack platform' armament fit of 20 x Martlet, 4 x Sea Venom OR 10 x Martlet plus 2 x Sea Venom is ALL supposed to be operational as of now... but naturally, is not!

[@zozita.]

❤👍

[@8888shooter]

😂😅..one way of sorting out the crisis in the channel!!!💥👍🤣🤣🤣

[@Fester_]

I believe they test with left right 'z' path, the snake walk.

[@ptonpc]

Don't mind me, I'm just here for the people who have no understanding about reality and, of course, the russkie bots.

[@user-gq5kc1ow7k]

money well spent

[@jjsmallpiece9234]

Its still a Lynx

[@Ianmundo]

..which is an aircraft with a proven record in the Gulf War. Wildcat is massively upgraded, with its radar it can hunt down small to medium-sized targets and attack from over the horizon

[@davesimpson5702]

No its not!!

[@RJM1011]

It's nothing like what the Lynx was !

[@Leon-lt5gv]

Do look like the lynx ' but upgraded in my eyes ' but still a smart helicoter at the end of the day 😁🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧

[@alanmcmillan6969]

And the under surface protection?

[@bobthebomb1596]

Stingray torpedoes.

[@alanmcmillan6969]

@@bobthebomb1596 Thank you!

[@mrp4754]

RAF Best in the world. Oh he looks and sounds like prince William.

[@jongulliver984]

Except he’s RN.

[@boejiden5933]

Wait until this guy finds out what the Fleet Air Arm is

[@1chish]

Never ever confuse Jacks with crab Air mate ..... Although they rub along quite well at Marham in F-35s.

[@user-di1rj2be7w]

That scares me 3:04 when they only just switched to worrying about drones ? Did they not know years ago abkut remote controlled llanes and helicoptors?

[@maigepresents5840]

Laughs in Houthi... 😂

[@amhuman5138]

The group thats been getting bombed into oblivion? What's your point? They sank a single ship after months of firing at anything and everything off their coast?

[@jeanclaudejunior]

@EnglishVeteran needs to confess his betrayal against the UK

[@hoilst265]

"To extend the maritime understanding?" Was he reading from a script that you put through Google translate?

[@modelrailwaynoob]

Not everyone gets it. Don't be too hard on yourself

[@hoilst265]

@@modelrailwaynoob I'm not. I will happily mock the anoraks and neckbeards who feel proud that they do, but.

[@edking5125]

relying on a blokes eye to thumb coordination to hit a small fast drone while flying a helicopter seems like theres a high margine of error

[@kizzyp2735]

I doubt hes the one flying the helicopter, i would imagine they have a co pilot/weapons operator

[@ptonpc]

It's how many small missiles are guided to their targets.

[@mastermariner490]

Its an automatic tracking system,i doubt it

[@modelrailwaynoob]

Wrong. There isn't

[@leeprince9283]

It has auto hover and 2 man crew easy.

[@cemalali660]

Well scripted

[@davidspence5567]

Should have gone with the 'Naval version 'of Hellfire if at all possible.

[@bobthebomb1596]

Why? If they were going with a naval version of a land missile they would have chosen Brimstone.

[@davesimpson5702]

Thanks Admiral

[@davidbevan3688]

Ring of steel? Perhaps too much hyperbole for a lightweight helicopter launched missile. Pretty sure most warships would smack the helicopter down with SAMs long before it got into range to launch. Martlet is fine it's just nowehere near a wonder weapon.

[@ptonpc]

Did you actually watch the video and listen? They literally tell you what it is intended to be used on.

[@davidbevan3688]

@@ptonpc My complaint was of the description “ring of steel”. A Lynx operating Martlet can only defend against quite a small subset of adversaries. Mainly the ones that can’t shoot back. So it’s fine unless you actually you want to get into a contested fight. The amusing thing was that the government was going to fail to replace Harpoon and leave Lynx and Martlet as the primary anti ship weapon for the surface fleet until the 2030s when a replacement is being developed. Luckily the Ukraine nonsense has forced the government to buy NSM as an interim. Although we’re still awaiting trials.

[@NiSiochainGanSaoirse]

And in five years time it'll be an African immigrant flying them, or a Pakistani second generation pilot. Concentrate on hiring BRITISH lads.

[@skeebatv]

Hopefully we can keep these helis instead of giving everything away to Ukraine money pit..

[@modelrailwaynoob]

failed bot

[@Bob10009]

Ukraine has been given absolutely zero helicopters and no new weapons 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@BIBIWCICC]

Love a good bit of propaganda, an outdated limited availability missile system that costs 200,000 a pop fired from an ageing 40 year old helicopter. I think. Forces news should stop making videos displaying to the world how poorly unprepared we are for literally anything, including a boat full of immigrants.

[@Bob10009]

It’s a new missile (that costs nothing like 200,000) fired from brand new helicopters. You should stop commenting on things you nothing about.

[@paulsteaven]

Wildcat is different from the old Lynx you're talking about.

[@fritzstudios8571]

Why not fire and forget?

[@timmurphy5541]

Because then electronic warfare, flares and directed infrared countermeasures can save the enemy. Laser guided weapons are hard to defeat. There are obviously trade offs.

[@peterstubbs5934]

Its a bit "old hat" having to guide the missile using a thumb control.

[@kizzyp2735]

Has proved effective in Ukraine as its immune to any countermeasures . The only way to shake it off is to target the launching platform . This is relatively difficult if you have less than 2 seconds to find a single soldier hiding in a bush somewhere ...... probably less difficult to locate a helicopter over the sea I fear .

[@ptonpc]

How to say you have no idea what you are talking about without actually saying those words.

[@frankrenda2519]

@@kizzyp2735 its a peice of junk