Pakistan Reportedly Launch Customer of Naval CAMM-ER Plus

The Pakistan Navy (PN) is reportedly the launch customer of MBDA’s Albatros NG Naval Based Air Defence (NBAD) system.[1] In a press release in March 2021, MBDA announced that it won a contract to supply the Albatros NG to an “undisclosed international customer.”[2] The end-user will deploy the system in 2024.

The Albatros NG utilizes the Common Anti-Air Modular Missile Extended Range (CAMM-ER) surface-to-air missile (SAM) system. The CAMM-ER is an Italian-funded variant of the CAMM, which was developed for the United Kingdom since 2012. The CAMM-ER offers a stated range of 45 km; however, this may be the system’s minimum range. The CAMM-ER uses an active radar-homing (ARH) seeker and can operate under a network-enabled environment comprising of multiple sensors.

The PN will reportedly deploy the Albatros NG onboard its forthcoming MILGEM corvettes. Currently, the PN has four of these corvettes on order from Turkey’s Military Fabrika ve Tersane İşletme A.Ş. (ASFAT). Of the four corvettes, Pakistan’s Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works (KSEW) will build two ships. The PN is expected to receive the first ship in 2023, and all four ships by 2024.

Based on the Ada corvette, the PN MILGEM is a heavily customized variant with a larger displacement of 2,988 tons. Its most noticeable feature is a 16-cell vertical launch system (VLS) behind the main gun, and a two-by-three launch cannister set-up for an anti-ship cruising missile (ASCM), potentially the indigenous Harbah, which the PN can use as both an ASCM and a land-attack cruise missile (LACM).

If the PN ordered the Albatros NG, it could potentially deploy up to 64 of these SAMs by using the CAMM-ER’s quad-packing configuration (i.e., house four missiles within one VLS cell). To achieve this capability, the PN would need to acquire a VLS that can support the CAMM-ER in quad-packing configuration. The likeliest option for the PN would be the SYLVER series, but Turkey is also developing its own VLS.