Denmark Orders More Naval Strike Missiles for Its Frigates in NOK 400 Million Follow-On Deal

Denmark has ordered an additional batch of Naval Strike Missiles for the Royal Danish Navy’s frigates, expanding a Norwegian anti-ship missile purchase first placed in early 2025 as Copenhagen rebuilds a naval strike capability considerably depleted by its transfers to Ukraine. The Danish defence procurement agency FMI announced the order on October 19, stating that the contract with Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace had been negotiated on Denmark’s behalf by the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency under a government-to-government arrangement. The deal is worth approximately NOK 400 million, according to the Norwegian announcement, although neither government disclosed how many missiles it covers. The order highlights how quickly the NSM has become the standard anti-ship weapon of NATO‘s northern flank, with Nordic and Baltic states increasingly consolidating around a single Norwegian design rather than the American Harpoon that armed most of their fleets for decades.

The new purchase is formally an addendum to the agreement Denmark reached with Norway in 2025, when Kongsberg announced in early March a contract worth NOK 2.1 billion to arm the Navy’s three Iver Huitfeldt class frigates with the NSM. That order followed Denmark’s decision to give its Harpoon missiles to Ukraine, with a Danish-assembled mobile Harpoon battery having been deployed in 2022 for the coastal defence of Odessa, leaving the frigates without a modern anti-ship weapon. In December 2025 Denmark went further, ordering the land-based NSM Coastal Defence System in a deal valued at more than €100 million and becoming the fifth NATO member to select it after Poland, the United States, Romania and Latvia. Steen Balslev, head of FMI’s maritime division, said: “With the acquisition of additional Naval Strike Missiles, we are building on the existing agreement with Norway and Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace.”

Denmark is far from the only European state buying replacements for equipment sent to Ukraine, with Sweden having rolled out its first GlobalEye earlier this month to succeed surveillance aircraft pledged to Kiev. Norwegian Minister of Defence Tore O. Sandvik framed the Danish order in wider terms, stating: “The Nordic countries and the whole of NATO are now arming our defenses.” The NSM has been particularly favoured by states facing Russian naval forces in confined waters, with Poland fielding coastal batteries on the Baltic and Latvia having ordered its own. Romania, whose F-16s downed two Geran drones near Sulina only days ago, has ordered the same coastal system for its Black Sea shoreline. Ukraine’s navy reportedly also operates NSM launchers alongside the domestically built Neptune, the missile its forces credited with hitting Su-34M bombers at Borisoglebsk, according to Ukrainian outlet Militarnyi, although Kiev has not disclosed how many it holds.

Developed by Kongsberg for the Royal Norwegian Navy, the NSM is a sea-skimming, high subsonic missile which its manufacturer credits with a range of more than 185 kilometres, significantly beyond the roughly 124 kilometres commonly cited for the Harpoon it replaces in Danish service. It relies on a passive imaging infrared seeker which identifies targets by their shape and heat signature without emitting radar energy, making the missile considerably harder to detect on its terminal approach, and carries a penetrating blast-fragmentation warhead reported at around 120 kilograms. The missile can also strike targets on land, a capability FMI highlighted in its announcement, with the same round arming the coastal batteries whose first deliveries to Denmark are expected to begin in 2026.