Despite the fact that the company revealed images and information about Sea Breaker during DEFEA 2021, an international defense exhibition held in Greece in July 2021, the mock-up of the missile was shown for the first time.
In response to Naval News’ question, Rafael’s business development and marketing chief, Yoram Israeli, stated that the Sea Breaker missile is not only a sea-to-sea missile but can also be mounted on land-based assets to engage sea targets.
“A few years ago, Rafael decided to take a different approach, shifting away from radar seekers and into the world of electro-optical seekers,” he said of the missile’s key features. “As a result, Sea Breaker has the most advanced electro-optical seeker, and Rafael has the best electro-optics technology based not only on naval but also on aerial systems. The Sea Breaker employs the same IR/IIR technology as Rafael’s highly successful Spice gliding bomb.”
Emphasizing the Sea Breaker’s artificial intelligence and deep learning capabilities, Israeli said, “The Sea Breaker missile takes a broad picture of the target area and then chooses the right target. It will not hit a neutral target, but will follow the library behind it into the operator-defined target.”
Yoram Israeli also stated that the mock-up they displayed was a one-to-one replica of the real missile. “It is a compact missile that measures four meters in length and weighs 400 kilograms. It can be used on frigates as well as small vessels such as patrol boats. What makes this compact missile truly unique is that it can fly up to 300 kilometers.”
Regarding the missile’s engagement capabilities, Israeli emphasized that the Sea Breaker can hit both sea and land targets and cause effective destruction with its significant warhead, which carries more than 100 kilograms of TNT-like explosives. “One of the unique features is that we can have a fully autonomous mission, and the missile is not GPS sensitive,” he added.
Yoram Israeli did not reveal any customer information but did say that the video of the production line on their stand gives a hint.
About Sea Breaker
Sea Breaker is a 5th Generation, Maritime and Land-based Long-Range Attack Weapon System designed to meet the challenges of modern warfare by leveraging Rafael’s legacy of high-end precision-guided solutions.
It delivers surgical, pin-point precision strikes from distances of up to 300 kilometers. The missile employs an advanced all-weather IIR (Imaging Infra-Red) seeker, which is ideal for engagement of stationary and moving maritime and land targets in advanced Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) arenas, as well as in littoral or brown water, including archipelago, as well as engagements where the previous generation RF-seeker-based missiles are ineffective.
Sea Breaker employs Artificial Intelligence to perform deep-learning and big data-based scene-matching, a unique combat-proven Rafael technology that enables Automatic Target Acquisition (ATA) and Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) (ATR). In GNSS-denied arenas and in all weather conditions, the system has the full operational capability. The missile is resistant to ECM and jamming. The mission profile of the Sea Breaker allows for sea-skimming and terrain-following low-level flight above ground.
Technical specifications:
- Length: <4 meters
- Weight: <400 Kg
- Range: Up to 300 Km
- Warhead: 113 Kg / 250 lb
- Seeker: Advanced IIR with AI
- Navigation: Advanced INS+ modern anti-jam GPS
- Two-way long range datalink: Change missile decisions. Abort option, BDA
