In April 2023, the Netherlands Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced its plan to procure the Raytheon Tomahawk SLCM from the United States. The procurement comes as part of a wider Netherlands Armed Forces programme of building conventional deterrence and warfighting capability through adding long-range strike capacity, to counter increasing insecurity across the Euro-Atlantic theatre and more widely.
According to the RNLN’s All Hands magazine, the Tomahawk capability will be installed across the navy’s four De Zeven Provincien-class frigates via the ships’ existing Lockheed Martin strike-length Mk 41 vertical launching systems (VLSs), in a planned round of upgrades taking place in the 2025-29 period.
Prior to this, in 2024 De Ruyter will conduct the first test firing. “The planning is there that we will be the first launching unit,” Lieutenant Commander Alex Haasnoot, the ship’s operations officer, told a media briefing onboard, during the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) 2023 exhibition, taking place at ExCel London from 12-15 September.
The ship is returning to operational service after a refit and upgrade period, and will be ready for operations in the first quarter of 2024. Work-up for and conducting of the Tomahawk test firing – which will take place at a US Navy (USN) range off San Diego, California – is scheduled for the third quarter of 2024.
“This is the first step in the whole programme to get [the Tomahawk capability],”
Commander Welmer Veenstra, De Ruyter’s commanding officer
Programme development will continue after the test firing. It is not confirmed which of the four frigates will be first to receive an operational fit of the Tomahawk system.
A Tomahawk fit is one of a raft of capability upgrades the De Zeven Provincien-class frigates are receiving within a broad programme of mid-life upgrade work. This work includes additional maritime strike/anti-ship missile (ASM) capability in the form of the Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile.
The current in-service variant of Tomahawk is the Block IV Tactical Tomahawk (TacTom). The next variant arriving off Raytheon’s production line is the Block V, which adds ASM capability in the form of the Maritime Strike Tomahawk (MST) concept. For the USN, initial operational capability for Block V MST is scheduled for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025.
The RNLN is set to become the third Tomahawk operator, following on from the USN and the UK Royal Navy. The Royal Australian Navy is set to follow suit, too. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is also reported to be considering a procurement request.
The Dutch Tomahawk procurement is reviving a plan originally taken forward in 2005, when the Netherlands government announced the acquisition of 30 Tomahawks: however, a change of government in 2007 saw that procurement plan cancelled.
