A Nulka anti-ship missile decoy being fired from HMAS Newcastle

July marks a very important milestone for the collaborative Australian/US Nulka Program with USS Gonzalez (DDG66) being the 100th ship to be fitted with the Nulka Active Missile Decoy System.

BAE Systems Australia have produced over 700 Nulka decoys for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), United States Navy (USN) and Canadian Navy, achieving sales of $40-50 million per year. This makes Nulka Australia’s most successful defence export, having earned $700 million worth of work for Australia.

The award-winning Nulka system protects naval ships from the threat of anti-ship missiles (ASM). It uses a unique combination of rocket motor and electronic warfare technologies to mislead or seduce enemy missiles away from the target ship.

BAE Systems Australia and its partners in the Program have for many years produced the world's 'gold standard' active missile decoy system - to achieve this milestone is a credit to all those people in industry and Government who have worked on Nulka.

The decoy is assembled in Australia from subsections produced in both the US and Australia. The program originated from Defence Science and Technology Organisation’s early work in ship self defence against new generation missiles such as Exocet.

The production decoy system was developed in Australia with a payload developed in the USA leading to initial sea trials on HMAS Brisbane and USS John Hancock in 1992. The operational system underwent many evaluations at sea leading to introduction into the USN fleet in 1999 and acceptance into RAN service in 2001.

The DMO project manager, Mr Keith Gilby, said Nulka is a very successful collaboration between two Navies and industry.

Nulka has been fitted to 83 USN, 14 RAN and 3 Canadian Navy vessels with a further 50 USN units planned to be fitted in the near future.

It will also be fitted to the Air Warfare Destroyer and is being considered for the Amphibious Deployment and Sustainment vessels.

The Australian and US governments have granted permission to market the decoy system to New Zealand, UK, Japan and seven other NATO member states. Approvals will be on a case by case basis.