Israel’s Rafael Unveils the Sea Breaker

Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems unveiled the Sea Breaker weapon system, a fifth generation long-range, autonomous, precision-guided missile, which enables significant attack performance against a variety of high-value maritime and land targets.

Rafael described the Sea Breaker as a naval and artillery unit “force-multiplier, designed to overcome the modern warfare arena challenges,” using its “legacy of high-end precision-guided solutions.”

Sea Breaker provides surgical, pinpoint precision strikes from stand-off ranges of up to 300 kilometers.

It features an advanced IIR (Imaging Infra-Red) seeker, ideal for engagement of maritime and land targets, stationary or moving, in advanced Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) arenas, and in littoral or brown water, including archipelago, as well as for engagements in which previous generation Radio Frequency (RF)-based missiles are not effective.

Sea Breaker can be launched from naval platforms, varying in size, from fast-attack missile boats to corvettes and frigates. The land version is a central part of the shore defense, based on Rafael’s highly mobile SPYDER launchers. The battery architecture supports standalone launchers, or operation as an integrated solution, with a command and control unit (CCU) and various sensors, based on customer requirements.

Using Artificial Intelligence (AI), Sea Breaker performs deep-learning and big data-based scene-matching, a unique combat-proven Rafael technology, enabling Automatic Target Acquisition (ATA) and Automatic Target Recognition (ATR). The system has full operational capability in GNSS-denied arenas, in all weather conditions.

The missile is ECM immune and jam-resilient.

Sea Breaker’s mission profile enables sea-skimming and terrain-following low-level flight above ground.

Flying at high subsonic speeds, Sea Breaker has a multi-directional, synchronized full sphere attack capability, based on predefined attack plans, according to waypoints, azimuth, impact angle and aim point selection, ensuring a high probability of mission success, with a 250-pound penetration, blast and fragmentation warhead, making a single hit effective enough to neutralize a frigate-sized ship.

The missile’s datalink supports real-time man-in-the-loop decision-making and tactical updates. It also features a mid-flight abort capability and Battle Damage Assessment (BDA).