On July 12, the U.S. Army successfully launched the Naval Strike Missile (NSM) and struck the USS Racine (LST-1191) Newport-class tank landing ship target during a live fire exercise. The test was the first live fire demonstration of the weapon and was executed as a part of the RIMPAC 2018 multi-national exercise. Norwegian weapons manufacturer Kongsberg and U.S. company Raytheon jointly pitched the missile in early 2015. The over-the-horizon (OTH) anti-ship littoral combat missile will replace the RGM-84 Harpoon Block II and MBDA Exocet to counter the longer range of some adversarial anti-ship missiles. NSM is a cannisterized long-range sea-skimming missile with a range of 100 nautical miles (185.2 km).

UPDATE:

Additional details about the test fire were released on July 15. The NSM was fired from a truck-mounted launcher at the Pacific Missile Range Facility 63 miles (101.4 km) from the target ship.