The most recent era of France’s house grown ASMP nuclear cruise missile has been proven for the primary time after an unarmed check launch inaugurated its entry into service with the French Navy.
After getting into service with the French Air Power in 2023, seeing an operational check launch with an inert warhead throughout 2024’s Operation Durandal, the Air-sol Moyenne Portée Amélioré Rénové (ASMPA-R), or Improved Medium-Vary Air-to-Floor Strategic Missile Renovated, has now entered service with the carrier-capable Rafale Ms of the French Navy.
Providing a lift in operational vary over its predecessors, in addition to a brand new 300 kiloton warhead, the ASMPA-R was first check fired in 2021 and replaces the ASMP-A which entered service in 2009.
Beforehand launched pictures of the brand new missile have been closely censored to defend your complete weapon from view. The newly launched photographs, posted by official French sources on Nov. 13, 2025, exhibits the missile outwardly showing just like its older generations. Notably, although, the pictures have nonetheless been censored to a small diploma, with blurring seen across the ramjet’s intakes in addition to the engine exhaust.
The check firing passed off from a Dassault Rafale M flying from Landivisiau Naval Air Base in Brittany, north-west France. It passed off on the finish of what was stated to have been a flight consultant of a nuclear strike mission. Plane ’45’ was depicted carrying the weapon in official photographs, although it’s unclear whether or not that is the airframe which launched the inert weapon.
Congratulations have been prolonged to the French Navy, the French Directorate Basic of Armaments, the Ministry of the Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs, and weapon producer MBDA by the Minister of the Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs, Catherine Vautrin. Her social media publish, translated, reads: “Lengthy deliberate, this profitable operation fulfills the ambition set by the President of the Republic and completes the modernization of the airborne nuclear element’s capabilities as outlined within the Navy Programming Legislation (LPM) (2024-2030).”
The Minister’s publish additionally reveals the sortie’s mission title as Operation Diomede.
Opération DIOMEDE : un Rafale Marine a conduit ce jour avec succès un tir d’évaluation du missile stratégique Air-sol moyenne portée amélioré rénové (ASMPA-R), sans cost embarquée, au terme d’un vol représentatif d’un raid nucléaire.
Il s’agit du second tir de l’ASMPA-R et du… pic.twitter.com/IhxBskEdNu
— Catherine Vautrin (@CaVautrin) November 13, 2025
Moreover proven within the launched photographs is the potent self-defence payload that may equip Rafale Ms on a dwell nuclear sortie – particularly two medium vary Mica RF/EM radar guided missiles, two Mica IR infrared guided missiles, and two long-range Meteor radar guided missiles. These are all carried along with two giant exterior gas tanks. On the Mirage 2000N, retired in 2018, plane carrying the nuclear payload may solely carry two air to air missiles alongside the drop tanks.
3 February 1986. First flight of the primary of two Dassault Mirage 2000N prototypes. Two seat variant of the French jet fighter Mirage 2000, designed for nuclear strike. right here carrying a mock ASMP rocket, Magic 2 missiles and early underwing gas tanks. pic.twitter.com/lilfVhVLad
— Ron Eisele (@ron_eisele) February 2, 2023
French Nuclear Doctrine
The flexibility to readily deploy a nuclear payload aboard a service plane is now distinctive to France amongst NATO and its allies. Neither the F/A-18E/F Tremendous Hornet nor the F-35C Lightning II have been licensed to hold the U.S. Air Power’s B61 nuclear bomb, and although formally the U.S. won’t verify or deny their presence on board any vessel it’s broadly understood that B61s have been faraway from their plane carriers’ stockpiles through the Nineteen Nineties. The UK presently depends solely on its submarine launched ballistic missiles for its nuclear deterrent, however even because it plans to affix the NATO nuclear sharing programme with B61s these will solely be suitable with newly deliberate F-35A Lightning IIs and never with the service based mostly F-35Bs.
Nuclear armed air-launched cruise missile ASMP-A loaded on a Rafale M about to launch from French plane service Charles de Gaulle. 2023. pic.twitter.com/Gn5g64nHjK
— Tom Antonov (@Tom_Antonov) February 13, 2025
France’s nuclear armed cruise missiles are designed to offer a extra versatile, sub-strategic possibility alongside the nation’s 4 Triomphant class ballistic missile submarines. Like most different nuclear nations, France has refused to decide to a ‘no first use’ coverage, and retains the choice of conducting a pre-emptive nuclear strike ought to it really feel that to be a essential plan of action. The ASMPA-R missile may be employed in such a state of affairs as the ultimate ‘warning shot’ previous to the deployment of ballistic missiles.
We noticed France train the airborne portion of its nuclear deterrent in September through the annual ‘Poker’ train, which we reported on right here.
♠️♦️POKER | 2025-03🔄[MAJ H+2.75]1/3
Le raid arrive désormais en Méditerranée pendant que les RED se mettent en place… Décollage de 5 MRTT.Les premiers chasseurs en BA devraient arriver d’ici peu. Tandis que les chasseurs porteurs de l’arme sont attendus un peu plus… pic.twitter.com/iZgejVOJdn
— Trackeur ADS-B 🇫🇷 📡 (@TrackeurADSB) September 23, 2025
Earlier than the primary ASMP missiles have been deployed within the late Eighties, France’s air-launched deterrent relied on free fall bombs that may be carried both by tactical fighter plane or the Mirage IV strategic bomber. The final free fall nuclear bomb within the French stockpile was the AN-52, withdrawn in 1992.
Land based mostly quick vary ballistic missiles (SRBMs) and medium vary ballistic missiles (MRBM) additionally shaped a part of the French nuclear arsenal from the early Seventies. These have been housed in each cellular launchers in addition to mounted silos. The SRBMs have been the primary to be withdrawn quickly after the top of the Chilly Battle, as their vary was restricted to solely so far as targets in East Germany. Silo-launched MRBMs have been then retired a couple of years later.
Future
The ASMP household is, in time, due to get replaced with the proposed ASN4G cruise missile. In contrast to the ASMP, this new missile is meant to function at hypersonic speeds. The brand new missile might be fielded from a brand new, upgraded variant of the Rafale.
Alongside this enhance in functionality, France will add a fourth nuclear-capable airbase to its roster with upgrades to Luxeuil Air Base in jap France. This base beforehand hosted nuclear weapons, however all have been withdrawn by 2011.
ASN4G is deliberate to at the least double the vary provided by ASMPA-R, with a requirement of at the least 1,000 kilometres – the precise vary will doubtless be even larger. The missile might be powered by a scramjet engine that ought to propel it to speeds of round six or seven instances the pace of sound. Entry into service is deliberate for 2035.
The brand new missile can even be carried by France’s Subsequent Technology Fighter (NGF), although the precise kind this plane will take continues to be unclear.
