ASN4G stands for Air-Sol Nucléaire de 4ème Génération, or fourth-generation air-to-ground nuclear missile. The system is intended to replace the currently used ASMPA missile, including its modernised ASMPA-R version.
The value of the contract was not disclosed. The missile is expected to enter service around 2035.
ASN4G is planned for use by French strategic aviation. This includes both the Strategic Air Forces and the French Navy’s Naval Nuclear Aviation Force.
The missile’s carrier aircraft is expected to be the Dassault Rafale multirole combat aircraft in the F5 standard. MBDA France is to be responsible for development and production of the missile.
Few details have been released about the missile itself. Work on a successor to the ASMP family began in the 1990s, when France considered two competing concepts over several years.
The first concept involved a subsonic but low-observable missile designed according to stealth principles. The second involved a missile that would be easier to detect but harder to intercept because of its very high speed.
France selected the second option. Development work used, among other elements, the THEMIS technology demonstrator.
ASN4G will therefore be a hypersonic missile. Its range is expected to exceed 1,000 kilometres, more than twice that of the ASMPA-R.
The missile will carry a single TNA 4G thermonuclear warhead. Alongside M51 strategic ballistic missiles carried by submarines, ASN4G is expected to become one of the future foundations of France’s nuclear arsenal.
France currently has 290 operational warheads and 80 retired warheads that have not yet been deactivated. In the future, the number of warheads is expected to increase and France will stop declaring how many nuclear charges it possesses.
