The US Navy announced a $1,17 billion contract with Boeing to produce and deliver 400 RGM-84L-4 Harpoon Block II Update (HIIU) Grade B canister tactical missiles, HARPOON Coastal Defense System (HCDS) spares, containers, blast test vehicles, other support equipment and technical publications. In particular, the 63% of this contract award is reserved for Foreign Military Sales (FMS) with a particular attention to Asia, and despite the Pentagon did not disclose the names of the foreign customers, Taiwan could be at the top of the list as the country in October 2020 submitted a request to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) including more than 400 missiles, 100 launchers, radars, and support equipment with deliveries expected to be completed by 2028. HARPOON Block II CDS expands the capabilities of the anti-ship weapon, being capable of executing both anti-ship and land-strike missions. To strike targets on land and ships in port, the missile uses GPS-aided inertial navigation to hit a designated target aimpoint. In the surface-to-surface mode, the 227 kilogram blast warhead delivers lethal firepower against a wide variety of land-based targets, including coastal defense sites, air defense sites, exposed airport and aircraft, port/industrial facilities and ships in port. For conventional anti-ship missions, such as open-ocean and near-land, the GPS/INS eliminates midcourse guidance errors en route to the target area leaving to the active radar-guided low-level sea-skimming cruise trajectory, terminal mode sea-skim or pop-up maneuvers, to assure high survivability and effectiveness. The Block II improvements maintain the system’s high hit probability against ships very close to land or traveling in congested sea lanes (improving positive identification between ships). The weapon system’s launcher is truck-mountable, fired from the rear of the chassis through container launchers, and for this reason high mobile and easy to hide or camouflage in an industrialized country commercial traffic. The HARPOON is deployed by around 20 countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Israel, and the United Kingdom. US, as Denmark, are also providing Harpoon missiles to Ukraine for its defense against the Russian invasion.

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