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Lacroix working on Dauphin offboard active decoy
As part of electronic warfare developments, Lacroix has been working since 2024 on the launch system for an offboard active decoy (OBAD), with the electronic payload supplied by Thales. This particularly innovative and ambitious project was commissioned by the French Defence procurement and technology agency (DGA).
Dauphin du groupe Lacroix
© Lacroix
“The OBAD is a product of exceptionally high technological value; currently, only the United States possesses a comparable system, which they reserve for themselves,” explains Arthur Justice, Sales and Marketing Manager at Lacroix. Named Dauphin (“Dolphin”), this programme is designed to provide France and its allies with a sovereign, independent solution.
At the request of the DGA, the mid-cap company is developing the launch system, which consists of a pyrotechnic ejector and a multicopter drone. “As soon as the ship detects an incoming missile, the OBAD is rapidly launched. The drone deploys at a distance, and its payload—the jammer—transmits false data to the missile, diverting it and leading it away from the vessel being protected,” explains Louis Boulle, Naval Programme Manager at Lacroix.
The active decoy is invisible and purely electromagnetic, emitting signals that simulate the radar cross-section (RCS) of a ship’s hull. Given its strategic importance, the programme remains highly confidential; no data has been released regarding the drone’s operating altitude, its stand-off distance, or its activation method (whether automatic or manual).
For Arthur Justice, working on this project “is a natural extension of passive countermeasures, a field in which Lacroix has specialised for 40 years.” Dauphin establishes an additional layer of protection for vessels, Louis Boulle explains: “Between ‘hard kill’ solutions—such as the ASTER family of interceptor missiles used to physically destroy attacking missiles—and the passive ‘soft kill’ decoys found in our SYLENA or SEACLAD ranges, there will now be this new intermediate layer of ‘offboard active soft kill’ provided by Dauphin.”
The OBAD system will preserve highly expensive interceptor munitions when facing saturation attacks. It is expected to be particularly well-suited for countering emerging threats.
The two companies — part of the French defence industrial and technological base (DITB) — are conducting their development work jointly on behalf of the DGA. Development trials are scheduled to commence in 2027.
- Aude Leroy
