The French Ministry of Defense's French Procurement Agency announced that future French naval surface vessels will be protected from group attacks by the RAPIDFire ultra short range weapon system developed by the Thales and Nexter consortium.

RAPIDFire is based on a medium caliber 40mm machine gun developed by CTAI (an international subsidiary of Nexter Systems and BAE Systems), designed to counter new threats, particularly low, small, slow, and stealth group attacks that can enable conventional missile defense systems. Its range is 4 kilometers (2.5 miles).

Integrated on the unmanned turret, the artillery has a photoelectric fire control system SSPC that can be controlled by the operator. Threat analysis is shared with the naval combat management system, allowing gunners to verify or adjust the strategies proposed by the artillery. There are five different types of ammunition, and the gun can automatically select to best deal with a given threat.

In a joint statement, Thales and Nexter stated that the system is compatible with the full range of ammunition developed for Army projects and tends to use future ammunition as intelligent anti air strike (A3B) rounds, such as for countering drones. Ground to air and ground to ground guns are designed for use on general-purpose turrets in ground and naval systems. This means that the RAPIDFire system will be able to be used for land vehicles in the future. Although the project is still in the development stage, DGA France's procurement agency has conducted shooting tests on it and selected it to equip future surface vessels of the French Navy. The first delivery plan is scheduled for 2022.