UK Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Suetham

Senior Member
Registered Member
Sky Sabre is nothing whatsoever like S400 other than they are both SAMs.
In the article itself, they state the following: "However Sky Saber has a much lower target detection and destruction range than the Russian design, however, the radar station of the British missile complex is said to be able to detect aerial targets sensitively, even effective detection of 5th generation fighters."

I think everyone knows that there is nothing in the West compared to the S-400. There is the SM-6 missile with 370 km against air targets and 60 km against MRBM level ballistic threats (4 km/s), but it is based on ships, although it will be used by the US Army from 2023 and will be launched by vehicles terrestrial.
Western joint operations doctrine does not envision surface-to-air surface missiles with such high performance against air threats.

The longest-range ground-launched sup-air system in the West today is probably the PAC-2 GEM with 160 km of horizontal range. Basically he draws with the Barak 8 ER (LRSAM) and with David's Sling, both from Israel, being the second, together with the USA. The Samp-T has a slightly shorter horizontal range, in the 120 km range.

A feature to be mentioned is the difference in weight of the respective missiles. Let's see:
40N6: 1900 kg / 380 km / Mach 4 / warhead ? / active-semiactive radar
PAC-2 GEM: 908 kg / 160 km / Mach 4 / 92 kg warhead / semi-active radar -TVM
Stunner: 200 kg / 150 km / ? / ? / active radar + IIR
Barak 8ER: 400 kg / 150 km / 60 kg warhead / Mach 3 / active radar
Samp-T: 450 kg / 120 km / 15 kg warhead / Mach 4.5 / active radar

Regarding the UK, Rapier is being replaced by CAMM. The UK does not have a high altitude system, only an average one. The CAMM is average. A curiosity is that they abandoned the anti-aircraft gun more than 50 years ago. They only use missiles. Simply put, the UK will only have Starstreak for low altitude (V-SHORAD) and CAMM for medium (HIMAD). And nothing else.
Only the ships had more options:
Phalanx, CAMM, Aster 15 and Aster 30. The VL Sea Wolf will be withdrawn from service shortly.

The problem with the Rapier (45 kg/8km range) is that despite being “all the time” its performance is not much better than that of the Starstreak system (14 kg/7 km), which is considered exceptional.
In a detailed look, the Rapier's mobility is inferior to that of the Starstreak, which even has the self-propelled version (SP HVM) and only the advantage of being “all the time” was not convincing considering that the conditions in which a missile like the Starstreak can being used corresponds to more than 98% of the climatic conditions in Europe.

The land CAMM (Sky Saber) has a range of 25 km and 99 kg, all-time capability, vertical launch and fire and forget (capable of engaging multiple simultaneous threats).
Fact is, the UK will be left with just two land-based AA defense systems, Starstreak and Sky Saber.
 

Suetham

Senior Member
Registered Member
Sky Sabre ***

Speaking of Russian AA systems, one thing Russian warfare systems are: big and heavy. If this is synonymous with quality, I won't be able to say.

For the West this type of system does not work. In the west, land-launched high-performance sup-air systems (HIMADS) rely on increasingly smaller missiles and the maximum range against atmospheric targets is 100 miles (160 km) and look there!
Let's see:
Barak 8 ER: 400 kg - 150 km
David's Sling: 200/250 kg (Stunner) – 150 km
MEADS: 400 kg (PAC-3 MSE) - 100 km
SAMP-T: 450 kg (Aster 30) - 120 km
Patriot: 908 kg (PAC-2 GEM), 312 (PAC-3) and 400 kg (PAC-3 MSE) – 160 km – 60 km – 100 km
 

Andy1974

Senior Member
Registered Member
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2 frigate programs both delivering in 2027. Both are sure to be export successes.
New subs. also an export success.
Revitalization of UK ship building.

The UK, the MoD, have been doing a great job recently, and for the last few years.

I get hints that the UK is also de-Americanizing To a certain extent.
 

Maikeru

Captain
Registered Member
2 frigate programs both delivering in 2027. Both are sure to be export successes.
New subs. also an export success.
Revitalization of UK ship building.

The UK, the MoD, have been doing a great job recently, and for the last few years.

I get hints that the UK is also de-Americanizing To a certain extent.
Well I think the RN has done a good job these last few years. The British Army, OTOH, is a complete c-f.
 

Andy1974

Senior Member
Registered Member
Well I think the RN has done a good job these last few years. The British Army, OTOH, is a complete c-f.
I think a lot of nations aren’t sure what to do with ground forces right now. But the UK at least has a plan that is vaguely sensible now.
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
They probably shot down some Syrian kid's DJI he got as an early christmas present.

I get that the Typhoon is a very capable platform but this kind of praise makes me shake my head.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the strike was "an impressive demonstration of the RAF's ability to take out hostile targets in the air".

What is so impressive taking out a surveillance drone? The JF-17 did it in 2017 and PAF professionally refused to comment on it. When the USAF took down an Iranian drone as well they didn’t say that it demonstrated the F-15E’s air combat excellence. Even the Saudis, who took out dozens of these drones with their Eurofighter, never said much about it.
 
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