UK Defence Forum

Maybe not with brimstone, but perhaps with spear?

8 internal on and F35 could deliver a salvo, could be scaled up to increase the chance of overwhelming defences

Spear 3 from 50k ft would have a range of 140km(?), an even bigger challenge for anything but a top flight SAM system.

will it be integrated onto P8 and possibly Merlin?

It could be justified on P8 in an overland role. Shorten the kill chain and increase response time.

shark bait wrote:Shorten the kill chain and increase response time.

Did you mean loiter time?

No.

I was suggesting if a P8 spots a pop up threat it may be an advantage to prosecute the target its self, if its equipped with spear, rather than handing off to another unit.

OK, shorten then (cut out the middle man in the kill cycle, too)

Great vid, much better than the stuff it was built on.

Did not know about airburst mode against soft and semi-hard targets; air-to-air & hi-off-bore... is that really there?

Anyway. 8 yrs to service; 14 if you require the man-in-the-loop. Might sell a few Tiffies, actually

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Great vid, much better than the stuff it was built on.

Did not know about airburst mode against soft and semi-hard targets; air-to-air & hi-off-bore... is that really there?

Anyway. 8 yrs to service; 14 if you require the man-in-the-loop. Might sell a few Tiffies, actually

Hi-off boresight appears to be there already. There is a Youtube video of an AH-64E firing Brimstone test shots on page 3 of this thread that I posted that illustrated this. But the rest appears to be MBDA's bid for a future Brimstone to arm the UK's Apache's. How much this would differ from Brimstone 2 is not clear. Most of it would appear to be software changes, so not hard. Airburst could technically be done using SAL and the onboard interferometers only but would be better with a built in airburst fuse (as of course would be the delayed action or void sensing illustrated in the MBDA video). So it would appear that the only difference from Brimstone 2 would be a different fuse and software. Hopefully retrofitted across the stockpile to ensure commonality.

You do have to wonder what we're going to do with the thousands of Hellfire we have in stock though...

Timmymagic wrote: wonder what we're going to do with the thousands of Hellfire we have in stock though...

I am sure there are targets left after Raqqa; the motorcyclist on that video as a representative one

ArmChairCivvy wrote:I am sure there are targets left after Raqqa; the motorcyclist on that video as a representative one

Not much use I'm afraid as a lot of them are the L variant, designed to be used with Longbow, with no man in the loop, all MMW.

ArmChairCivvy wrote:

Timmymagic wrote: wonder what we're going to do with the thousands of Hellfire we have in stock though...

I am sure there are targets left after Raqqa; the motorcyclist on that video as a representative one

Also presumably they're planning on burning through them at a fair rate considering they've just bought a load.more I believe?

DMB for Apache is a while away yet, there'll be a fair way to go before Reaper leaves service (assuming they only start drawing down after 6/7 Protectors are in service).

Maybe there's even some blue sky ideas of selling them back to the US for cheap which considering the stock levels worldwide doesn't seem too crazy an idea IMO.

considering they've just bought a load

Have they? What we must always keep in mind is that the authorization for a Foreign Military Sale is NOT a contract. They have asked, and obtained, the go ahead to purchase up to 1500 missiles.

Quite a different thing from actually purchasing them. Under the umbrella of that authorization, they will be able to buy N missiles per year, as needed, until Brimstone steps in.

Same, by the way, goes with the 2747 JLTV. The MOD hasn't yet purchased a single one; and might well order small numbers in successive contracts, over many years, within the margins of the authorizations received.

Gabriele wrote: until Brimstone steps in.

I was surprised to see Brimstone and CAMM bot rated half-RED in the overall project summaries... you never hear anything but good about those two
- and we know the ripple shot into a Libyan tank yard went splendidly - with the base version of the missile... did not have time to look at the part area ratings, from which the "traffic lights" overview is composed

I hope this (from yesterday's ukdefencejournal), puts paid Brimstone's half-RED status on the project level, which covers integration:

"Andy Bradford, MBDA Director of Typhoon Integration, said:

“This first firing is a major milestone for both the Brimstone and Typhoon programmes. Together Brimstone and Typhoon will provide the Royal Air Force and other Eurofighter nations with a world-beating strike capability to beyond 2040.”

The successful trial follows completion earlier this year of the flight trials programme for Storm Shadow and Meteor.

Operational testing and evaluation of those capabilities is currently ongoing with the Royal Air Force ahead of entry into service in 2018."

Timmymagic wrote:

ArmChairCivvy wrote:
You do have to wonder what we're going to do with the thousands of Hellfire we have in stock though...

Have them ship launched as an option for OPV's or T26/31?

Hellfire: $100k a copy
A 105mm howitzer round: $0.4k a copy
- round up to 1K for naval rounds... it is still 1:100 cost ratio

The funny thing about the above vid was that the launches were "overlooked" by a RAM launcher that does pretty much the same thing (albeit withh a much smaller warhead).

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Hellfire: $100k a copy
A 105mm howitzer round: $0.4k a copy
- round up to 1K for naval rounds... it is still 1:100 cost ratio

The funny thing about the above vid was that the launches were "overlooked" by a RAM launcher that does pretty much the same thing (albeit withh a much smaller warhead).

All true, but we have over 1000 hellfires sat in stock so the cost has already been paid, it's just how you use them and why not on the pitifully under armed surface ships?

All true, but we have over 1000 hellfires sat in stock

Really? Where was the figure given?

We must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel when this many needed, to replenish (and also, how far into the future are any newer Brimstones? Puts up a question mark):
"The UK is to replenish its stock of Lockheed Martin AGM-114 Hellfire II air-to-surface missiles at a cost of USD150 million.

According to the US Defense Security and Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which announced the State Department approval for the sale on 16 March, the UK has requested 1,000 AGM-114R1/R2 Hellfire II semi-active laser (SAL) missiles "

As i've already said once, obtaining authorization to purchase up to 1000 missiles via FMS does NOT mean having purchased a single missile, let alone 1000. Actual contracts come later (if they come).

And it'll be at least 2021 before Apache switches to Brimstone, and Protector FOC is scheduled only for May 2023, with a FOC 2 yet to be dated for "enhanced additions" which might well include the Brimstone. So Hellfire will likely be used well into the 2020s to start with.

Gabriele wrote: So Hellfire will likely be used well into the 2020s to start with.

A good rationale for the thousand (and whatever we had left in the Spring) .

ArmChairCivvy wrote:According to the US Defense Security and Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which announced the State Department approval for the sale on 16 March, the UK has requested 1,000 AGM-114R1/R2 Hellfire II semi-active laser (SAL) missiles "

As Gabriele says an FMS is in may ways like a call-off purchase order. You can use it or not, you can request the items on it up to their maximum value subject to contracts. It will be interesting to see how many, if any, we call off. We were at one point borrowing P variant Hellfire from the US stockpile then replenishing it via FMS orders. Perhaps this FMS is to actually build a stock of our own

it's worth noting that the R variant replaces all previous SAL variants in production, including the P variant for UCAV's (Reaper). There are still thousands of L variants in stock, purely for use with Longbow Apache on anti armour missions. Hopefully, we'll use the previously purchased SAL variants for training and save these R's (if we buy any) for best. It will be interesting as well to see how many of these we buy, and if we re-life the 'L's' we already have as that should give an indication of how soon the RAF and the Army believe that Brimstone 2 will take over as the main missile on Protector and Apache. It would make sense to re-life the L's, buy a small amount of R's to use with Reaper and replenish any borrowed from the US and use the remaining K's for training...or whomever her Maj gets upset with. This is likely to be the last Hellfire order though as the US isn't ordering them past FY 19 and 20. It's JAGM all the way from there.