New rocket, old idea
In late summer 2023, the United States announced that it would transfer AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles to Ukraine. This is an older version of the standard American air-to-air missile for close maneuver combat, superseded by the AIM-9X version in the US Air Force. The meaning of this delivery was not clear – modern combat between fighters, as a rule, is conducted at long distances, and the Russian Su-35 and Su-30 seem to have a decisive advantage at a distance of tens of kilometers. outdated Ukrainian Su-27 and MiG-29. A short-range missile would be of no use here, and the supply of similar Soviet R-73s (and superior to the M version in performance) should not yet be exhausted.
As is now reported Ukraine needs the Sidewinder not for air combat, but for use as an anti-aircraft missile, the Financial Times reported. According to an unnamed Ukrainian official, the products were delivered not in working order.
“We fixed them. We found a way to launch them from the ground. It’s a kind of homemade air defense,” he said.
Some observers saw this as either an extraordinary example of ingenuity or an indication of the desperate situation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In reality, there is nothing strange or new about this idea, moreover, the US Army has been using previous versions of the Sidewinder in this capacity for many years.
How does Sidewinder work?
The missile is equipped with an infrared homing head (GOS). Its optical system can capture heat sources and the gimbal can rotate the lens behind them. When used from a fighter aircraft, the Sidewinder is suspended from underwing pylons and pointed in the same direction as the aircraft’s nose. The pilot points the aircraft’s nose at the target, the head captures the heat source and from then on follows it by rotating the gimbal lens. Alternatively, the enemy target may be indicated by the aircraft’s fuselage not by the pilot but by the onboard radar.
Before launch, the seeker must lock on to the target, which imposes great restrictions on the shot: the pilot launches only after hearing a “good” sound signal in the headphones that the missile is locked.
As a rule, the head begins to “see” the target several tens of kilometers away. In practice, this depends on many factors: position against the sky or the ground, the power of the aircraft’s engine, whether it uses afterburners, whether the aircraft is facing the observer with its engine or cockpit, whether visibility reduction technologies are used, its condition. atmosphere and much more.
In this case, it makes largely no difference whether the rocket is in the air or on the ground.
Launching from a fixed platform, through dense layers of the atmosphere and from the bottom up will significantly reduce the maximum flight range, but will not change anything in terms of the principle of operation of the system.
In the 1960s, the United States decided to save money by abandoning the development of a dedicated short-range ground-based air defense system and instead decided to use slightly modified Sidewinders, which were originally versions of the AIM-9D. This is how the MIM-72 Chaparral system was born. It is a modified M113 armored personnel carrier with a high turret carrying four missiles. There is an operator inside the tower who observes the situation through the glass, directs and launches the missiles to the target. To warn the operator before the approach of an enemy aircraft, the AN / MPQ-49 mobile radar, located on a high mast, was used together with the Chaparral.
Since the rocket was launched without an initial speed, its range decreased to 5 km and its maximum altitude decreased to 4 km. Chaparral’s main advantages were its simplicity and low cost, and so the system was removed from the US Army when the threat of war with the USSR passed in the 1990s. It continues to be used in Chile, Taiwan and many other countries.
Quantity beats quality
It is not known whether the USA transferred Chaparral facilities to Ukraine, but there is no need for it. This machine is very simple and in one version or another can be installed by both Ukrainian and Eastern European factories. AIM-9M missiles were developed in the early 1980s and are superior in performance to those used by the original Chaparral. However, in any case, such an air defense system would be even worse than the Western IRIS-T and NASAMS, as well as the old Soviet Bukovs and Os. So why are Americans supplying the Sidewinder?
The fact is that Ukraine does not produce anti-aircraft guided missiles for obsolete systems, and if it manages to start such production from scratch, it will be small-scale at first.
Soviet missile stocks are decreasing day by day and according to the official Telegram channel of the Ministry of Defense, Russian “Calibers” will never run out.
Cheap drones called Lancets, Orlans and Geran-2 are depleting Ukrainian missile defense reserves much faster than Kalibr and X-555. In addition, geraniums and cruise missiles fly low and hide behind folds in the terrain, so to combat them, air defense systems need to be distributed as widely as possible. Ultimately, it is not the quality of systems that matters, but the quantity.
Soviet-American production
The conversion of Sidewinder into anti-aircraft missiles is only one part of a larger campaign to plug holes in the Ukrainian air defense system with improvised means. For example, the ASRAAM missile, the modern British equivalent of the AIM-9, is also adapted to start from a car chassis. To do this, guides for two missiles and a retractable mast with a set of sensors were installed on the SupaCat HMT-600 truck.
Apparently the mast is a Chess Dynamics Hawkeye system with thermal imaging, laser rangefinder, and 30x zoom camera. ASRAAM can lock onto the target after launch and therefore its range is limited only by the operator’s ability to detect the target and the rocket’s fuel supply. According to rough estimates, when launched from the ground it will fly 10 kilometers or more, but the “ground” version of ASRAAM does not even have a public name and its capabilities cannot be spoken with confidence.
The Ukrainian Chaparral and the unnamed British system are accompanied by the Buk and Kub, which have been converted to use AIM-7 Sparrow aircraft missiles. Kub is a Soviet medium-range air defense system developed in the 1960s that was the predecessor of the Buk. Both systems use missiles with semi-active radar seekers. In simple terms, the facility’s radar constantly illuminates the target and radio waves are reflected in all directions. They are received by a simpler, cheaper and lighter locator located on the rocket and working only for reception. It determines the target’s location and the automation directs the missile to intercept.
The AIM-7 Sparrow medium-range anti-aircraft missile is also targeted using the same principle. It was adapted for launch from the ground and was used to protect American ships until it was replaced by the modernized ESSM version.
To the surprise of many, more than 10 years ago, Polish engineers from the company WZU managed to adapt the ESSM to the Kuba self-propelled firing system. offered do the same for a similar AIM-7. It’s unclear exactly how this centaur-like creature was achieved crossbreedIt was unimaginable when creating the original systems, but did not go into production in the early 2010s due solely to a lack of buyers.
According to many experts, it is precisely for the United States that such hybrids of Sparrow and “Buka” as “Cuba” / “Buka” were created. to forward Ukraine AIM-7, from summer 2023. When launched from the ground, the Sparrow has a range of approximately 30 km, making it approximately on par with Ukrainian Buk-M1 missiles. Since the United States has abandoned both aircraft and ship versions of the Sparrow, the price of their delivery to Ukraine can be considered negative – they will not have to pay for their destruction.
The limit of fantasy
When parts of the AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missile were discovered in Donbass in 2022, many aviation experts thought it was a fake. The Soviet fighters were considered incompatible with the American missile in every respect, including the structure of the beam holder, power supply, control system, and onboard computer. Later, both Ukraine and the USA officially recognized the supply of these missiles, and many videos and photos were published on social networks, in which the characteristic large HARM rudders are visible from under the wings of the MiG-29 and Su-27.
And if in the case of the AGM-88 the method of integration is still unclear, much more is known about the adaptation of Storm Shadow to the Su-24M. Videos released by Ukrainian forces show the beam holder securing the missile to the aircraft. Western weapons systems experts were able to determine that a beam from the British-German Panavia Tornado fighter-bomber was connected to the Su-24. There is no information about how the control system of such a hybrid works.
It is unclear where the limit of what is possible with such a “transition” lies. For example, in the spring of 2023, Politico reported that the Pentagon keeps in mind Possibility of integrating AIM-120 long-range anti-aircraft missiles into Ukrainian Soviet-made aircraft.
Ukrainian Su-27 and MiG-29 are equipped with old and not very good radars, which are inferior in all respects to the modern Russian “N035 Irbis” of the Su-35 aircraft. Therefore, the feasibility of adapting long-range missiles to a “short-sighted” aircraft is questionable – unless, of course, the military-industrial complex of Western countries can also solve this problem.
It is logical to assume that the longer the conflict lasts, the more surprises the parties can offer each other.