Forbes: WSU Has An Amazing Drone Killer
- 13.05.2025, 8:57
An expert has assessed the British Raven air defense system for Ukraine.
The UK has already delivered eight Raven air defense systems to Ukraine, with five more on the way. As Forbes analyst David Axe writes, they have been shooting down Russian drones since at least 2023, but have only recently been shown in official videos. That said, the design of this "drone killer" is rather odd - a truck armed with air-to-air missiles, the analyst notes.
"It's an amazing system that combines an HMT 600 Supacat vehicle with an advanced ASRAAM short-range air-to-air missile," says Royal Marine Colonel Ollie Todd of the British military's Task Force.
Ax notes that the mix of sensors, launchers and missiles that the Ukrainian military inherited from the Soviet Union, acquired locally or received as gifts from allies created a problem during the Russian invasion because the various components were not always designed to work together.
The FrankenSAM initiative to link disparate equipment came into being, and the Raven FPO is one of its highlights:
"To create the Raven, British engineers removed old rocket rails from old Royal Air Force fighters and attached them to Supacat trucks. Cameras on the roof of the trucks, controlled by modified video game controllers, direct the launch guides and ASRAAM missiles at approaching targets."
The missile has a range of 25 kilometers, and Todd called the Raven "one of the most effective short-range air defense systems currently in use in Ukraine."
Ukraine also has numerous other FrankenSAMs in service, including Soviet vehicles firing older U.S. infrared and radar-guided air-to-air missiles, as well as Soviet vehicles firing Soviet air-to-air missiles.
This proliferation of FrankenSAMs has led to the development of shorter-range air defenses, which makes sense, since the most common air-to-air missiles have ranges of only tens of kilometers, Ax notes. at the same time, Ukraine's greatest need is for long-range surface-to-air missiles capable of protecting cities and bases from Russia's most powerful ballistic missiles. But only two systems, the U.S. Patriot and the European SAMP/T, are suitable for this purpose.