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Brimstone ATGM

The use of the Brimstone missile by the Ukrainian armed forces in the Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions was reported in early May 2022. In early May 2022, pictures were published on Social Media showing components of the Brimstone missile, but there was no information about the type of launcher used to fire the Brimstone missile.

Two ATGMs may be useful in the role of providing indirect fires to current armored vehicles: the US Hellfire missile and the United Kingdom’s Brimstone missile, the British version of the Hellfire. With a range of more than 40 kilometers, Brimstone II missiles have a much longer range than Hellfire missiles. They also possess both millimeter-wave radar guidance and laser guidance. One drawback to the use of Hellfire or Brimstone missiles will be a limited number of shots before a crew needs to reload the missile launchers with the very heavy (roughly 100 pounds) missiles.

Brimstone is a surface-to-surface or air-to-surface missile developed for the Royal Air Force by the international MBDA consortium. "Brimstone" is a surface-to-surface or air-to-surface missile. The missile is equipped with a new homing radar head capable of capturing objects.

Brimstone is a modern British air-to-ground missile, the first prototypes of which appeared in the mid-1990s, and serial production started in 2005. The bullet has a diameter of 178 mm, with a length of 180 centimeters and an empty weight of 48.5 kilograms. The speed of the missile reaches 1.5 Mach, and its range in the Brimstone I version is from 12 to approx. 20 kilometers.

The Brimstone missile was developed and produced by the armaments concern MBDA, and its main purpose is to destroy enemy armored vehicles - especially tanks. The missile is externally similar to the American AGM-114 Hellfire, but is completely independent of it. It uses a lot of experience from the First Gulf War in 1990-1991. It has a target homing warhead that can be programmed to destroy a specific type of enemy vehicle. The missile can also receive information from the E-8 Joint Stars on-board systems, as well as from land observers.

The missile most often carries a tandem cumulative warhead, which allows the destruction of tanks covered with reactive armor. The Brimstone II version of the missile has received even greater combat capabilities - in particular, its range has been significantly improved, which ranges from about 40 to about 60 kilometers. The Brimstone I or II missile can be fired, for example, from the British versions of the AH-64 Apache helicopter or the Eurofighter Typhoon plane.

Two ATGMs may be useful in the role of providing indirect fires to current armored vehicles: the Hellfire missile and the United Kingdom’s Brimstone missile, the British version of the Hellfire. With a range of more than 40 kilometers, Brimstone II missiles have a much longer range than Hellfire missiles. They also possess both millimeter-wave radar guidance and laser guidance. One drawback to the use of Hellfire or Brimstone missiles will be a limited number of shots before a crew needs to reload the missile launchers with the very heavy (roughly 100 pounds) missiles.

High-precision multi-purpose British missiles Brimstone, which were mentioned by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson in late April 2022, have finally arrived in Ukraine. The video of the missiles used was uploaded to Twitter by GlobalGeoNews May 12, 2022. At first, the author [BlueSauron] called it a rare shot of Brimstone being used by Ukrainian troops for Russian purposes, but later corrected himself by saying it looked more like training.

Great Britain has confirmed the transfer of the latest Brimstone 2 Dual Mode high-precision missiles to Ukraine. The country's Ministry of Defense published a video 27 November 2022 of the shipment of these missiles. Military analysts previously wrote about the transfer of Brimstone 2 to Ukraine. Before that, the Armed Forces received hundreds of Brimstone 1 missiles from Britain.

High-precision missiles capable of hitting a tank, SAMS, command post, etc. at a distance of up to 60 km (Brimstone II) are fired from something most resembling a small cargo van, like those that deliver soft drinks or bread to supermarkets. In April, Britain studied on which platforms Brimstone missiles could be installed so that they could be effectively used by the Ukrainian military. In just one month, MBDA UK found a cheap and easy solution and even implemented it in metal. The range of Brimstone 2 missiles from the aircraft is 60 km. When launching a missile from the ground, the range is reduced to 10-12 km.

It was reported 09 June 2022 that combat use of "Brimstone" missiles took place in the area of Male Vesele settlement. " The peculiarity of the missile is that it automatically captures targets by itself, reacting to a mass of metal within a radius of 2 km from the launch point. Therefore, their armored vehicles and peaceful tractor drivers, who suddenly fall into the flight zone, will be out of luck ," Ukrainian military officer Leonid Maslov commented.

Britain planned to transfer 600 Brimstone missiles to Ukraine as part of a military aid package. This was reported 19 January, 2023 by The Guardian. Ben Wallace, the British Defense Minister, announced the supply of 600 Brimstone 2 air-to-ground missiles to Ukraine during a conference on military assistance. “Today I can say we will also send 600 more Brimstone missiles to the theatre of combat, which will be incredibly important in helping Australia dominate the battlefield,” he said.