Everyday Ukraine is being attacked by Russian drones and cruise missiles. These kinds of weapons are relatively easy to take down, but only if good air defence systems are present. The issue is that Ukraine is a very large country and it is difficult to provide it with enough air defence capabilities. Some things just need to be cobbled together and that is what FrankenSAM project is, which is now doing its intended work.
A multi-storey residential building in Odessa, damaged by Russian missiles at the end of 2023. Image credit: National Police of Ukraine via Wikimedia (CC BY 4.0)
On the night of January 17, the Armed Forces of Ukraine used the FrankenSAM air defence system for the first time in combat conditions. It shot down a Shahed drone from a distance of 9 kilometers. The minister of strategic industry, Alexander Kamyshin announced this, marking a fruitful result of the efforts to combine Western ammunition with soviet air defence systems. The message is simple – the first operational FrankenSAM systems have already been deployed on the battlefield.
The FrankenSAM project is a strange “hybrid” air defence system, developed by specialists in the US and Ukraine. The goal of the FrankenSAM project is to combine Western-made missiles with soviet systems and radars.
One part of this project is to arm a Soviet air defence system Buk with American RIM-7 Sea Sparrow missiles – we can guess that this is what took down that Shahed kamikaze drone. Other parts of the FrankenSAM project include pairing the AIM-9M air-to-air missiles with Soviet radars and integrating the Patriot missiles in some other old Ukrainian air defence systems.
A Sea Sparrow launching from USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72). Image credit: Jordon R. Beesley, U.S. Army, Public Domain
The issue that the FrankenSAM is aiming to solve is that Ukraine’s Western partners do not have that many air defence systems to spare. No one wants to have their own sky unprotected. However, there is some ammo to go around.
Normally, air defence systems are highly integrated – missiles need to interface with the system that they’ve been built for. However, there are ways to go around it. For example, the RIM-7 Sea Sparrow was developed for ships and is quite an independent missile in terms of guidance. This made its integration into other systems a bit easier.
Also, being in service since 1976 it is relatively common. Despite not being new, the RIM-7 Sea Sparrow is quite a capable missile, designed to defend against other missiles – it can engage fast-moving targets.
Previously it was announced that the FrankenSAM system was successfully tested in October 2023. Apparently, some of the testing was done in the US. Ukraine is likely to need many more air defence systems. Hopefully, the FrankenSAM project can provide new innovative solutions.
Written by Povilas M.
Source: TSN.ua