https://www.twz.com/air/ukraines-franke ... dium=email
More details have come to light about the shadowy FrankenSAM — a number of ground-based air defense systems rapidly developed by the United States for Ukraine and now proven in combat. Most intriguingly, U.S. lawmakers are proposing that the U.S. Air Force look at adopting the FrankenSAM — in one of its short-range iterations — for air base defense. The growing vulnerability of airfields is something that we have explored on several occasions and it’s a problem compounded by a general lack of short-range air defense systems, or SHORADS, something that the FrankenSAM program could help rapidly address. The FrankenSAMs could also plug other gaps in air defenses and connect with a greater integrated air defense network, as well as provide independent point defense for vulnerable infrastructure.According to the document, the FrankenSAM emerged from a U.S. Air Force requirement of Fiscal Year 2023, which called for a mobile ground-based air defense solution “that could be rapidly and affordably developed and fielded for use in Ukraine.” The FrankenSAM resulted in the design of a family of systems — three of which are so far known. Broadly speaking, these each comprise a ground launch system (understood to be based, at least in some versions, on existing Soviet-era hardware) that integrates an existing supply of air-to-air missiles into an open-architecture fire control “backbone.”
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Basically what it started as is a combination of old Soviet systems and missiles and then was integrated with old Western AA missiles. I was somewhat surprised that our system could be this flexible about developing a low cost solution to drones and cruise missiles. Systems designed to use these available and cheap missiles need to be made for our forces.
More details have come to light about the shadowy FrankenSAM — a number of ground-based air defense systems rapidly developed by the United States for Ukraine and now proven in combat. Most intriguingly, U.S. lawmakers are proposing that the U.S. Air Force look at adopting the FrankenSAM — in one of its short-range iterations — for air base defense. The growing vulnerability of airfields is something that we have explored on several occasions and it’s a problem compounded by a general lack of short-range air defense systems, or SHORADS, something that the FrankenSAM program could help rapidly address. The FrankenSAMs could also plug other gaps in air defenses and connect with a greater integrated air defense network, as well as provide independent point defense for vulnerable infrastructure.According to the document, the FrankenSAM emerged from a U.S. Air Force requirement of Fiscal Year 2023, which called for a mobile ground-based air defense solution “that could be rapidly and affordably developed and fielded for use in Ukraine.” The FrankenSAM resulted in the design of a family of systems — three of which are so far known. Broadly speaking, these each comprise a ground launch system (understood to be based, at least in some versions, on existing Soviet-era hardware) that integrates an existing supply of air-to-air missiles into an open-architecture fire control “backbone.”
Basically what it started as is a combination of old Soviet systems and missiles and then was integrated with old Western AA missiles. I was somewhat surprised that our system could be this flexible about developing a low cost solution to drones and cruise missiles. Systems designed to use these available and cheap missiles need to be made for our forces.
statistics: Posted by Rebcop — 3:40 AM - Today — Replies 7 — Views 75