UK to buy Rampage aeroballistic supersonic missiles worth less than $1 million to replace Storm Shadow, which were transferred to Ukraine

The UK was the first to transfer long-range weapons in the form of cruise missiles to UkraineStorm Shadow.Now

The United Kingdom is looking for a replacement.

What is known

The UK Department of Defense is consideringthe ability to purchase Rampage air-to-ground missiles (at the very bottom of the photo), formerly known as MARS. This is the development of the Israeli company Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which was introduced five years ago.

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Missiles were first used in combatin the spring of 2019 in Syria. Rampage successfully penetrated the air defense, consisting of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems, and destroyed several bunkers.

Rampage weighs 570 kg.The mass of the warhead is 150 kg. The missile has a length of 4.7 meters, so the carriers will not be fifth-generation F-35B Lightning II fighters, but European Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft.

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The Rampage has a solid fuel engine and candevelop speed up to 550 m/s (M=1.6). The maximum missile launch range is 250 km. For guidance, an inertial system paired with GPS is used. The exact cost of Rampage is not specified, but is estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars. Production of a single Storm Shadow cruise missile could exceed $3 million.

Note that the modification of ballistic missiles forlaunching from aerial platforms is nothing new. For example, the Russian supposedly hypersonic Kh-47M2 missile is a ground-launched variant of the Iskander ballistic missile. It can reach speeds of more than 6174 km/h (M=5), but during the attack the speed drops significantly.