MBDA med ny, enkel Ground to Air - Ground to Ground løsning for mindre fartøyer - Tyler Rogoway video

European missile consortium MBDA is now offering a containerized short-range air defense system utilizing the Mistral heat-seeking missile. The multi-national company is pitching the system as ideal for use on support ships, such as naval supply vessels that do not have their own fixed defenses, but it could have other roles, including on land.

On Feb. 17, 2019, MBDA unveiled what it calls the Self-Protection Integrated Mistral Module (SPIMM) at the Navdex exposition in the United Arab Emirates. The company derived the system from their existing SIMBAD-RC naval mount for the Mistral missile, which has been in production since 2014.

 “The SPIMM enables the urgent and rapid adaptation of supply vessels or landing platform docks to cope with new threats, or for using them in contested areas,” Christophe Leduc MBDA’s Naval Defense Systems Product Executive, said in a statement on Feb. 17, 2019. “This system illustrates MBDA’s ability to understand its customers’ needs and to quickly come up with effective and functional solutions.”

SPIMM consists of the same turret as the SIMBAD-RC, which has two ready-to-launch missiles, on top of a two-man control station. The container also has storage space for four additional missiles.

A 360-degree panoramic infrared camera system detects targets and cues the missiles. Each Mistral, which has a maximum range of close to four miles, then uses its own imaging infrared seeker to home in on the target. This guidance system means the weapon can hit threats with relatively limited thermal signatures and has added resistance to being duped by decoy flares and other countermeasures.

Check video here: http://tinyurl.com/y4tayq5m

In the maritime role, Mistral has the ability to engage low-flying combat aircraft, helicopters, and small unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as act as a point-defense system against incoming anti-ship missiles. In January 2019, the company announced it had successfully tested the weapon against surrogate small surface targets, representing threats such as fast attack craft and suicide boats.

Unlike with SIMBAD-RC, SPIMM does not require a ship to have anything besides space to accommodate the container and an electric connection linking it to the vessel's own power supply. Built to conform the general dimensions of an ISO-standard shipping container, existing cranes and forklifts can readily move and reposition the seven-ton, 10-foot long system.

The entire system offers an immensely flexible self-protection system for ships that don’t already have close-in defenses. Though SPIMM wouldn't be capable of tackling high threat environments by itself, it could add an extra layer of protection on otherwise unarmed support ships operating in those area together with surface combatant escorts.

Shore-based anti-ship missiles are increasingly proliferating, even among non-state actors, which only increases the value of being able to rapidly install the SPIMM on supply vessels with with limited defenses. There is also an increasing need to be prepared to defend against swarms of manned and unmanned small surface craft, including boats laden with explosives, even in relatively low-risk environments. There is a similarly growing risk of mass drone attacks or hostile drone swarms, as well.

Various countries, including the United States, have already taken to positioning ground-based short-range air defense systems, including "soft-kill" electronic warfare systems, on the decks of amphibious ships to provide this kind of capability when necessary. SPIMM offers a more robust "hard-kill" punch, something more capable than an individual with a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile for instance, to go along with soft-kill systems. The containerized system would also offer this sort of protection to vessels without embarked ground forces or ships that had just delivered those units to their destination.