SPEAR 3 in a nutshell is an extended range Brimstone – which is already probably the best missile in its class. Designed to target vehicles (including moving ones) at extremely long range. Once these are integrated on F-35 (which can carry 8 internally plus 2 air to air missiles) well have a seriously lethal combination, able to penetrate and destroy air defences very effectively.
WeRegretToInform on
Anyone know why this is a good missile? Assuming we already had cruise missiles which could hit targets 100km away?
Is this new version faster, or more accurate, or cheaper, or better at evading countermeasures?
MetalBawx on
Weapons of this type are vital to wearing down enemy defences so hopefully these tests go well and we have a nice new weapon for deployment.
hungoverseal on
It’s a shame we didn’t speed this up and let the Ukrainian’s do the testing for us. The primary role of the weapon is breaking Russian air defences, if we’d let the Ukrainian’s get on with doing that then Europe would be a much safer place across the next five years.
Solid_Budget2531 on
10-15 years ago people would’ve been complaining about what a waste of money this is. Sign of the times I guess
petevwe on
Nice but we need to replace Trident, lets replace it with a British designed and built weapon not American
Ex-art-obs1988 on
This is an anti Russia and china weapon.
The f35 has 4 internal 6 external hard points.
That’s potentially a swarm of 10 missiles individually and hunting targets.
As the Russians and Chinese military doctrine is armoured swams to punch holes in front lines then backfill with infantry.
3 f35/ armed with these could reduce a brigade to scrap metal before anti air could protect/ retaliate.
What we need to do now is actually sell it to our allies, something we’ve been very poor of late
Burnsy2023 on
I wonder what the unit cost of these missiles would be. One thing we’ve learned from Ukraine is that expensive missiles are fine but quantity matters so cost and the production capacity are just as key to their effectiveness as the technology itself.
8 Comments
SPEAR 3 in a nutshell is an extended range Brimstone – which is already probably the best missile in its class. Designed to target vehicles (including moving ones) at extremely long range. Once these are integrated on F-35 (which can carry 8 internally plus 2 air to air missiles) well have a seriously lethal combination, able to penetrate and destroy air defences very effectively.
Anyone know why this is a good missile? Assuming we already had cruise missiles which could hit targets 100km away?
Is this new version faster, or more accurate, or cheaper, or better at evading countermeasures?
Weapons of this type are vital to wearing down enemy defences so hopefully these tests go well and we have a nice new weapon for deployment.
It’s a shame we didn’t speed this up and let the Ukrainian’s do the testing for us. The primary role of the weapon is breaking Russian air defences, if we’d let the Ukrainian’s get on with doing that then Europe would be a much safer place across the next five years.
10-15 years ago people would’ve been complaining about what a waste of money this is. Sign of the times I guess
Nice but we need to replace Trident, lets replace it with a British designed and built weapon not American
This is an anti Russia and china weapon.
The f35 has 4 internal 6 external hard points.
That’s potentially a swarm of 10 missiles individually and hunting targets.
As the Russians and Chinese military doctrine is armoured swams to punch holes in front lines then backfill with infantry.
3 f35/ armed with these could reduce a brigade to scrap metal before anti air could protect/ retaliate.
What we need to do now is actually sell it to our allies, something we’ve been very poor of late
I wonder what the unit cost of these missiles would be. One thing we’ve learned from Ukraine is that expensive missiles are fine but quantity matters so cost and the production capacity are just as key to their effectiveness as the technology itself.