About Sea Sparrow surface-air missile adaptation to UA Buk-M1 SAM systems that Politico has reported yesterday (politico.com/news/2023/01/0…).
It's not as surprising as it may seem at first.
In fact, Raytheon (Sea Sparrow manufacturer) and Polish WZU-2 worked on this in 2007+
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As early as 2007 Wojskowe Zaklady Usbrojenia Nr 2 (WZU-2, Grudziadz, Poland) announced working on adapting Sea Sparrow RIM-7 missile to 2K12 Kub (SA-6) SAM system -- Buk predecessor. In 2012 a prototype was shown using RIM-162 ESSM missile on 2P25 Kub launcher.
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Additionally, around the same time Czech company RETIA in cooperation with European missile manufacturer MBDA adapted Aspide 2000 surface-air missile (a derivative of Sea Sparrow RIM-7E with better engine and seeker) to the same Kub 2K12 system.
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More details on the Czech 2K12 Kub modernization directly from the designer (RETIA) as well as some extra photographs:
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Here's a video showing Czech Kub + Aspide hybrid tracking some training targets:
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Finally, Ukraine is also no stranger to "deep" Kub SAM modification. For example a company called Aerotechnica has developed an upgrade package called 2K12M1-2D Kvadrat-2D which replaces "99% of electronics" with modern ones (mil.in.ua/uk/news/aerote…)
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Given that Buk is a direct descendant of Kub (-M4,below) it should be no surprise if Sea Sparrow can be similarly adapted to Buk-M1 that Ukraine operates.
It would be great, if eventually ~90 Kub systems that Ukraine is reported to have could be refurbished and adapted too.
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Key refs.:
- armyrecognition.com/defense_news_j…
- armyrecognition.com/mspo_2012_show…
- armyrecognition.com/idet_2013_news…
- researchgate.net/publication/29…
- en.topwar.ru/5504-cheshskie…
- valka.cz/attachments/35…
- uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/9А38
P.S.:
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