The current tranche of weapons and equipment being transferred from the United States’ existing inventory to Ukraine includes such mundane items as 155 mm and 105 mm artillery rounds, Javelin missiles, 3 million rounds of small-arms ammunition, etc. However, included in the quarter-billion-dollar list of weapons is an undisclosed number of AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles. This is particularly interesting because the Sidewinder is the most widely used missile by the U.S. Armed Forces, and is employed on the Navy/Marine’s F/A-18A-D, F/A-18E/F, AV-8B, and AH-1 and the Air Force’s F-16, F-15, F-22, and A-10 aircraft. Additionally, the Sidewinder is used by over 30 international customers on over 12 different types of aircraft.
However, as widely used as the Sidewinder is by the world’s air forces, there are no reports of Ukraine’s Soviet/Russian aircraft being modified to use it. So why send it? Surprisingly, it turns out the missiles aren’t to be used by aircraft for air-to-air combat, but instead will be fired by a surface-to-air defense system that the United States was able to cobble together from radars and other parts contributed by allies and partners. The highly appropriate name for this system is “FrankenSAM,” with “Franken” being a reference to Frankenstein and SAM standing for surface-to-air missile.
This FrankenSAM system is particularly critical, as most of the anti-air defense systems that Ukraine had when the war began, or that were contributed to it since the war began, have either been destroyed or have run low on ammunition/missiles. The lack of anti-air capability has allowed Russia to increasingly take advantage of its overwhelming airpower. Presumably, these new systems will be counted on to provide some protection for Ukraine’s most critical military bases.
But, the FrankenSAM systems are not the only anti-air systems that have been cobbled together. U.S. engineers have collaborated with Ukraine to modify Soviet-era Buk-M1 air defense launchers to fire RIM-7 missiles, of which the United States has large quantities. The ability to fire the RIM-7 semi-active radar-guided missiles will extend the usefulness of Ukraine’s dwindling number of Buk air defense launchers as they’re running short on its native missiles. The RIM-7 missile’s range of just over 10 miles is significantly less than that of the Russian 9М38 class missiles it’s replacing, but should still be effective for short-range defense.
So, noted!