On May 12, 2022, a short video was distributed on Ukrainian social networks with a ground-based launcher used by the armed forces of Ukraine for the first time to launch British MBDA Brimstone guided missiles. In the video from the launcher, a salvo of three Brimstone missiles is fired at short intervals. The launcher itself is made in a camouflaged awning body of a conventional commercial truck (it is possible that the Gazelle GAS).
A ground-based launcher used by the Armed forces of Ukraine to launch British guided missiles MBDA Brimstone, made in a disguised awning body of a commercial truck, May 2022 (c) video frame from social networks
Recall that the combat use by the armed forces of Ukraine against Russian troops supplied by the UK of modern Brimstone guided missiles has been noted since the beginning of May in the Zaporozhye and Kharkiv regions. However, it was previously unclear from which launchers or carriers these missiles are used by the APU. Although Brimstone is normally an aviation missile, however, in the last year all plans for their deliveries to Ukraine revolved around ship or ground use. In this case, missiles are used from a mobile launcher as anti-tank. Ukraine thus became the first operator of Brimstone missiles in the ground version. Earlier, the MBDA association worked out variants of complexes with ship-based Brimstone missiles (Sea Spear complex) and land-based, but it never received contracts for them.
The engine compartments demonstrated earlier in the photos from Ukraine of the Brimstone missile fragments, according to the factory nameplates, were manufactured in the USA in September 2001, and the front compartments of the captured whole rocket were manufactured in the USA in 2004, that is, so far all the known missiles of this type used by the APU belong to the very first Brimstone releases, and, apparently, transferred from the presence of the British armed forces (recall that Brimstone missiles began to enter service with the British Air Force in March 2005). These missiles in the early version are made with a single-channel guidance system with an active radar homing head of the millimeter range. The firing range of such a missile at a ground launch, apparently, does not exceed 10-12 km.It is worth pointing out that the Brimstone missile is actually a development of the American Hellfire missile, in the basic version (Brimstone 1), equipped with a nose guidance compartment developed and manufactured by the British branch of the European association MBDA (MBDA UK) with an active radar homing head of the millimeter range. A special feature of Brimstone is the possibility of using them in one gulp, which can be observed on a common video. The rocket implements the principle of "shot and forgot", carrying out an independent capture of the target (first of all, armored objects) in a given area.
Brimstone with a mass of 50 kg is normally designed to be carried by tactical aircraft and began to enter service with the British Air Force in the basic version in 2005, and since 2008 - in a modified version with an additional semi-active laser guidance channel (Dual Mode Brimstone - DMB). The length of the rocket is 1.8 m, the body diameter is 180 mm. The warhead of the Brimstone 1 tandem cumulative rocket weighing 6.4 kg.
On April 25, 2022, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said in the House of Commons of the British Parliament that the UK was considering the possibility of supplying Brimstone light anti-ship missiles "land-based", "which could be used to protect Odessa from any invasion from the sea." On April 27, the Parliamentary Deputy Minister of Defense of the United Kingdom (with the rank of junior minister), James Hippy, said that the United Kingdom would send Ukraine "hundreds of Brimstone anti-ship missiles to strengthen maritime defense," and that these missiles would arrive "in the next few weeks." On May 3, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also confirmed the imminent dispatch of Brimstone missiles to Ukraine in a speech by teleconference to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
A failed MBDA Brimstone guided missile found in the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine, transferred by the UK to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, May 2022 (c) Telegram channel "Weapons and History"
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