UK's ASRAAM Air-to-Air Missile Adapted for Ground Launch in Ukraine

The Raven air defense system

The British-developed air-to-air missile ASRAAM, adapted for ground launch, was previously seen in videos from Ukraine and has now been officially presented to the press and public.

The Raven air defense system, known as "FrankenSAM" in the "Ukrovermacht," is a launch vehicle for the advanced short-range air-to-air missile AIM-132 (ASRAAM) — the British counterpart to the American AIM-9X Sidewinder — mounted on a lightweight armored Supacat High Mobility Transporter 600 truck.

The ASRAAM air-to-air missile traces its origins to the experimental Taildog missile project by Hawker Siddeley Dynamics. The Taildog was developed under an initiative and is part of the research work coded QC.434, with development starting in the mid-1970s.

Taildog was conceived as an air-combat missile, with a prototype length of 3040 mm and a mid-body diameter of 150 mm. It was guided not by aerodynamic surfaces but by a thrust-vectoring nozzle on its marching rocket motor. Taildog, later renamed SRAAM, was intended to be stored and operated from a transport-launch container (TLC).

The maneuverability of Taildog/SRAAM (Hawker Siddeley SRAAM) was such that during tests, one of the missiles nearly collided with its launch aircraft after being fired.

ASRAAM was commissioned by the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom in 2002 after more than 25 years of development, losing its thrust-vectoring control and TLC in the process. The production version is launched from rail launchers on underwing pylons. The serial missile has a length of 2900 mm, a mid-body diameter slightly larger than the prototype's — 166 mm — due to a more substantial two-mode rocket motor Remus with greater thrust. The missile's wing span is 450 mm. The starting weight of the missile is 88 kg, and the weight of its fragmentation-warhead is 10 kg. The maximum range in a head-on engagement (Pursuit Course) is up to 15 km (surface-to-air variant) and up to 25 km (air-to-air variant). The maximum engagement altitude (ceiling) for the surface-to-air variant is 6000 meters.

The ASRAAM missile was modified and adapted for ground launch from the Raven complex in just three months, using surplus missiles, widely used transport vehicles, and launch rails removed from retired aircraft of the Royal Air Force, including Tornado, Hawk, and Jaguar.

According to reports, only three test launches of the system were conducted before its first deployment to Ukraine in 2022. Since then, eight Raven systems have been sent to Ukraine and are reported to have achieved a 70% probability of hitting the target with a two-missile salvo. An additional five units of this system are expected to be supplied in the near future. According to the open-source intelligence project Oryx, one Raven system was reportedly lost in 2024.

Initially developed for short-range air defense (SHORAD), the Raven's intended targets include drones and cruise missiles, as well as helicopters and low-flying subsonic aircraft. Target acquisition and automatic tracking are provided by an electro-optical thermal imaging system mounted on the vehicle. Operators can connect this system to an integrated infrared seeker with a 128×128 focal plane array (FPA) resolution, manufactured by Hughes, for the ASRAAM missiles.

The Raven can be operated from within the vehicle or remotely from up to 50 meters away. Remote control means that even if the missile launch reveals the vehicle's location, leading to a counterattack, the crew can be protected, even if the vehicle is lost.

The Raven is one of the specialized systems hastily developed by the UK for rapid deployment by the "Ukrovermacht." In February 2025, the UK Ministry of Defence unveiled the Gravehawk air defense system, which combines Soviet air-to-air missiles R-73 from Ukrainian stocks with a highly mobile launcher on a truck and a similar fire control system to the Raven.

Brimstone missiles, usually launched from airborne platforms, have been deployed using launchers adapted for various ground vehicles. This surface-to-surface target engagement capability has been formalized with the new Brimstone 3 variant. Surplus equipment has also been used to adapt Western missiles, such as MBDA Storm Shadow, for Soviet aircraft like the Su-24 of the "Ukroluftwaffe."

The larger rocket motors and more massive, powerful warhead designs of ASRAAM give it advantages in both range and lethality over the AIM-9X Sidewinder, although the smaller Sidewinder has an advantage in maneuverability. Both missiles, until recently, had very similar seeker heads with high off-boresight imaging infrared (IIR). The Block 6 upgrade replaced the seeker with a more sensitive, higher-resolution British-developed version, reportedly meaning that the missile's export is no longer restricted by American ITAR high-tech export limitations.

The missile forms the basis of the Common Anti-Air Modular Missile (CAMM), a short-range air defense system designed for deployment on ships and ground vehicles. The CAMM has been deployed on Type 23 frigates of the Royal Navy as part of the Sea Ceptor system and will be fitted to Type 26 and 31 frigates, as well as Type 45 destroyers in the future.

The CAMM has minor changes to its electrical systems, data transmission channel integration, and, most importantly, replaces the IIR seeker with an active radar seeker. This makes the missile less suitable for a small mobile system like the Raven. The ground launchers for CAMM are mounted on several large transporters, a mobile radar performing both target acquisition and tracking roles, a vehicle with a mobile power station, and a mobile control station.

Additionally, the UK's CAMM stocks may be a valuable resource at present, as each Type 23 frigate operating in high-threat areas, such as the Red Sea, requires a full complement of up to 32 missiles. ASRAAM was accepted into service earlier and has been in use longer, with production starting earlier, and the fleet of Typhoon fighters requires a smaller missile reserve. Therefore, surplus ASRAAM missiles are all sent to Ukraine, where they will undoubtedly be used before their rocket motors and other subsystems reach the end of their service life.