Footage has emerged showing UK-supplied Brimstone missiles being used against Russian forces with the missiles hitting multiple tanks in rapid succession.

Video footage released by the Ukrainian defence ministry shows the Brimstone missiles hitting Russian armour. A statement from forces said:

“From the first days of the open invasion of Russia, the support of our foreign partners has played an important role in countering enemy forces. Weapons, material and technical means that give us fellow countries are our strength on the way to victory.”

On April 28th, James Heappey the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces, confirmed that “hundreds” of Brimstone missiles would be sent to Ukraine, the first of which were slated to arrive in the “next few weeks”.

What is Brimstone?

Brimstone is a ground/air-launched ground attack missile developed by MBDA UK for the Royal Air Force.

Each Brimstone is 1.8 meters in length and weighs 50 kg. The weapon is guided by dual active millimetric-wave radar and semi-active laser, meaning it can be used in adverse weather conditions and at night.

Brimstones’s wide range of target types includes:

  • fast moving and manoeuvring vehicles,
  • tanks and armoured cars, bunkers,
  • naval vessels including swarming and individual Fast In-shore Attack Craft (FIAC).

What else has Britain sent?

Britain has so far sent more than 6,900 new anti-tank missiles, additional consignments of Javelin anti-tank missiles, air defence systems including Starstreak anti-air missiles, 1,360 anti-structure munitions and 4.5 tonnes of plastic explosives.

What has the UK sent to Ukraine so far?

The information was provided by Leo Docherty, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (jointly with the Ministry of Defence), you can read the information below.

“The United Kingdom strongly condemns the appalling, unprovoked attack President Putin has launched on the people of Ukraine. We continue to stand with Ukraine and continue to support its right to be a sovereign, independent and democratic nation. The United Kingdom and our allies and partners are responding decisively to provide military and humanitarian assistance. This includes weapons that help Ukraine’s heroic efforts to defend itself.

We have sent more than 6,900 new anti-tank missiles, known as NLAWs—next-generation light anti-tank weapons—a further consignment of Javelin anti-tank missiles, eight air defence systems, including Starstreak anti-air missiles, 1,360 anti-structure munitions and 4.5 tonnes of plastic explosives.

As Ukraine steadies itself for the next attack, the UK is stepping up efforts to help its defence. As we announced on 26 April, we will be sending 300 more missiles, anti-tank systems, innovative loitering munitions, armoured fighting vehicles and anti-ship systems to stop shelling from Russian ships. The United Kingdom has confirmed £1.3 billion of new funding for military operations and aid to Ukraine. This includes the £300 million the Prime Minister announced on 3 May for electronic warfare equipment, a counter-battery radar system, GPS jamming equipment and thousands of night-vision devices.

The Ministry of Defence retains the humanitarian assistance taskforce at readiness; its headquarters are at 48-hours readiness, and the remainder of the force can move with five days’ notice, should its assistance be requested. The UK has pledged £220 million of humanitarian aid for Ukraine, which includes granting in kind to the Ukraine armed forces more than 64,000 items of medical equipment from the MOD’s own supplies. We are ensuring that the UK and our security interests are secured and supporting our many allies and partners, especially Ukraine.”

 

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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88 COMMENTS

  1. The improvisation of the Ukrainians is impressive!
    Is the British army taking notes?
    Btw has anyone seen their Spod(fishing) bomb for dropping grenades from their UAVs …

        • You have to suspect that!

          It is a different world now with missiles, particularly if you will take a few risks in a war time situation.

          You can rapidly develop and deploy a whole new combination of missile body/seeker head/software/firmware in days if you really want to. Aided a lot by the ability to print some of the prototype parts.

          Even more so if you are prepared to use unprotected launchers offering no protection for the missiles themselves or the launch crew.

    • Excellent footage of the bombing from light drones, have no sympathy for the Russians any longer, and laugh my ass off when the Ukrainians put silly music to it as the Russian rapists run about and generally run away!

      • I don’t really like the glorification of death, but considering what’s happened to their country and the atrocities by Russian forces, putting a little music to the death and destruction of their enemy is to be expected.

        • Here we see missiles being fired by the indigenous population against legitimate wartime targets of an invading army?

          I’m not seeing anything here that does not constitute reasonable lawful warfare? The strikes are very precise and there is little risk of collateral?

          If Russians don’t want to be shot at they should not invade?

          • I was talking about putting it to music, not the strikes themselves and using the information.

          • I do think the music is quite distasteful TBH.

            This is not for TikTok and soldiers/tank crew will be killed in these missile attacks.

            That said the Ukrainians are having to work their PR hard to keep this in the public eye and the fact that it is still on the front pages after over 3 months is quite something.

          • I try not to watch the videos to be honest. Keeping up with what is happening is quite horrible enough. I’ve seen and treated so many torn apart, smashed and burnt people it does not take a lot to move my mind back to unpleasant things.

    • Yes JM, the work by the “ex”-enthusiasts who have made drones a real forte is on the Internet if anyone is interested. The one video where they dropped a grenade from 200ft in through the sunroof of a car, taking a couple of Russian troops out will change things. If you can take out APCs & disable tanks as they are doing with a bit of kit that’s less than £300, what will they do with the spicy stuff like Brimstone?

      Remarkable chaps.

    • When your back is against a corner, it’s amazing what you can come up with. Same happened in the Falklands, stuff that would normally take decades to design and waste money on, took days.

      • Aided by the answer to everything being YES and a blank chequebook approach….plus an awful lot of enthusiasm, knowledge and dedication.

        Hope the world sees that the UK is still really good at this stuff.

        • It’s a very cynical and amoral take, but there’s no doubt this war has been a tremendous advert for British military hardware

          • Yes, it has showcased that the UK does have some of the very best tech. It is a bit like, fish in a barrel as the Russian tactics have been so useless.

            At least the perception of UK missiles being a bit second rate generated by the losses of ’82 is gone for good. That was mostly down to the one-ship-one-system problem as there was no layering.

            Arms sales are, pretty much by definition, a moral vacuum.

            ‘If you sell [arms] they will inevitably end up with the people who have the cash to buy them’ Sir Humphrey Appleby

          • Alway an interesting discussion the morality around the sale of arms. I do agree it’s a moral vacuum, less so when you are selling them to your allies who’d you think you know. But the reality is any weapon made and sold may end up being used in an amoral way, but the flip side is it may be used to protect innocents from monsters.

            Never a black and white question or answer, like so many things.

      • Pretty sure at least one of those quick modifications in the Falklands lead to loss of life a couple of decades later and killed off any hope of a homegrown ASW aircraft, when a design flaw in a quick modification never got spotted and became “the norm” after the conflict.

  2. Tying into a recent article on the future of MBTs, one of the options is a return to dedicated ATGM carriers. The army is already looking at potential platforms, including a Brimstone VLS system on a Boxer chassis.

    What do people think? On the plus side, a Boxer carrying 16 Brimstone with a spotter drone can engage an entire tank squadron from comfortably beyond the range of return fire with a high chance of kills. Its easier to sustain logistically, far more mobile in many common terrain types, and minimises the risk to crew and kit. Its also likely to be notably cheaper.

    On the downside, its a far less versatile asset. The tank can provide direct fire support against every target type, not just armour, including in built up areas where a VLS missile system will likely struggle with buildings. It has better rough terrain performance, and is less vulnerable to surprises (although obviously not invulnerable.

    • Both are required.

      The Boxer Brimstone can replace the lost Swingfire capability. A platoon per armoured and armoured recc regiment.

      Is the army really looking at such a system? I’ve not read of any statements, seems to be deafening silence.

    • Is it better to mount all 16 or even 24 Brimstone missiles on a single expensive boxer chassis, or mount them on 4 JLTV with networked NLOS capabilities.

      Russian armour wouldn’t last a week against 1,000 JTLV’s equipped with 8,000 Brimstone/SPIKE missiles with NLOS networked targeting. It will get to the point it is the Russians hiding in the tunnels soon.

    • I mentioned before having seen that vertical launch Brimstone prototype. something of that nature but including Starstreak/Marlet (same launch tubes) and Brimstones or different versions of the Boxer carrying one or other of those missiles working in unison could be a very potent weapon capable of engaging anything other than high flying aircraft providing a bubble around a military formation.

      • It’s definitely an interesting concept to explore, and from a cost perspective a single platform replacing both Stormer and the old Swingfire is definitely attractive.

        My primary concern, beyond the “can it actually do the tank’s job” question, is it still leaves us without a cannon-based AA platform. Drones are going to be the most common air threat to a ground force, and having to shoot them down with expensive missiles isn’t sustainable.

        • The increase in drones means weapon system like the old ZSU-23 would be needed with good targeting can take out many drones, espicially if we develop as is said above BOXER with VLS thy can have mix of brimstone and Starstreak can can provide support to tank units

    • With our lack of tank numbers a system like this should be a no brainer. Probably why we’ll never see one. Or if we do it’ll be 20 years late and over budget.

    • Another issue is survivability in a drone rich environment. VLS would be highly vulnerable and if hit would not only take out the launcher but also other vehicles and troops in the area.

      What we need to focus on is counter drone tech. Once you can secure the air, then you can use range to your favour and invest in smart artillery

  5. I always assumed the name was a joke – Hellfire and Brimstone, as I understood the original Brimstone started as a development of the Hellfire missile.

    • Brimstone was a WWII deception operation that was, maybe, part of MINCEMEAT.

      It was the fake plan for landings in Western Med.

      That may, of course, have no connection to the naming of the missile!

  6. The only thing about drones is they are even more susceptible to the age old weakness of air power….really bad weather and an enemy that insists on not playing and hides.

    But I do agree drone are going to change warfare, especially things like micro drones and and swarming drones are going to change the threat environment even for infantry.

    • Isn’t Putin meant to be very sick with a blood cancer? He still seems to be very alive at the moment!

      • Indeed. Those reports may only be wishful thinking. Even if he did pop his clogs soon he might be replaced with someone more capable & better aquainted with reality.

  8. There’s currently a huge battle raging in the town of Huliaipole. It’s a major cross roads and both sides need to own it. Russians are saying they have knocked out 26 Ukrainian T72, ( via use of Ka52) whilst Ukraine is saying they lost 4 T64s. But they do admit to have suffered a set back.
    That said I have noticed a huge rise in Russian propaganda, which I believe is an attempt to mitigate the numerous social media posts regards how badly Moscow is doing by simply flooding the net with pro Russian posts in which to dilute the negative Russian ones.

    • The truth will always come out after the battle. Let them continue to propagate falsities. Such obvious fakeness is such a huge weakness but a strength for Ukraine.

      • The current one doing the rounds is how this T72 survived 3 different Ukrainian tank strikes and continued to fight
        I suppose you have to start somewhere in which to sell the message that the T72 is a world beating tank.

        • Thanks for linking, I don’t see a lot of Russian content to be honest, and it’s good to step outside the bubble.
          So it survived 3 glancing tank rounds while in a hull-down position, in concealment? The crew must be feeling lucky and they did well staying in the fight, but it doesn’t say a huge amount about the tank, to be honest!
          Their claim that the 3 burning objects on the horizon are 3 Ukrainian tanks that this particular one killed is also quite a thing to say!

    • The Russians are having some successes and are grinding forward in places- but it is slow and they are taking casualties that they cannot replace. I cannot see them succeeding in the long run.

    • Sounds likely- I was frankly surprised how little we’ve heard from the Russians. After 2014 and the little green men, Shrewsbury, etc. everyone was talking about how good Russia’s information war was. But it seems to have fallen flat on its face this time around. It does make me wonder if the US is somehow leaning on social media to effectively shadow ban pro-Russian content, or at least drown it with pro-Ukrainian stuff.
      Sounds like Huliaipole will be quite the slog- not all Russians are pushovers. I could believe total Ukrainian vehicle losses at 26, but just tanks is a stretch. only 4 T64s seems a bit light too, if it is a major clash, so I guess it’s the standard thing about picking somewher in the middle as the truth? Sounds like a good place to deploy Brimstone, except that I wonder how well it works in a contested area in kill box mode- I imagine it can’t tell the difference between a Russian T-72 and a Ukrainian one… laser guidance only, unless well out of the way of Ukrainian assets?

  9. I think the answer is a better focus on infantry. Tanks are going to need to operate further back and rely more heavily on infantry to clear ahead of them. Which means both the infantry and tanks need air coverage from drones and traditional air assets, but that coverage will have be man portable. Tanks won’t be able to operate in cities at all.

    The main issue in modern warfare is the defenders ability to hide and ambush if your forced to fight in an urban situation, as Russia is seeing and we saw to a lessor degree in Iraq/afgan. Unless you have huge numbers of infantry to clear all buildings, which isn’t practical, the only option is to go light and focus more on the infantry to do the work, with support from long ranged artillery, which will result in higher casualties and devestation to said urban area. In other words going back to ww1 and before tactics.

    Which isn’t a PC /media friendly way to fight a war and won’t be popular back home.

  10. Better the missiles be exploding on a Russian tank than gathering dust on a shelf in the UK. They are only valuable when they are in use.

  11. The answer to cheap drones is great radar and lasers. Israel and Turkey are pushing forward on both the drones and lasers, and we are playing catch up.

  14. Good to see UK weapons performing albeit tinged with a dose of sympathy for the poor so-and-sos on the receiving end who are most likely just following orders (or else…). I fear that with cost of living crisis being top of the political agenda, our ability to spend more on defence so as to put any lessons learned (like the apparent success of Brimstone) into practice will be quite limited – unless we make some more tough choices on priorities. In this regard, it’s interesting to note how Finland is being touted as a major boost to NATO – despite their having a very small regular force – based on their large reserves and apparent strength in artillery. Begs the question: if no more money is available, should we also further specialise and (eg.) make the most of our complex weapons abilities whist allowing (eg) tank and infantry numbers to further reduce.

  15. I’m not convinced that the conclusions everyone is jumbing to about the place for MBT (including myself initially) are correct. The reasons I have for this are quite complex.

    Firstly, the Russian tanks have demonstrated a propensity to literally blow their tops when hit with top attack weapons, such as Javelin, NLAW, etc. Many have explained that this is probably down to the way in which the ammunition is stored in a carrousel below the turret which is vulnerable to top attack weapons. This suggests that Russian designed tanks have a particular weekness, although that does not mean storing the ammunition in a turret bussle as per NATO tanks is any less vulnerable… So detinating ammunition does appear to be a particular vulnerability for some MBT design and that quite possibly includes NATO designs given the turret roof only has thin armour protection.

    However, if we look at what has happened on the ground in the Ukraine we have to ask ourselves why did the Russian advance grind to a halt. Was it Ukrainian resistance or Russian failings. The simple answer is a bit both. I think that the Russian advance was so poorly supported logistically that in many cases the Russian columns simply stopped through a lack of supplies. As such the Ukrainian’s were able to move into position and make damn sure they could not move again, except backwards!

    If this lack of mobility is the major contributary factor that many believe then before we suggest that the day of the MBT is over we need to ask what might have happened if the Russian’s had concentrated their forces more effectively, given them the logistical support they needed and had clear and concise objectives and of course they should have moved in in the summer. Under these conditions it is possible to imagine the considerable number of Russian MBT being able to make more rapid progress making it far more difficult for the Ukrainian’s to mount the ambush tactics that have proved so successful. This is not to say that the Russian designed tanks would have escaped losses – that would be fanciful given their propensity to explode and the courage of the Ukrainian’s – but I think that they might have achieved more for their trouble than they have to date.

    Clearly, there are issues and lessons to be learnt but boots on the ground are still needed as demonstrated by the struggle for Mariupol and tanks still bring huge firepower to the battlefield. However, the top attack threat is real and the British Army and NATO in general need to have a close look at their designs. For example, if we are going to reduce our tank numbers to the stupidly low number of 148, I would take the opportunity of loading up a couple of Challenger 2 to be scrapped and fire NLAW’s at them. If they cook off a la T72’s then some serious thought needs to go into future tank design.

    Lastly, Isreal perhaps shows the way forward for AFV designers with their active defence systems. These have proved very successful in limited combat scenarios against ATGW. If they prove as successful in a peer on peer conflict then the MBT will still have a huge impact on the modern battlefield – but they will also be a tad more expensive to procure in the first place. Perhaps the cost of an all singing and dancing MBT will bring about change…

    Just some random thoughts.

    Cheers CR

  16. Has this ground based brimstone launcher existed for a while or has it been developed for Ukraine?

    • It was a demonstration rig that we tested a while back. It has existed for a while and they have just made a few more very quickly by the looks of it and put them on 4x4s.

      As others have mentioned above, the British Army requirement falls under BGOAA which is being run by Dstl. This should see us having either a wheeled or tracked anti-tank Brimstone carrier around 2030, based on Boxer or Ares (Ajax).

  17. What’s the rough price of these Brimstones compared to Javelin, NLAW, Gustav, AtGM, Hellfire and a 120mm rank shell? They’re bloody good but the “bang for your buck” (pun intended) cost must be up there.

    • Around £175,000. NLAW is about £20,000, Javelin more like £70,000.

      They all have their place given their respective strengths and range. The stated aim of the British Army’s BGOAA program is to have ant-tank armour with a range of 10km, so if Brimstone meets that by then it will be very useful. NLAW is a close in weapon, ideally 200m. Javelin’s range is 2.5km to 4.5km depending if it is fired by infantry or a vehicle.

      Ideally we would have a mix of all 3.

      • Thanks Rob, that’s pretty big money per piece but I can’t imagine any tank being this cheap! Hope they’re taking out the SPHs, thermobaric rocket launchers as well as Russian tanks.

  18. What I am curious is how the Ukraine losses are stacking up. As everyone has vested interest, accurate info is impossible but it’s rarely reported. It’s like the old days of warfare, only report on the victories of the friendly forces and never the cost.

    In a war of attrition, can Ukraine keep this up, it would seem so with resupplies the west, but equally those resupplies need resupplying, as for example are NLAW stock must be getting low and we don’t appear to have ordered any more yet.

  19. Sad though that the UK defence contracting department at the MOD is a hive of corrupt specialists who rig bids and line their own pockets while young men get their legs blown off. Just saying.

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