The Royal Air Force has deployed the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System on anti-drone operations in the Middle East, fitted to Typhoon fighter jets, after moving from testing to operational deployment in under two months.
The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, known as APKWS, uses laser guidance to turn unguided rockets into precision weapons capable of engaging drones and other threats at a fraction of the cost of conventional missiles. Rapid procurement and testing work by the MoD alongside industry partners BAE Systems and QinetiQ enabled the system to reach operational service within months of development beginning.
A successful test strike against a ground-based target took place in March, followed by successful air-to-air firing conducted by RAF Typhoon pilots from 41 Test and Evaluation Squadron in April. Sorties have since been flown by 9 Squadron RAF Typhoon jets as part of ongoing defensive missions in the region.
Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard said the speed of deployment demonstrated what was possible when government and industry worked closely together. “This has been a superb effort working with industry to test and deploy this system in a matter of months, which will help the RAF shoot down many more drones at a much lower cost. Our Typhoon fleet is the backbone of UK and NATO air defence, with the RAF protecting Europe’s Eastern flank from Russian drone incursions and defending our partners across the Middle East.”
Simon Barnes, Group Managing Director of BAE Systems Air sector, said the capability demonstrated the Typhoon’s adaptability. “Our priority is to ensure the Royal Air Force and its allies have the advanced technologies they need today and into the future, to keep them ahead of evolving threats. This capability demonstrates Typhoon’s exceptional versatility and underlines its continued role as the backbone of combat air across Europe and the Middle East.”
Steve Wadey, Group Chief Executive Officer of QinetiQ, said his teams had provided the support needed to deliver urgent capability at pace. “From engineering expertise to live trials, our teams are providing the fundamental support needed by our armed forces, to deliver the urgent capabilities that ensure the UK and its allies remain safe and warfighting ready.”
Air Commodore Donal McGurk, Air 11 Group Deputy Director Operations, welcomed the deployment. “We welcome the speed of development and meticulous testing behind the deployment of these missile systems for use on our Typhoons. They are a valuable addition to the air defence package we are already employing with agility across the Middle East.”
Erm,
Has this system anything to do with UK industry ?
Or is it a US manufactured guidance kit stuck onto a US manufactured Hydra 70mm rocket?
Made by BAE.
BAE in the US no UK involvement apart from end profit
They are in very high demand all around the world with BAE massively increasing production at 2 sites in the US (100,000thn produced earlier this year)
Just seen Ron Sawson’s co mment below – a little bit strong and wrong
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So what, the IP is owned by British company. The very same people wittering away about General Dynamics in Cardiff being an American company are saying that BAE US operation is a foreign company. The never ending supply of armchair experts being OUTRAGED doesn’t change inconvenient facts.
Nobody should care when it’s adding a much needed capability in the here and now. Long term yes, we need to move away from US systems, domesticity produced would be ideal but not realistically possible every time, European allies would be the next option.
Domestically ffs, damn this archaic 20th century site with no edit function.
Be careful , do you want to kill BAE USA?
Isn’t hydra 70 a Canadian invention?
UK saw a gap in the market and developed the lmm to fill it so yes I suppose it’s disappointing to see the guided hydra being used….
….at least though a cheaper (good enough) missile is being deployed.
It’s taken hundreds of dog years to make lmm on wildcat operationally ready and would no doubt take hundreds more to integrate it on typhoon.
British Apaches will also be using the guided hydra and it might ultimately prove favourable for UK to discard the lmm and make do with the guided hydra instead
I read someplace that the lmm is more accurate but I can’t verify
No, the Hydra 70 is an American design, but it’s common to mix it up with its Canadian cousin, the CRV7. Because both are 2.75-inch (70 mm) rockets that are completely interchangeable and fit into the exact same launch pods.
The Belgians make a direct APKWS equivalent also, so we can source in Europe if needed.
LMM is more manoeuvrable and faster as it was designed from the ground up as an anti-air missile. APKWS being able to hit drones is more of a happy coincidence, but its simplicity makes it less expensive than LMM. LMM has other advantages in that due to its unique guidance it cannot be decoyed or dazzled and is not limited by whether a laser spot can be maintained on the target continually.
The main reason we are getting APKWS on Typhoon rather than LMM is that the LMM tube has enormous frontal area so carrying more than about 3 on a single pylon would cause a lot of drag.
I thought I saw an image of a tri-mount of this Apkws on a single pylon? Could be dreaming. Probably be quite draggy.
Don’t know where you are getting LMM being faster, its about 200m/s slower than a Hydra7, range is comparable, manoeuvrability is somewhat mute given the launch-bear-tweak flight path. But we wont as you say be seeing LMM on fast movers as they are way too chunky.
I see the usual Colenel Blimps are out wittering again. The system is designed and built by BAE.
Yes but no but..if the USA paid BAE to develop it, it becomes an American weapon….isn’t that the way it works??
OR….did BAE independently develop this and can flog it to whoever wants it….that’s the question.
AA
No it restricted by the US Govt’s foreign arms sales policy including allies like the UK
I have wondered why BAE don’t invest in a separate UK missile division apart from their 37.5% in MBDA which other EU partners in MBDA have developed and improved their own capabilities of jointly developed products Maybe because they have been continualy let down by successive UK governments on development and orders
Yet another brilliant capability added to this fantastic aircraft.
Cap the F35 buy and get a 48 T4/5 tranche ordered Instead.
This aircraft has way more capability now than F35 probably ever will, the carriers have just enough F35’s now too. Lets concentrate of Tempest.
There, my serious quota all used up !
I think the answer is both mate, we need another 30 F35B to create a third squadron, I would prefer an order of 43 ( total 90) to create and sustain 4 F35 operational squadrons.
We could also use an order of 60 Thypoon tranche 4, with the existing tranche 2 and 3 aircraft brought up the same standard, to create and sustain an additional 3 Thypoon squadrons.
That and fully fund Tempest.
All quite doable with 3.5% on defence…
I think we should go with Tranche 5 eurofighters if we want to keep the platform viable in the long term. Germany already signed a deal for 20 and the upgrades look very nice.
Perhaps so, unfortunately without a substantial uplift in defence spending, there won’t be any Thypoon orders.
Tranche 3 will get upgraded and Tranche 2 will slowly wither on the vine and gradually fall into obsolescence.
GCAP, the top up F35 order and a capable Loyal wingman, for both, will consume all the fast air funding for the next 15 years between them.
Its a shame, Thypoon has plenty still to offer, but budget priorities will mean it never reaches that capacity, not in the RAF anyway. The RAF will likely have a 40 strong upgraded multi roleTranche 3 fleet, operated by 2 squadrons and a 3 more operating Tranche 2 jets.
The weird thing is I can see a scenario where the F-35 feeds targeting information to the Typhoon sitting at distance with a truck load of Meteors and the meteor exploiting that exceptionally long range to take out enemy aircraft before they realise just how much trouble they are really in. But you have to have the airframes to do it and right now we don’t have enough of either.
I do hope they make full use of the Tranche 2 jets via data link, we will see, sadly I suspect they simply won’t upgrade them, they will become increasingly obsolescent and sidelined to the UKAD/ Falklands mission.
JC,
USAF is evidently embracing your reasoning, the FY 27 Budget now includes the plan to purchase 267 F-15EX instead of the 129 previously programmed. Recapitalizing the multirole fleet, as an interim measure to hedge against potential delays in F-47 development (e.g., the F-35 development clusterflock). One competent operational aircraft today is more than equivalent to a proposed fleet of PowerPoint next gen aircraft, if the fight begins tonight. Hope RAF takes note. 🤔
All very sensible mate..
The next 27 F35 ( 12A, 15B ) are spread out until 2033.
Then there’s Tempest.
There won’t be any Typhoon or extra F35A unless Tempest gets cancelled.
Absolutely mate. Unless there is a significant uplift to defence, like a clear road map to 3.5% by 2029, I cant even see how they can fund GCAP, a project whose front weighted spend is going to be ‘vast’ and compressed into the next 6/7 years to meet a hypothetical 2035 deadline.
Will Airwing accept IOU notes as currency?
Now Labour has decended into infighting as they slide steadily into political collapse like the last shower, god help us….
If this ends badly, then the only option left open for us is going to be the fall back F35A order, best we could hope for then is Warton assembly and a larger UK content.
The RAF will push ‘very hard’ for this and very hard against any further Thypoon orders.
Dont believe any closure dates yet in the announced pipeline for typhoon production, ~20 for luftwaffe think another small order someone else, but still time for UK the doors not closed yet.
The only serious affordable airforce is a high/ low 2 tier one anyway.
You gotta laugh at history – just when you need a f111 to turn a big rock in smaller ones you only have a super expensive limited life 5th gen to do it with. Sad Joke.
You have 47 B’s on hand and 15 more on order. According to Navy Outlook, “In practical terms, on a typical day, only around 10 or 11 of the 47 aircraft can fly, and perhaps 5 or 6 are fully combat-capable. Compare that with the stated ambition to deploy 24 aircraft on a single carrier.”
Even if availability rates were 80 percent or better, the RN still still wouldn’t have enough aircraft to support two carriers.
we should be racing to the cheapest way of taking out drones
Yeah, this is still too expensive and have no anti swarm capability, apparently an aircraft can only shot one and only after intercepting another.
I think price needs to go down to 10000 or less.
FYI the 68mm and 70mm laser guided rockets made by Thales cost less than $10k.
France just used them in UAE from Tiger helicopters (30mm gun + two rocket baskets carrying 22 LGR each) and proved very effective vs iranian drones.
That will be good if correct.
The recent sell of 10000 to Israel apparently came at 992M that means 99200 per unit, now it is possible this price it includes launchers, software code, maybe adaptation rights etc…
well that price is direct from Thales themselves.
Israel didnt order from Thales.
Amazing what can be done when there is a will. Any other time this would take years of study groups before anyone actually lifted a finger to actually do the work.
For drones should be mounting it on turbo prop training aircraft – typhoon is an expensive tool to deal with drones
So you want Trainee Pilots to fly dangerous missions where Drones might be sent against them ?
Or did you mean something completely different ?
I ment typical pre jet training aircraft that are still fast enough for the job but cheap per flight hour using qualified pilots.
Using an expensive to fly and maintain aircraft to shoot down cheap drones is not much better than using an asraam from a ground launcher. To make it cheap the launch platform cant be a top of the line fighter
Oh, so you want cheap pre Jet training aircraft with qualified pilots to fly missions that Typhoons currently fly. ?
I’m sure you meant well but……
I understand the scepticism however I would suggest that you get the best results using the right tool for the job and I can actually see a place for a proper squadron of either light aircraft or drone equipped with things like APKWS to deal with the ever increasing threat of drone swarms.
Best scenario is an aircraft that can take out drones using a weapon system that costs less per kill than the thing it is killing costs to make. That is where your trainer/close support aircraft come into play. There are versions of the Texan that have multiple wing hard points and a centreline stores hardpoint for instance and there probably isn’t a pilot in RAF or FAA service today that doesn’t have time on one.
All of this requires someone to spend money though so it won’t happen
The T7 red hawks are said to be $20m each.
There’s a very credible argument for a substantial order of these (100-200) and enabling them to carry basic weapons to support F35/eurofighter like this.
If the end up being carrier capable, this could also be a low weight and low cost way to add some basic catapult aircraft capability to the QE carriers if they eventually get cats as indicated.
What are you talking about ?
Carriers getting Cats ? You want the QE’s to send Trainers ?
You think there’s a “Credible argument to order 100-200 of these ?
Are you Jim’s American cousin ?
Big if, but if the $20m unit cost is representative, then 100 of these is only $2bn aquisistion cost. Having another 100 fast jet trained pilots on hand is really useful in such a small RAF. Link them in to the typhoon / F35 sensors and have them fly with these in low threat environments / drone defence missions. Cost per flight hour would be a fraction of Typhoon / F35.
RAF desparately needs to find a way to minimise putting hours on Typhoons and F35’s and to increase ability to counter unsophisticated threats in numbers.
Could even lug an external fuel tank off the carrier for buddy refueling.
I like! It got me thinking, we have the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight sitting around not doing much for most of the year, so why not get the Spitfires and Hurricanes fitted for anti-drone work? And then, rather than buying F-35As for nuclear sharing, we could use the Lancaster bomber?!
Well there are a few old FAA birds still kicking around.
Maybe a Stringbag could help ?
Oh and don’t forget all the Gliders. Pure stealth whispering death ! Anyone got a Tow rope ?
Aerolite Spitfire Type 433 cost said to be £750k. Bargain. Restart production 🙂
Winner winner, chicken dinner! We just need to get the Spitfire carrier qualified and its job done.
The T72s aren’t and will not be carrier capable.
Stop with the wet dreams of putting cats on the QE class for manned aircraft, it’s embarrassing.
I don’t give a monkeys if it’s US, French, UK, Israeli, or from Santa, quite frankly, as long as it’s stopping the RAF wasting more expensive missiles on cheap targets.
Amusing how fast integration went, compared to the snails pace gravy 🚆
There have all of a sudden been some remarkably fast procurements already on the front lines, and I don’t understand quite why they are happening while the rest of Defence is left behind.
Beehive, Skyhammer and now APKWS have all gone from requirement to in service in two or three months. They are presumably being managed by completely different teams so what allows them to succeed while more urgent or simpler procurements get mired in bureaucracy?
Bribes !
It’s working, I’ll take it.
Still not come across any deployment info regards Skyhammer, like how many launchers, which units, and so on.
Even at the height of the Cold War, RAF Regiment orbats were well known regards GBAD Squadrons with x number of Rapier and Ground Defence Sqns with x number of Scorpion and other CVRT types.
Opacity is the price we pay for speed then. Similarly there are myriad rumours about sonar, weapons, radar for the Beehive USVs but absolutely nothing confirmed by the MoD.
Yes, those extensive posts by M the other day. 👍
While I hope they’re right, frankly I don’t believe a word of the Brimstone stuff. Mistaking Project Wolfram for a Navy programme is a very LLM thing to do and would also explain the repeated very long comments.
Fingers crossed I’m wrong, they are privy to inside information and the USVs will be armed.
I think perhaps its suddenly speeded up so we can protect our Gulf Allies properly such as Qatar Bahrain , UAE and Oman . Most if not all we have security arrangements with , they would be very dissapointed if we turned up with nothing to defend them with . As we have no functional Royal Navy anymore that can be in more than two places at the same time , the UK best make sure the RAF are still useful me thinks and able to help allies and our interests . Good to see the quick innovation
It’s simple: When operational necessity rears it’s head risk appetite increases. For all the “gravy train” comments, the single thing that slows down procurment the most is the one two punch of making everything as safe as possible and making absolutely sure we are buying the right thing. You see the same thing when equipping Ukrainian Su-24’s with storm shadow, and everyone was like “Why can Ukraine do it with zip ties and bungie strings and we take 5 years and a multi-million program?”
Because if a Ukranian Su-24 blows up when a storm shadow explodes on a pylon it doesn’t matter.
Although BAE USA is a subsidiary of BAE UK it has a completely separate Board and leadership team. Product information cannot be shared with BAE UK without authorisation of the USA government. IP cannot be shared without approval of the USA government. Simples.
Good comment Paul I was about to make the same point.