Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

[Bofferbrauer2]

Ryuu96 said:

Shame they can only produce 40 SCALP...I'm assuming the production line was stopped due to UK, France and Italy working on its successor called SPEAR 5 but with how successful Storm Shadow/SCALP has been you'd think that would have made them restart production earlier, I'm sure some countries would like to buy these missiles after seeing their success in Ukraine and SPEAR 5 won't be ready until 2028 for the land version and 2034 for the anti-ship version. The production line should be restarted full speed, it may delay SPEAR 5 but there's no rush after seeing how Storm Shadow/SCALP runs circles around Russia's air-defence. Though SPEAR 5 is set to also replace anti-ship missiles too. It's designed to be both a land attack missile and anti-ship missile.

It's possible that they already started prior to the announcement, but getting the tooling and machinery and new suppliers for parts to produce modern rockets simply takes some time. So if France brings production lines back online, it will take some time to get it done.

Storm Shadow/SCALP is also pretty maintenance-heavy; the UK spent 30M just to extend the life of their Storm Shadows by 5 years in 2013, so mothballed rockets will also take some some serious time and effort to reactivate.

Edit: I wonder which version of the AASM France will send to Ukraine, as there are multiple versions depending on the explosive charge. The most mainline version has a 250kg charge, and is also probably the version being sent to Ukraine since January (France is sending ~50 AASM per month to Ukraine since then) but there are also versions from just 125kg up to 1000kg, the latter of which only came online last year and would be a good substitute to the Storm Shadow due to similar characteristics.

Last edited by Bofferbrauer2 - on 28 March 2024