By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Ryuu96 on 28 March 2024
Edit Thread
Bofferbrauer2 said:
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.

Yeah it isn't clear if these 40 are repaired missiles or newly manufactured missiles.

If I was UK/France I would have restarted manufacturing as soon as they showed their effectiveness in Ukraine, I bet there are other countries as well who have been paying attention and would like to buy some now so that's just an added bonus. My fear is with Germany refusing to send Taurus and America refusing to send ATACMS, the strain is entirely on Storm Shadow/SCALP which will run out eventually if it's no longer being made.

UK had an estimated 700-1000 made and France has an estimate 600-700ish. Greece definitely won't be sending theirs back to Ukraine, I doubt India, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE will either. Italy ordered 200 but their support for Ukraine has been fairly weak. Also a lot of these missiles were ordered a long time ago so probably a lot of them are in need of repair, then they also won't be sending their entire stock.

So that's why I think they should restart production, for Ukraine but if they need other reasons, they could probably find more buyers for them now too and with its replacement being 2028 at the earliest, we're going to start running low on Storm Shadow stock soon enough. Ukraine has been very selective in their targets though and only use like, a few missiles per target.