The UK is looking to purchase Israeli Rampage air-to-ground missiles to replenish its stock following deliveries of Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine.
A team of Royal Air Force officers and Defence Equipment and Support technicians recently visited Israel to examine the weapon, The National revealed, citing sources.
The UK is looking to equip its Typhoon fighter jets with the Israel Aerospace Industries missile as it is “too long” to fit internally on the F-35, the Abu Dhabi-based outlet added.
London is considering the air-launched ballistic missile because it is similar to the Storm Shadow in lethality and penetrating power.
The 15-foot (4.5 meters), 1,200-pound (544 kilograms) GPS/INS-guided missile has a range of around 300 kilometers (186 miles) and a 150-kilogram (330 pounds) warhead.
The missile has anti-jamming features and costs a lot less than the Storm Shadow, which is priced at over $3 million.
“It is really interesting that the RAF are looking at this as they can’t afford a load more Storm Shadows or can’t get them quick enough so it appears they are looking around for cheaper alternatives that essentially can do a very similar job but at a better price point,” The National quoted Janes’ Middle East editor Jeremy Binnie as saying.
The Rampage missile can be fired in a salvo of four to take out high-value hardened targets such as airbases, command posts, ammunition dumps, and radar installations.
Israel launched the missile in 2018 and a year later deployed it in Syria for a strike against a missile factory and a weapons warehouse.
“Sending four fighter jets carrying four Rampage missiles each allows us to strike under conditions we’ve never had before,” the outlet quoted the head of IMI Systems’ Firepower Division Eli Reiter.
It was not only “a quantum leap in performance” but it had “extraordinary cost-effectiveness,” he added.
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