Deadly 'darts' for Russian aviation: StarStreak MANPADS' features

Escape from the StarStreak: Mission Impossible

The StarStreak portable anti-aircraft missile complex is designed to destroy unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as helicopters and enemy aircraft. In fact, the StarStreak man-portable air-defense system can be called a kind of 'intermediate link' between anti-aircraft missile complex and short-range air defense systems, as it can destroy targets at an altitude and at a range of up to 7 km.

Unlike other anti-aircraft missile complexes, the British StarStreak does not have a typical high-explosive warhead. Instead, it is equipped with three separate 'darts' with ammunition, which are created from tungsten. 'Darts' have a fragmentation warhead and can accelerate to a speed of Mach 3 (that's about 3500 km/h). They also have their own guidance system, that is, each of the three 'darts' is guided: it will be almost impossible for the enemy to 'escape' from such weapons. In addition, StarStreak has a detonator with a slow action - the 'dart' explodes after penetrating the body of a UAV, helicopter or plane, which allows the military to cause as much damage as possible to enemy weapons.

The thermal imager is responsible for target detection in StarStreak. Aiming at the target is carried out by a laser beam, as, for example, in the Ukrainian Stufna anti-tank missile complex. This allows the missile to 'ignore' enemy heat traps and other means of countermeasures, but the operator must 'lead' the target until the moment of defeat.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces actively use these complexes against Russian UAVs, helicopters, and airplanes. The Ukrainian military first shot down a Russian helicopter with a British StarStreak man-portable air-defense system at about the end of March - the beginning of April this year; the victim of the British complex was the Mi-28H.

'Invisible' air defense systems for Ukraine's Armed Forces

The StarStreak complex can be used in several variants: directly 'from the shoulder', as a stationary complex with several missiles, as well as as part of a mobile platform. In April 2022, the UK decided to transfer the self-propelled version of StarStreak to the Armed Forces of Ukraine — the short-range Stormer HVM air defense system. This system is a tracked chassis with eight launchers for anti-aircraft missiles located on it, as well as an additional ammunition of 12 missiles.

The peculiarity of this air defense system is that it is guided to the target using a laser beam in semi-automatic mode and does not have its own radar, so it is actually 'invisible' to the on-board sensors of airplanes and helicopters of the Russian army.

Like the StarStreak, the Stormer anti-aircraft missile system can destroy targets at an altitude and at a range of up to 7 km. At the same time, it can detect targets at greater distances: an air target of the 'plane' type up to 18 km, a 'helicopter' type - up to 8 km.

The first Stormer HVM air defense systems appeared at the front at the end of July this year, and in mid-August, the Joint Forces Group hinted that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were actively shooting down the Russian occupation equipment with the help of British air defense systems.

Oleksii Levkov, Defense Express journalist - specially for Espreso.TV