Italy bolsters Ukraine's defence with advanced missile system

The Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs confirmed that a second SAMP/T system battery, the only European solution capable of countering ballistic missiles, will be delivered to Ukraine. Here are the performance details of this system.

According to Reuters, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani admitted in an interview with a local radio station that a second SAMP/T system battery will be delivered to Ukraine as previously leaked. It will most likely be the battery currently deployed in Kuwait, which is expected to return to Italy soon.

This is in response to desperate pleas from Kyiv, whose own anti-ballistic capabilities have been depleted due to a lack of missiles for Soviet-era systems, and the number of Western systems delivered is far from sufficient compared to the needs.

Introduced into service in 2011, the Franco-Italian SAMP/T (Surface-to-Air Missile Platform/Terrain) air defence system is one of the most advanced air and anti-ballistic systems in the world.

It is based on the use of Aster missiles initially designed for ship defence, which from the Aster-30 version can also be used on land. The SAMP/T, due to its younger age, differs significantly from the Patriot system.

The European design is much more compact, allowing everything to fit on a few trucks without needing towed trailers with radar, as is the case with the American design. Another advantage is the minimum crew requirement of 14, compared to 90 soldiers for the Patriot, and vertical launchers that hold eight missiles each.

Additionally, a significant advantage of the SAMP/T system is its radar, which provides 360-degree target detection capability. This is not possible with the current configurations of the Patriot system equipped with a sector radar with a detection field of 120 degrees. Thanks to the IBCS architecture or the still-testing LTAMDS radar, this issue can be mitigated by collecting targeting data from other radars.

For immediate solutions, the only option is pairing at least two radars per Patriot battery (only such variants were sent to Ukraine). With SAMP/T, this problem doesn't exist. Still, another issue exists: the not-very impressive range of just over 96 kilometres for the basic "Arabel" radar, made with PESA (Passive electronically scanned array) technology, allowing the engagement of ten targets simultaneously.

It's unclear whether the Italians will deliver the system in this configuration or with a newer radar Kronos Grand Mobile High Power or Ground Fire 300 made with AESA (Active electronically scanned array) technology with a detection range of 300 kilometres.

The system's interceptor missiles are the Aster-30, designed by the MBDA corporation, enabling the engagement of targets at a distance of around 31 kilometres (ballistic missiles) or around 121 kilometres (aircraft) from the launcher. The missiles reach speeds of Mach 4.5 (5554 km/h) and destroy the target with a 15 kg fragmentation warhead.

It is worth noting that the warhead is equipped with "PIF" manoeuvring engines to bring it as close as possible to the target. While not as sophisticated as the PAC-3 MSE missiles, it allows a much more acceptable unit price with similar effectiveness.

In one of the Swiss air defence systems comparison documents, it was mentioned that the unit cost of the Aster-30 is £1.57 million per piece, while for the PAC-3 MSE, it is about £2.99 million according to data from the US DoD from 2023.