Let’s talk about Ukraine’s air defenses. When the war kicked off Ukraine was using its soviet inheritance. Capable but aging weapon systems that started to burn through their hard to replace ammunition during the onset of the war when Russian stockpiles of cruise missiles and other air to ground weapons were at their peak and Russian warplanes were flying over more of Ukraine before taking unexpectedly high losses.
The west started funneling in air defense weaponry, first off was MANPADS, or man portable air defense systems. The big one from the U.S. was the legendary stinger missile system. The Stinger is portable, easy to use, and the latest variants are effective against targets that deploy countermeasures.
On the mid-range front, some air defense systems that have been sent over are the NASAMS and I-Hawk and IRIS-T. Today we’re going to talk a bit about the I-HAWK. This is an air defense system that is geared towards taking on low and medium altitude threats.
The HAWK system is an older one, named back when we had cool acronym names, the Homing All The Way Killer missile system was in service from 1959 until the early 2000s. The total of HAWK systems produced was around 1700, and the missiles produced were around 40,000.The HAWK has been around the block. Quite literally. There are so many variations of the system it would be hard to lay it all out here in a quick video, but the advantage of it being a mature system that is essentially on the way out to pasture is that a ton of work has been put into modifications.
The I-HAWK upgrade occurred in the 70s, and the upgrades kept on coming. Ukraine has at least two I-Hawk batteries donated by Spain. That’s about six launchers each plus the various radars and command systems. Some countries that the U.S. exported the weapons system to still operate this system today.
The nice part of this aspect is that there is still a support apparatus in place for these weapons, unlike some older retired systems. The I-HAWK system has many limitations. But it’s able to at least make air space contested and give Russian pilots pause as they plan their sorties.
The I-Hawk is also related to the National Advanced Air Defense System, or NASAM that has also been provided by Norway. Which means that the two systems can integrate with each other to some extent. Norway and the U.S. worked together to take the I-Hawk systems used by the Norwegian military and upgrade them, and some of those lessons learned resulted in the NASAM.
One big change was to use the newer and more advanced AIM-120 AMRAAM with the NASAM instead of the HAWK system's MIM-23B. The NASAM today is a massive change from the I-HAWK, but it still owes some of it's development to the Norwegian Adapted Hawk system.
The MIM-23B is no slouch, in the 90’s the missile was also modified to be able to take out tactical missiles.
The I-HAWK has even been tested firing other missiles besides the MIM-23B, including the AIM-7B Sparrow HAWK demonstrator. Considering the implementation of so-called Franken SAMS in Ukraine it’s not too far-fetched that Ukraine could eventually use another missile with the HAWK system if it hasn’t already.
The information on how many I-HAWKS Ukraine has, how they are performing, and if they plan on getting any more batteries of this SAM system are scarce. But it’s not outside the realm of possibility that they could end up with a few more older I-HAWKS as various operators decide to take up Uncle SAM so to speak on buying newer weapons such as the Patriot system.
