France and Germany Are Beefing Over Air Defense Batteries
At a conference at the Paris airshow earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed that the first of France and Italy’s powerful Mamba air defense batteries are now deployed operationally in Ukrainian service, where they are “protecting key infrastructure and lives.”
Like the comparable medium-range U.S. Patriot system, the Mamba (known less evocatively by the acronym SAMP/T and built by French-Italian consortium Eurosam) is effective against both aircraft and cruise and short-range ballistic missile threats. It thus constitutes an especially valuable addition to Ukraine’s battle-tested air defenses against daily Russian attacks.
The French president also announced both Belgium’s status as an interested party in the French-German FCAS stealth fighter program and a half-billion-euro sale of French short-range Mistral M3 man-portable air defense missiles by Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, France and Hungary.
But Macron was primarily there to launch a broadside at German plans for an integrated European missile defense system announced last October. Called the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), it has already been allocated 5 billion in funding from Berlin and attracted 17 partner countries, including the UK, the Baltics, Finland and Sweden.
It does not, however, include France and Italy, nor Poland, Germany’s bulwark against Russian attack. (Poland is pursuing bilateral projects with the UK and U.S.)
Paris’s fundamental objection to Sky Shield is that France’s ostensible partner in EU leadership is choosing to source two of three kinetic components from Israel and the United States, rather than use made-in-Europe SAMP/T and Aster missiles.
Germany and France have often talked about the need to keep Europe as self-sufficient as possible in terms of defense industrial capability, and Macron’s complaint arguably carries weight beyond simple commercial self-interest.
A report by Berlin-based security think tank SWP says that the current plan “…does not take European security interests sufficiently into account, has failed to convince partners…” and is “…at odds with the goal of strengthening Europe’s industrial and technological defense base.”
Germany reasons that it can import U.S.-built Patriot missiles and Israeli Archer III anti-ballistic missile interceptors off the shelf in comparatively short order. Meanwhile, the short-range layer of the defense system will be provided by the IRIS-T air defense system built primarily by Germany—to which Italy, Sweden and Greece also significantly contributed to development and production.
Germany argues that Sky Shield is intended to be a platform-agnostic network, meaning that its choice of foreign missiles would not prevent pooling radar coverage with users of SAMP/T or other systems. Air defenses require a mix of layered short-, medium-, and high-altitude weapons, and Germany Arrows would provide top layer defensive umbrella in exchange for smaller nations chipping in lower layer defenses within their means.
Nonetheless, Germany plans to spend 4 billion euros on the Israeli Arrow 3 alone—none of which will go to Europe’s defense industry.
European Missile Defense: Why Now?
European states have abruptly become very interested in missile defense—ever since Putin invaded Ukraine and expended most of his country’s stockpile of cruise and ballistic missiles. Occasionally, these were used on targets of military value, but they were more often used for blasting residential areas in the hearts of Ukrainian cities.
While Russia’s offensive capacity is temporarily depleted, expanding missile production shows that the country believes in the coercive value of such conventional strategic strikes, hinting at how those may be employed in a battle with NATO. Admittedly, Russia may devote more of its missiles to military targets in a NATO fight, particularly hitting airbases.
But, even scarier, many of the weapons used against Ukraine are dual-capable. This means that they could also deliver Russia’s large arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons.
The German capital of Berlin has long been just within range of nuclear-capable Iskander ballistic missiles in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Germany has limited access to around 20 nuclear gravity bombs shared by the United States, and France controls both its own air- and submarine-launched nuclear missiles to provide deterrence against nuclear attacks. From Germany’s vantage, Sky Shield may obviously seem more urgent.
Macron is arguing that European defense requires a more deliberate assessment of which kinds of air defenses are effective against a broad array of threats—including drones—and that Germany’s rapid, off-the-shelf buys create long-term dependencies on third parties that leave the country “subject to timetables, priorities and sometimes even authorizations…” outside of European control.
Mamba Vs. Patriot
When it comes to Germany’s Sky Shield, France believes that its newer SAMP/T system (including the Aster missile and Arabel radar) should provide a reasonable substitute for the U.S. Patriot system—a system that has been continuously evolved over four decades of service.
PAC-2 and PAC-3 Patriot missiles deployed to Ukraine rapidly achieved prominence by shooting down supposedly unstoppable Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles apparently targeted at the Patriot battery. Patriot missiles near the border were likely involved in an ambush that simultaneously downed four Russian aircraft over Russian airspace. Time will tell how SAMP/Ts transferred by the Italian Army fare in Ukrainian service.
While Patriot and SAMP/T are in the same weight class, their specifics differ. For example, Patriot batteries are priced at over $1.1 billion each, while a Mamba battery supposedly costs around half of that.
Bear in mind, a battery isn’t just a collection of launchers and missiles. It entails multiple mobile radars, generators and command vehicles intended to integrate together and, ideally, network with other radars and defense batteries in the region.
An Aster battery typically numbers 4 to 6 truck-based launchers (each with eight missiles ready for launch), is controlled via a command truck, and is guided by a Thales Arabel 90 engagement radar on another truck with a generator. French and Italian Mambas use different 8x8 trucks by Renault and Iveco.
Thanks to greater automation, a Mamba battery requires just 14 operators (supposedly, the battery in Ukraine has 20). That compares favorably to around 90 personnel in a Patriot battery, which has two types of towed launchers, electrical generator trucks, towed radar arrays, and a truck-based control station.
In terms of sheer range, Patriot batteries using role-specialized missiles retain a modest edge over the Mamba. Patriot PAC-2 missiles with proximity warheads are effective against aircraft-style targets up to 100 miles away, while kinetic hit-to-kill PAC-3 and PAC-3 MSE missiles can swat tactical/short-range ballistic missiles out to between 21 and 37 miles away.
By contrast, the Mamba’s Aster 30 Block 1 missiles can down planes 75 miles away if they’re flying high (or 31 miles when flying low) and missiles out to between 15 and 21 miles.
However, while a Patriot battery must be oriented to defend against attacks from a specific arc (until new GhostEye MR radars enter service), the Mamba’s jam-resistant Arabel radar provides 360 degree coverage over a 37 mile radius while spinning at 60 rpm. (A queued, narrow-focus scan is required for the 75 mile maximum range.)
That helps when defending a city like Kyiv, which has been assailed by Russian drones and missiles approaching from the north, east, and south.
A Mamba battery can simultaneously engage 16 targets at a time, with eight missiles released in just ten seconds, compared to 8-9 engagements for a Patriot battery.
An Aster 30 missile accelerates to up to 4.5 times the speed of sound in under four seconds, closing towards its target using inertial guidance and radioed-in course adjustments from the battery. Thrust-vectoring controls in its first-stage rocket and lateral thrusters in the second-stage body give the missile extreme maneuverability leveraged by a built-in radar seeker used for terminal accuracy.
Of course, the ground-based Mamba has a much smaller userbase made up of just the militaries of France, Italy, and Singapore. The Patriot system, on the other hand, is used by sixteen (and counting) operators—including the German Army.
That said, the Aster has an extensive presence at sea on the warships of Algeria, Egypt, Greece, Morocco, Qatar, Singapore, and the UK’s Royal Navy, as well as the French and Italian navies.
Arrow 3 Vs. Aster
While Aster 30 and PAC-3 missiles can intercept short-range Iskander missiles, they’re not designed to tackle faster, higher-flying medium- to intermediate-range missiles like those that could be ground-launched from Russian soil outside Kaliningrad and still hit targets in Western Europe.
The Arrow 3 system is built for this task, having been co-developed by the U.S. and Israel with an eye to intercepting ballistic missile attacks from Iran hundreds of miles away.
It’s hit-to-kill interceptor missiles can attain Mach 9—twice the maximum speed of an Aster 30—and intercept targets up to 62 miles high. Each trailer-based battery relies on a huge EL/M-2080 Green Pine radar that can detect objects up to 500 miles away, which would allow systems based in Germany to defend neighboring countries.
Germany is an important defense partner of Israel’s. They are the suppliers of Dolphin-class submarines used by the Israeli Navy to carry nuclear-armed cruise missiles. Thus, the relationship for a buy from Israel already exist
However, an improved Aster Block 1NT is under development to better defend against short-to-intermediate range ballistic missiles. This retains the same form factor, but benefits from a higher-resolution fire control system and new built-in Ka-band radar seeker, allowing it to intercept targets out to 373 miles away and intercept medium-range missiles with a range of 932 miles.
The navies of France, Italy and the United Kingdom are all planning to deploy Block 1NTs to their destroyers, so this is not a case of a paper project. (Incidentally, French submarine thriller The Wolf’s Call on Netflix depicts sea-based nuclear missile defense.)
Further down the line, the conceptual Aster Block 2 would involve a bigger missile with effectiveness against even faster intermediate-range missiles launched from over 1,800 miles away. It likely would involve the GS-1500 long-range radar and a built-in infrared seeker for terminal guidance. A French analysis estimates that developing and testing a demonstrator would require $200 million over five years, while actually deploying Block 2 might cost $2 billion.
While Macron argues that “Europe should protect Europe,” France and Germany’s sparring over Sky Shield reveals their continued inability to consolidate defense procurement. France is a feisty defender of its diversified defense industry, while Germany prioritizes nearer-term domestic and security considerations over coordination with France.
Unfortunately, the conflict in Ukraine has shown that having multiple systems available reduces the risks that either procurement bottlenecks or surges in demand for a particular platform could drain away availability of a vital capability when more is needed.
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