BRIMSTONE

Advanced Anti-Armour Weapon

BRIMSTONE is an Air-to-Ground Precision Attack weapon. Today’s threat comprises a range of different combat units which includes armoured vehicles. These targets are more discrete and mobile than ever before and as such present a challenging threat. They can be deployed more rapidly and can increasingly avoid detection systems while benefiting from new technology for both passive and active protection. In this respect, an air-to-ground missile effective against such targets, including all known and projected armour, is now a critical part of any air force capability. MBDA has developed the BRIMSTONE missile system to meet this challenge. BRIMSTONE has been selected as the principal anti-armour weapon for the UK Royal Air Force (RAF).

The BRIMSTONE weapon system comprises a re-usable launcher with three missiles. It is a highly effective, all-weather, autonomous missile system that uniquely offers the capability to engage targets in the deepest parts of the battlefield beyond the range of other systems.  Combat aircraft armed with BRIMSTONE offer reach, speed, flexibility and rapid deployment. This high precision weapon with its advanced warhead design ensures that any collateral damage is minimised. Operational analysis has shown that BRIMSTONE, with its low life cycle costs, is a highly cost-effective weapon system capable of functioning in a variety of scenarios unaffected by cloud, fog, smoke, sandstorms or countermeasures.

The BRIMSTONE missile provides fire and forget launch capability from an effective stand-off range. Its millimetre wave radar seeker ensures target searching and identification operations in poor visibility and in all weather conditions. BRIMSTONE can be fired in two modes, direct or indirect. Once fired, the launch aircraft, which with BRIMSTONE can carry out multiple kills per pass in single or salvo attack, is free to manoeuvre away from the target area or engage another target array.  Although designed primarily as an air-launched weapon, variants of the missile can be operated from light armoured vehicles, naval vessels and other ground-based platforms.

Each BRIMSTONE missile follows an inertial trajectory for the first part of its flight. The missile then uses its active millimetric radar seeker to track the target. Benefiting from a narrow radar beam, BRIMSTONE has a high probability of target intercept and is able to reject ground clutter. The on-board detection algorithm gives BRIMSTONE a highly effective target detection capability against a range of targets such as main battle tanks, armoured personnel carriers, self-propelled guns and mobile air defence vehicles.

Programme status

In November 1996, the UK MoD awarded MBDA the development and production contract for BRIMSTONE, which is now integrated onto, Tornado GR4/4A and will soon be integrated onto the RAF fleet of Harrier GR9 and later the Euro fighter Typhoon aircraft.  As the weapon is small and lightweight it is also compatible with a wide variety of modern combat aircraft.

The first batch of operational missiles was delivered in November 2004. BRIMSTONE entered service with the RAF on 31 March 2005.

In October 2005 the RAF conducted a series of BRIMSTONE evaluation trials at China Lake in the USA where 31 live BRIMSTONE missiles were fired against a range of targets including tanks, self-propelled artillery pieces and other smaller armoured vehicles. The trials confirmed that BRIMSTONE is a very effective weapon against a range of different target types both static and moving.