Ukrainian Navy Brings Down Kh-59 Missile with Ship-Mounted VAMPIRE SAM

Overnight on Jan. 24-25 Russia launched another major combined missile and drone attack on several regions within Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, that involved more than 60 aerial weapons.

One of the locations attacked was the commercial Black Sea port of Pivdennyi which is one of Ukraine’s focuses for the export of grain and other essential goods. This importance has made it a recurring target of Russian military actions.

According to the Ukrainian Navy’s official Telegram channel, a Sukhoi Su-57 (NATO: Felon) multirole fighter aircraft launched a Kh 59 short-range cruise missile towards the port which was intercepted by a surface-to-air missile fired from a patrol boat.

Although the post gave no technical details of either the naval vessel involved, or the missile system employed, military analysts have drawn some conclusions after examining the images revealed on the social media post.

The open-source military intelligence commentator @Osinttechnical concluded that the missile system used was the L3 Harris “Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment” (VAMPIRE) system, employing the laser-guided 70mm advanced precision kill weapons system (APKWS) missile.

VAMPIRE is a modular, portable kit designed to be fitted to any vehicle, military or civilian, that is fitted with a cargo bed. Installation is said to be user-friendly allowing a two-man team to fit it in around two hours using standard tools.

Other Topics of Interest

Zelensky Says Allies Should Work on ‘Format’ for Any Talks With Russia

The Ukrainian president said in Kyiv that talks to end the war should be held between the United States, Ukraine and Russia, as well as the European Union.

It was designed primarily as ground-based vehicle mounted equipment but there was much discussion in early 2024 of the possibility of integrating it with naval platforms and even unmanned surface vessels (USV) such as the Magura V5 or Sea Baby drones.

This incident suggests that Ukraine has gone ahead with adapting at least one of their patrol boats, possibly a “Small Armored Artillery Boat” (SAB), as a mobile anti-missile platform.

Some commentators don’t see this as a game changer, arguing that circumstances played into Ukraine’s hands. The first contributing factor was the fact that during nighttime or low visibility conditions over water, the Kh-59 flies at very low altitude – around 7 meters (23 feet) – above the surface to evade radar detection using combined inertial navigation and a TV or electro-optical seeker for terminal guidance to the target.

Ukraine’s APKWS missile, which is a modified air-to-surface missile (ASM), uses the WESCAM MX-10 combined thermal imaging sensor and laser designator to lock onto the cruise missile where the SAM’s proximity fuse allows it to detonate near the target, disabling or destroying the incoming Kh-59 missile.