Where I heard it is escaping me, but one memorable comment from retired Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan on a podcast about the importance of volume in military equipment stuck with me. General Ryan’s comment was that while we pay a lot of attention to the 70 or 80 Leopard 2 Tanks Ukraine has received, the strategic effect on Ukraine’s capabilities of over 1000 older Armored Personnel Carriers and Infantry Fighting Vehicles may be greater. The quantity has a quality of all its own, so to speak.
In that sense, news of the incredibly advanced Patriot Missile System, or even the highly advanced NASAMS deliveries to Ukraine get bigger headlines, but the news of the MIM-23 HAWK (Homing All the Way Killer) system on its way to Ukraine may be even more significant.
The HAWK system first entered service with the US Army in 1959. It’s not a particularly new or advanced system. But what gets lost in that comparison to more modern SAM systems is volume. Ukraine is almost certainly getting around 100 HAWK launchers and a volume of ammunition to match.
Taiwan is in the process of transitioning from the HAWK system to the domestically produced TK-3 Sky Bow SAM systems. The heavily upgraded HAWK systems, referred to by the Taiwanese Army as the iHAWK (Improved-HAWK) systems were the mainstay of Taiwan’s ground-based air defenses for decades. Taiwan began transitioning away from the iHAWK around 2015 and began progressively decommissioning its batteries, and on July 14, Taiwanese News reported that Taiwan’s HAWKs would be on their way to Ukraine.
The HAWK system isn’t exactly anybody’s idea of a hyper-advanced SAM system. The launchers themselves were first introduced in 1959, when the T-55 was the Soviet Union’s primary battle tank, and F-104s were expected to battle Mig-15s for air supremacy.
The HAWK system and its upgraded versions all operate on the same basic concept. Two different types of radar are attuned to detect low-altitude targets, high altitude targets at a distance, as well as illuminator systems designed to help missiles find their targets. A central battery command post communicates this information to up to eight launchers, which engage aerial targets.
HAWK systems have undergone multiple upgrades to its radar systems and missiles, and Taiwan had one of the most advanced Phase III HAWK systems, although there have been suggestions these may be upgraded further to the HAWK XXI standard (Ukraine already received 2 HAWK XXIs from Spain).
The main pros of the HAWK system
- Its components are truck mounted, making it highly mobile. Mobility helps provide “shoot and scoot” (fire, then relocation) tactics that help keep SAM batteries deployed near the front lines alive.
- Taiwan has a major stockpile of Phase III MIM-23 K/J missiles, with a range of 45kms making it a mid-range SAM battery.
Currently, Ukraine is suffering badly in the “Mid-range SAM’ category. NATO Allied Forces have invested in creating powerful long-range SAM batteries (like the Patriot), but have relatively few medium-range SAM batteries that Ukraine and Russia deploy in bulk. This is because NATO assumes it will dominate the skies with its fighter forces, so it doesn’t assume that medium-range SAM batteries would have a key role to play.
Ukraine relied on the S-300 and Buk systems to fill this role, with around a total of 50 batteries in total at the start of the war. However, the Pentagon leak documents indicated that Ukraine was rapidly running out of missiles.
The US coordinated an effort to find every Soviet-era air defense missile it could find to stave off the missile shortage, such as persuading Slovakia to send its S-300 missile stockpile to Ukraine in exchange for positioning an American Patriot System to protect Slovakia.
But there are no major producers of S-300 or Buk system missiles in the West, which meant that these measures would delay for several months, but not resolve the missile shortage issue.
It is clear that the only resolution is to transition Ukraine to Western-based SAM systems, but as Western armed forces rely on its air arm to protect the skies, there are relatively few spare SAM assets that can be found to send to Ukraine. The Patriot, IRIS-T and other western SAM systems sent thus far were enough to form 20 batteries—but that left a deficiency of around 30 batteries that Ukraine still needed to fill.
Ukraine filled part of that gap by beginning to transition its Buk batteries to using Sea Sparrow missiles. Ukraine began the war with 72 active Buk launchers, or 12 batteries (six launchers each). While Ukraine has lost some Buk launchers to Russian attacks, it also began the war with a massive stockpile of over 200 Buk launchers in storage from the Soviet era. While some are undoubtedly unusable due to age, they can be harvested for spare parts, so it’s not believed Ukraine is in any danger of running out of Buk launchers—only missiles.
In 2008, Polish arms manufacturer WZU worked out a way to fire Sea Sparrow missiles from the Buk launcher’s predecessor, the Kub Missile system, which helped Ukraine make similar modifications.
The Sea Sparrows are not a one-for-one replacement for the Buk System’s standard TAR 9S18M1 missiles. While the Sea Sparrows are highly advanced and better suited for engaging low-altitude targets than the TAR 9S18M1, the Sea Sparrows’ range tops out around 20km, while the TAR 9S18M1 can strike targets as far as 42km.
But the Sea Sparrow missiles keep the Buk Batteries’ powerful radars in the fight, and in a war where most aircraft are flying low-altitude missions to avoid radar detection, the comparatively limited range of the Sea Sparrow missile is less of a disadvantage than might appear on paper.
This puts 12 Buk Batteries to fill 30 remaining slots of needed mid-range SAM batteries. Adding the 12 Taiwanese HAWK Batteries would fill 12 more, covering 44/50 pre-war mid-ranged SAM battery needs for Ukraine. The West still needs to find more SAM batteries for Ukraine, but it’s easy to see how the HAWK system goes a long way towards filling the air defense gap that Ukraine faces due to a shortage of Soviet-era anti-air missiles.
This should also significantly reduce the burn rate of S-300 missiles, helping Ukraine keep the S-300 batteries in the fight for as long as possible.
With 88% of Ukraine’s pre-war mid-range SAM battery roles now filled with Western-manufactured SAM missiles, it’s fair to say Ukraine’s nearly completed the transition to a primarily Western SAM battery military. A crucial development given the dearth of sources of Soviet-era SAM missiles in the West.
A quick personal note for my regular readers. You’ve probably noticed my writing volume has dropped a lot in the past few weeks. I’ve got a few other professional commitments that have gotten really busy lately, and I have less time to devote to writing on Daily Kos right now.
One piece of good news for people who enjoy my writing—we’re finalizing a deal to make me a regular contributor as the Saturday writer of Ukraine Updates going forwards, likely starting in early August. So that’s highly likely to become a regular thing soon!
