💥 How Ukraine Is Redefining and Reusing Old Missile Tech
Brimstone flatbeds → Supacat Wolfram → RAVEN (rapid prototype) → Oshkosh Tomahawk carriage
Weapons migrate. When a missile outlives its original delivery platform, field innovators and industry meet in the middle — and a new class of launcher is born. Ukraine’s work with Brimstone, Supacat demonstrators, and improvised rigs fed into RAVEN-style rapid prototypes; Oshkosh’s FMAV now offers the industrial chassis to scale that model to cruise missiles. Raven is the connective tissue — tactical, quick, and politically light.
1) Precedent & Prototype Chain: Brimstone → Flatbeds → Supacat (Wolfram) → RAVEN
Brimstone on flatbeds: Early Ukrainian innovation — aircraft missiles used on pickup/flatbed platforms to get effects quickly. This is field expediency: fast, messy, effective.
Supacat Wolfram / HMT concept: MBDA + Supacat formalised a military-grade launcher (8-pack Brimstone on HMT600). That gives an engineered option beyond jury-rigging.
RAVEN (rapid prototype → field validation → reveal): The UK’s RAVEN experiments (ASRAAM conversions and similar) operationalised the playbook: take an air-oriented missile, bolt it to a truck, add basic sensors, validate quietly, then reveal and scale. RAVEN proved the process — low tech, low bureaucracy, fast fielding.
Why Raven is critical: It’s the tactical middle step that de-risked the idea politically and operationally. Where Wolfram shows an engineered path and flatbeds show improvisation, RAVEN demonstrates the repeatable, low-cost choreography teams can follow under pressure.
🧩 Takeaway: The full chain is not linear myth — it’s iterative. Improvisation -> engineered demonstrator -> RAVEN-style rapid prototypes -> industrial scaling (FMAV/Oshkosh).
2) The Playbook: 1 → 2 → 3 → (RAVEN) — Repurpose, Mount, Validate, Normalize
Repurpose: Use available, mature munitions (Brimstone, ASRAAM, older cruise stocks). Low R&D, known lethality.
Mount: Immediate mounts on flatbeds for urgency; engineered mounts (Wolfram/HMT) for robustness; light trucks or Supacat for mission tailoring.
Validate (RAVEN): Rapid prototype on truck chassis, quick sensor fit, quiet in-theatre testing. RAVEN proves the tactic with minimal fanfare and political exposure.
Normalise & Scale (FMAV/Oshkosh): Public reveal, procurement, and industrial production using platforms designed for modular long-range payloads (e.g., Oshkosh FMAV/X-MAV with Tomahawk carriage).
Why the extra step matters: RAVEN is the risk buffer that let the UK, NATO and Ukraine test political and operational seams before committing to expensive exports or public basing decisions. It normalises the approach.
3) Scale & Stakes: From Brimstone to Tomahawk — What Changes When Raven Is the Template
Tactical proof → strategic risk: RAVEN removed friction for short-range adaptations (SHORAD, ATG). That lowers the political activation energy to try the same choreography with bigger munitions.
Technical complexities increase: Cruise missiles need boosters, canisters, datalinks, and stricter launch safety. But RAVEN’s success reduces the institutional resistance to experimentation.
Platform readiness: Oshkosh FMAV/X-MAV is the industrial answer for mobility + modular long-range carriage. RAVEN demonstrated the tactical steps; FMAV supplies the operational envelope.
Attribution & escalation: Modular allied launchers, flown under allied flags or local crews, muddy attribution rapidly. Ground-launched Tomahawks would shift deterrence calculations far more than Brimstone flatbeds ever could.
Policy gating now becomes decisive: Once RAVEN-style prototypes show acceptable tradeoffs, the bottleneck is export control, basing sovereignty, and command arrangements — not engineering.
Evidence vs Inference
Evidence (high confidence)
Documented improvised truck-mounted Brimstone launches (Ukrainian field reports/press).
MBDA + Supacat Wolfram / Brimstone HMT demonstrator and industry materials.
Public RAVEN-style conversions/prototypes (UK) showing rapid ASRAAM/short-range adaptations and their reveal/scale pattern.
Oshkosh FMAV/X-MAV public reveal at AUSA 2025 showing modular carriage for cruise munitions.
Inference (medium → low confidence)
Raven-type processes being the explicit internal bridge used by Ukrainian/ally engineers to progress from Brimstone to larger munitions (medium — strong circumstantial chain).
Operational deployment of FMAV X-MAV with Tomahawk in Ukrainian hands within months (medium — policy/export blockers remain in place).
Widespread replacement of improvised rigs with engineered Wolfram vehicles as primary launcher fleets (medium — mixed reporting to date).
Bottom line
RAVEN is the operational hinge between Brimstone improvisation and Oshkosh’s industrial scaling — it turned a jury-rigged idea into a repeatable, politically palatable process, and once policy clears, the same choreography can be applied to far more consequential munitions.