The fragile killer of “Shaheeds”: what is known about the anti-aircraft missiles that Ukraine will receive from Estonian gunsmiths

Ukraine will receive air defense missiles from the Estonian defense company Frankenburg Technologies for testing. The first samples for testing will arrive in the coming months.

As reported by ArmyInform, this was discussed in early November 2024 at a meeting in Kyiv between the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Brigadier General Anatoly Klochko, and the management of the aforementioned company.

According to the official Frankenburg portal, this Tallinn-based defense company is aiming to revolutionize guidance systems in specialized weapons. The Mark 1 missile uses an AI-based situational awareness program.

Frankenburg Technologies CEO Kusti Salm calls this technology very promising, and its testing in Ukraine is scheduled to begin in 2025. According to him, everything is ready for testing, and the developed technology has attracted wide attention from representatives of the specialized market.

«The technology is very promising, and we will start testing it in Ukraine this year», — said Kusti Salm, quoted by the Estonian news portal ERR.ee. According to the rocket engineer, the project is already ready for testing.

Probably based on the principles of military-commercial secrecy, this Baltic company does not disclose any details about their product. The manufacturer's website only states that the Estonian gunsmiths have defined their mission as «to equip the free world with the technologies necessary to win the war».

Of the published information, only photos are presented, which demonstrate the Mark 1 missile models.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg authors singled out Frankenburg among the four leading European high-tech defense industry startups.

«An Estonian company with a simple motto — “Technology will win the war” — produces cheap missiles to shoot down drones that use software to precisely hit targets», — notes Bloomberg.

According to Kusti Salma, a possible ceasefire in Ukraine will not reduce the demand for new weapons.

«There will be a new and much larger war in Europe», — he predicted grimly in a conversation with Bloomberg reporters.

In turn, analysts from the IKK Defense Express (DE) research portal, based on information from open sources, made quite meaningful conclusions about this product.

The publication notes that the specific characteristics of the Mark 1 anti-aircraft missile have not been published. But they were given a clue by an official image posted on the company's website.

«Obviously, we are talking about a very small anti-aircraft missile, perhaps with a total length of about 0.5 meters. And this is really the only possible option for mass production of such weapons», — DE experts state.

That is why, according to them, the photo below is apparently a full-size model of this anti-aircraft missile, which has received other aerodynamic surfaces.

After all, according to researchers from IKK Defense Express, the task of Mark 1 is to intercept drones, and therefore it is quite logical to use a comparable means against UAVs.

«Because objectively, of course it is possible to hit the “Shahed” with 7-meter missiles from the S-300, but it is much more profitable — with much cheaper means, if they demonstrate appropriate efficiency», — DE emphasizes.

According to the vision of the weapon under study, the publication's experts believe that, all things considered, Frankenburg Technologies made a number of absolutely correct conceptual decisions.

«Based on the description given, for example, (the Estonians, – ed.) could use a camera and “machine vision” as a homing head with auto-detection and auto-targeting. And such a solution is orders of magnitude cheaper than any other option with a radar, infrared, or even semi-active laser guidance system», — DE believes.

They note that the only possibly cheaper option, although not a fact, is a radio command solution, when only control signals are transmitted to the missile itself, and all calculations with the alignment of the missile and the target in space are taken over by the ground station.

«The small size of the missile immediately means that it requires several times less solid fuel and other materials to create it. But the question of range, altitude and power of the warhead remains», — DE emphasizes.

At the same time, they conditionally took the Stinger missile as a reference point: with a length of 1.5 meters, it has a range of up to 6 km, an altitude of up to 3.5 km, and a warhead weight of 2.3 kg.

«If the Mk 1 from Frankenburg Technologies is three times smaller, then it is possible to expect approximate parameters of up to 2 km in range, up to 1 km in altitude and a warhead weighing about 0.5 kg. That is, quite sufficient for the destruction of drones, which is what the entire development concept is based on», — The experts of the IKK Defense Express portal summarized their conclusions.