LMM Martlet: Armed Forces paratroopers might have the latest MANPADS in their service

Ukrainian paratroopers could have shot down the Russian Orlan drone with the latest British LMM Martlet MANPADS.

Italian journalist Gabriel Molinelli, who specializes in British military history, came to this conclusion after analyzing a video released on April 10, 2022.

Ukrainian serviceman of the 95th Air Assault Brigade firing with a British-made Starstreak MANPADS, reportedly downing a Russian Orlan-10 UAV in the process.#Russia #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/BATvbiIXKQ

— BlueSauron?️ (@Blue_Sauron) April 10, 2022

He drew attention to the peculiarities of the MANPADS launcher used by Ukrainian paratroopers. Namely, to the characteristic narrowing of the starting tube in the back. Instead, Starstreak MANPADS is not equipped with such a narrowing.

The LMM Martlet is a new lightweight, precision strike, missile, which has been designed for the British military by Thales Air Defense. It was originally designed as an air-to-ground missile. Now, the missile can be launched from a variety of naval, air, and land platforms against a wide range of targets.

In 2019, the Royal Navy reported testing the LMM Martlet as a MANPADS.

The missile itself weighs 13 kg with a warhead of 3 kg. Length – 1.3 m. Diameter – 76 mm. Multi-mode guidance (laser, semi-active laser, infrared radiation) is used. Maximum speed – 1.5 Mach. Operational range – 8 km.

According to the British military, the smaller speed as compared to Starstreak gives the operator more time to aim and helps with more accurate shooting.

Previously, on April 10, 2022, soldiers of the 95th Air Assault Brigade published a video in which, probably, they shot down the Russian “Orlan-10” UAV using MANPADS.