MANPADS

  The NATO & US allies member countries are trying to push armed empowerment to Ukraine against the Russian invasion. 

White House has approved a $200-million arms package for Ukraine, which includes US-made Stinger Missiles, which are a type of shoulder-fired Man-Portable Air-Defence Systems (MANPADS). 

In the first week of March itself, more than 17,000 anti-tank weapons and 2,000 Stinger missiles had been sent by the US and NATO. 

Various types of MANPADS have been sent to Ukraine by Germany, U.S., Denmark, Lithuania and the Netherlands. United Kingdom, has sent anti-tank missiles, is also planning to soon ship Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine. 

MANPATs or Man-Portable Anti-Tank Systems work in a similar manner but are used to destroy or incapacitate military tanks. Weighing  between 10 to 20 kilograms & shorter than 1.8 metres, they are fairly lightweight. 

According to US-based policy think-tank, the RAND Corporation, MANPADS have a maximum range of 8 kilometres and can engage targets at altitudes of 4.5 km. Most MANPADS have ‘fire & forget’ guidance systems, where operator is not required to guide the missile to its target. 

The missiles are fitted with Infrared (IR) seekers that identify & target the airborne vehicle through heat radiation being emitted by the latter. 

MANPADs with active guidance systems are less common. These require the operator to guide the missile till it hits the target, meaning they depend on a beam-riding-configuration, . MANPADs with such systems are more difficult to operate and may require a crew.  

The passive-guidance MANPADs, which do not use a laser beam, are harder to detect by the target’s crew. The first MANPADS were introduced by the United States and Soviet Union in the 1960s. Russian and U.S. MANPADS were also used during the Vietnam war. The U.S. supplied MANPADS to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, which the latter used against the Soviet forces. Countries such as India, Pakistan, Germany, U.K., Turkey and Israel have also used MANPADS in their defence efforts.  

The non-state actors such as rebel and terrorist groups have also illicitly acquired MANPADS, using them during civil wars and other high-intensity conflicts. MANPADs have been used in the Syrian war and in Libya. Non-state groups in African countries like Sudan, South Sudan, Angola, Somalia and Congo have also acquired and used MANPADs.  

Russia is by far the biggest exporter of MANPADs, having sold over 10,000 such systems between 2010 and 2018 to various countries including Iraq, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, and Libya. Stinger’s Russian or Soviet-made counterparts are the Igla MANPADS, which also employ Infrared technology.  

Starstreak MANPADs have an active guidance system which uses a laser beam and needs the operator till the missile hits, but they offer a longer range (7 km) as compared to Stingers and are high-velocity systems.  

As for anti-tank missiles, NATO countries and U.S. have also sent Next Generation Light Antitank Weapon or NLAW missiles and Javelin missiles to Ukraine, to help target Russian attacks on land. 

While the NLAW uses a ‘predictive line of sight’ guidance method where it calculates the distance and speed of the target on its own, the Javelins use infrared technology which sense the heat emitted from the target. 

According to the Global Organised Crime Index, “Ukraine is believed to have one of the largest arms trafficking markets in Europe. While it has long been a key link in the global arms trade, its role has only intensified since the beginning of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.” 

After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, weapons supplied by other countries to aid Ukraine ended up in the wrong hands in multiple cases. Reports indicate that weapons in the state arsenal were illicitly acquired and smuggled by criminal and non-state rebel groups. The Organised Crime Index states that “arms are reportedly trafficked domestically, but the illicit arms trade is also linked to criminal arms markets in Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, and Turkey, as well as countries in the EU and the former Yugoslavia 

Meanwhile, the Small Arms Survey of 2017 pointed out that Ukraine has 1.2 million legal firearms and around 4 million illegal weapons, a lot of them fully-automatic military weapons.