France, Italy jointly order 700 anti-aircraft missiles for SAMP/T SAM

France and Italy agreed on a joint order for Aster-30 anti-aircraft missiles.

L’Opinion reported about this.

The countries reached an agreement during a meeting of defense ministers in Rome on January 27, 2023.

Sébastien Lecornu and Guido Crosetto decided to order 700 missiles worth about 2 billion euros.

“Today in Rome, we agreed on a common intention to continue to support Ukraine, defend the Mediterranean Sea from new threats and increase our joint production capacity, in particular in the field of air defense,” the French minister wrote on Twitter.

A day earlier, REUTERS reported, citing government sources, that the countries had already made a political decision to transfer SAMP/T air defense systems to Ukraine. Now the parties agree on the technical aspects of the future transfer.

SAMP/T is a long-range anti-aircraft missile system developed by the European Eurosam consortium (MBDA Italy, MBDA France, Thales). The system can destroy aerodynamic targets at a distance of up to 150 km at an altitude of up to 25 km. The system is able to hit ballistic missiles at a distance of up to 25 km and a similar altitude.

The SAM is built on the basis of the French Aster-30 solid-fuel anti-aircraft missile. Missile speed – 4,5М (1400 m\s). The weight of the warhead is 20 kg, the starting weight is 450 kg.

The SAMP/T is in service with Italy, France and Singapore.

https://youtu.be/gPx0-pl8CdY

In October 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky publicly appealed to France and Italy to arm the Ukrainian Air Force of the Armed Forces with SAMP/T systems. And in November it became known that these European countries began negotiations on a possible transfer to Ukraine.