Since the end of the Cold War, Britain has seldom developed its own weapons and equipment, and in its current arsenal, it has either imported from the United States or jointly developed by several European powers, and there are fewer and fewer original works of its own.
It was the last fighter developed by Britain itself
As the country that developed the most new weapons during World War II, after only a few decades, its capabilities have basically been completely abolished, and most of its weapons and equipment rely on the United States.
At present, there are only a few weapons that belong to the independent development of the British army, such as the "Challenger 2" tank, several armored vehicles, and the "Sky Sword" air defense system.
In short, the current British army does not have a few self-developed equipment that can be used!
Up to now, the few self-developed equipment in the UK have basically no secrets after experiencing a Russian-Ukrainian conflict, because the UK is now the second largest country in aid to Ukraine after the United States, and most of its active equipment has been sent to Ukraine, and in view of Ukraine's crotch pulling, most of these British active equipment have been captured by Russia;
Russia played even harder, using British equipment to conduct a global live broadcast if they disagreed, a trick that slapped the British people in the face.
Russia dismantles the Storm Shadow cruise missile
It is no exaggeration to say that in addition to Russia and Ukraine, the war between Russia and Ukraine has actually suffered the greatest loss from the United Kingdom, and their "caretaker" guys have basically been studied by Russia, such as the following equipment:
Armored vehicles / armored vehicles
Britain has sent a large number of armored vehicles to Ukraine, including AT105 and FV107 armored vehicles still in use by the British army (FV107 was decommissioned last year);
However, the technical content of these things is not very high, although Russia has seized a lot, but they are all placed on the square as trophies for the public to see.
"Challenger 2" main battle tank
In fact, Russia has not captured this tank completely, but it has already destroyed one;
But this is already quite a rare achievement, because the British tanks were strictly forbidden to participate in the frontline battles before entering Ukraine, and they were at most providing some fire support to the troops in the rear far from the front line.
And after the battle damage, the British tanks were too frightened to come out again, and there were even rumors that the British would recall the remaining 13 tanks so that the sensitive technology would not fall into the hands of the Russians.
However, for Russia, the "Challenger 2" without Chobham armor is really not attractive, so the destroyed tank has been lying there quietly, and no one pays attention to it anymore.
Brimstone anti-tank / air-to-surface / anti-ship missiles
This anti-tank missile should be regarded as the earliest batch of weapons that Britain has provided to Ukraine, it arrived in Ukraine in April 2022, and caused heavy losses to the Russian army's tank units in the early stage of the conflict.
The missile is an anti-tank missile independently developed by the United Kingdom, although some people say that it is the land version of the "Hellfire", but people have introduced a millimeter-wave radar seeker, and there are still some differences between the two missiles in essence.
The "Brimstone" anti-tank missile began to be designed in 1996, after three years of research and development, and entered service in 1999; its first version of the anti-tank distance is about 10 kilometers, the second version can reach 60 kilometers, the maximum flight speed is 450 m / s, the warhead uses HEAT tandem warhead, the charge is 6.3 kg, the test shows that it can penetrate the vast majority of the main battle tanks in service, and the performance is not much worse than the old American "Javelin"...
Brimstone anti-tank missiles are currently being used in the Brimstone, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Ukrainian armies.
The biggest record of this missile on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield may be that in August last year, the Ukrainian army used surface ships to carry "Brimstone" in Cape Tarhankut in western Crimea to successfully destroy an S-400 missile base ("Brimstone" also has an anti-ship version and can also be carried on aircraft), as for its record of destroying tanks, there are countless records.
Although this missile has made the Russian army suffer a lot, in May last year, Russia had already obtained a complete sample of the "Brimstone" missile;
The missile was found in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and the Russian side estimated that it should have fallen due to a malfunction during the flight, and because the flight altitude of this type of missile was not high, the body of the missile did not suffer much damage.
After the seizure, the missile was immediately sent to the rear Russian military enterprises for targeted research, among which the millimeter-wave radar is the most attractive system for Russia.
Storm Shadow cruise missile
The "Storm Shadow" cruise missile is one of the few missiles currently in service in the British army developed by itself (not completely independent, it is jointly developed with France), it was officially established in 1994, and in 2003 in the British and French armies respectively;
The procurement cost of this cruise missile is about 2.5 million US dollars, the maximum flight speed is Mach 0.95, it has the ability to "leave it alone after launch", and the warhead charge is 450 kilograms, and the strike power is still quite good.
At present, 10 countries are equipped with this missile, of which the United Kingdom has the largest number of equipment, about 1,000 units, followed by France and Italy, which are equipped with 500 and 200 respectively.
In Ukraine, Britain and France sent about 200 of these missiles, and its biggest achievement during the war was probably the sinking of a Procha-class landing ship and the heavy damage to a Kilo-class conventional submarine in September last year, and the sinking of a large landing ship called "Novocherkassk" in December last year...
In the 10 months since this missile entered Ukraine, its record can also be said to be quite remarkable, and it was once regarded by Ukraine as a "game-changer" weapon.
However, this benefit did not last long before it came to an abrupt end;
In March this year, Russia publicly showed the world a live dismantling video of this cruise missile, and Russian reporters also added this line of words under the dismantling video: "There is nothing to see for us about this thing, but Russia still hopes to let the public know more about this missile, at least it will have some significance."
I wonder how the top brass of the British military will feel when they see such a video?
Russian technical experts said that it will take about a month to disassemble and analyze the "Storm Shadow" cruise missile, and when all the data and hardware are obtained, Russia will make targeted restraint weapons that can quickly intercept this missile, and this restraint weapon will be very cheap, because we already know the weaknesses of the "Storm Shadow"...
And about the origin of this missile, the Russian side gave an answer:
The missile was captured by the Russian BARS-11 volunteer team in July last year, when it was in a very complete state, but the outer surface of the missile was slightly damaged;
The capture operation actually went smoothly, but the Russian escort force encountered a lot of trouble on the way when transporting this missile, and a Ukrainian team managed to prevent the Russian army from bringing it back to the camp, but fortunately, there was no danger, after two days of transportation, this "capture bomb" was successfully transported to the rear of the Russian army.
After the "Storm Shadow" cruise missile entered Russian territory, it was immediately sent to a Moscow defense enterprise (said to be the 46th Central Research Institute of the Russian Ministry of Defense) for dismantling and analysis, and then it was not until March this year that Russia officially released these extremely valuable dismantling videos.
Seeing the fate of the British cruise missile, I think we should now be able to understand why Germany is reluctant to give its "Taurus" cruise missile to Ukraine, right? If people have already given away the "Leopard" 2 and then donated the "Taurus" as well, then there will be no secret at all about Germany's belongings.
The last one is the British mercenary who was broadcast live!
At present, I have not found out the source of the news, but according to the news of some big Vs, Russia killed dozens of British mercenaries in Zaporozhye Oblast.
This time it's a slap in the face of the British again, Russia actually rarely has a live broadcast in Ukraine, but every live broadcast is almost related to the British, and the face of the Britons is lost in Ukraine.