Farnborough 2026: MBDA reveals CMI lower-cost SAM as Raven evolves further
A development of MBDA and Supacat's Raven SHORAD vehicle, unveiled with MBDA's counter mass interceptor missiles (in black) at Farnborough 2026. (Janes/Tom Barton)
MBDA unveiled its Counter Mass Interceptor (CMI) lower-cost surface-to-air missile (SAM) as part of a display of a further developed Raven short-range air defence (SHORAD) vehicle at the Farnborough International Airshow 2026, held from 20-24 July.
Under Task Force ‘Kindred', the UK MoD's programme to provide equipment to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) from UK stockpiles through rapid procurement, Raven went from concept to delivery within three months in late 2022. The first package of eight systems and nearly 150 Surface-Launched Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missile (SL ASRAAM) missiles was exported to Ukraine by early 2023.
Since then, the Raven system has undergone changes as a result of feedback from the AFU. In April 2026 Supacat displayed a system it called Raven 5, with four AIM-132 SL ASRAAMs mounted on a Moog Flexible Mission Platform (FMP) launcher, instead of the older Raven's two SL ASRAAM's on a fixed launch rail.
The new system has four missiles, but two of them are the lower-cost and shorter range CMI instead of SL ASRAAMs. This is designed to provide a VSHORAD (Very-SHORAD, <10 km) layer as well as a SHORAD (10-20 km) layer. This variant of the Raven system is intended to mount up to 10 missiles in time, Luke Webster, sales business development, air dominance at MBDA, told Janes on 20 July.
It has:
The two or more CMI missiles each have:
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