Estonian Company's Baguette-Sized Missile Could Become Europe's Front-Line Defense Against Russian Drones
- MM24 News Desk
- 8 hours ago
- 5 min read
Frankenburg Technology, an Estonian firm, has developed the Mark 1 missile—just 65 centimeters long and designed to counter Russian drones at one-tenth the cost of existing systems. CEO Kusti Salm, Estonia's former chief defense civil servant, says the weapon will be "the most-needed capability in the Western world" over the next five to 10 years, with factories in two NATO countries aiming to produce hundreds per day for deployment in early 2026.
One tiny rocket small enough to be carried by a single person is being heralded as one of Europe's most effective weapons for fighting back against Russian advances on the continent. The Mark 1, a small, less than meter-long missile made by Estonian firm Frankenburg Technology, is one of the smallest munitions on the market.
The weapon measures in at 65 centimeters—just over two feet, roughly the size of a baguette—and has been developed to hunt prey of a similar size: Russian drones that have been making their way into European airspace in recent months, reported The Sun and Daily Mirror.
Manufacturers have marketed the missiles, which are set to be delivered across the continent early next year, as purpose-built to repel the exact types of drones Putin has been flying into Ukraine.
Frankenburg has made the missile to utilize "solid rocket propellant and autonomous guidance," allowing them to hone in on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) like those Russia is using in its years-long invasion. Some of the most widely used drones are the Iranian-made Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 models, which fly towards battlefield targets slowly and close to the ground, according to The Sun.
They work by detonating a warhead between one and two meters away from the target after being deployed within a range of around two kilometers (1.2 miles).
Kusti Salm, Frankenburg Technology's chief executive, said the Estonian weapon would become the "most-needed capability in the Western world." Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, the unapologetic weapons manufacturer added that they are being made to take down Russian drones—which operate several hundred kilometers inside the battlefield.
He said: "We are not apologetic about the fact we manufacture weapons. We are not afraid to say we are manufacturing them to take down Russian long-range drones. And we are not all apologetic about the fact that this will be the most-needed capability in the Western world in the next five to 10 years."
European nations have recently been forced to repel unprecedented Russian territorial incursions, with drones and munitions crossing the border from Ukraine and into countries like Romania and Poland. NATO has responded to these incursions using jets, making defense for the West expensive while Russia uses comparatively cheap munitions.
Frankenburg says the Mark 1 is being built for scale. "We want to bring affordability and scalability to an industry that has traditionally been like a designer bag industry," Salm said. Factories in two NATO countries aim to crank out hundreds of missiles per day, as the company emphasizes that mass production is the point.
The trade-off is simplicity. The Mark 1 is short-range, roughly 1.2 miles, and built to be "good enough" rather than excellent. It currently hits targets about 56 percent of the time, with the firm hoping to push accuracy to roughly 90 percent as production and refinement continue, reported The Sun.
Frankenburg claims the price comes in at roughly one-tenth of existing rocket and air-defense missiles. The company has not given a firm price in its own statements, with outside reporting putting a likely figure around $50,000 per missile.
The program's mathematics is striking. On September 9, NATO jets fired missiles worth around £500,000 apiece to shoot down Shahed drones that cost less than a tenth of that—and missed in roughly half the attempts. That exchange rate "is not a sustainable exchange," Frankenburg and allies warn.
European leaders have promised a "drone wall" on NATO's eastern flank—a mix of electronic warfare and low-cost interceptors—and the Mark 1 is being sold as a pragmatic piece of that wall.
Packing a warhead, sensor, guidance and fuel into a missile the length of a keyboard requires brute-force engineering. Salm said: "They are doing things that you cannot learn over a weekend from YouTube videos, as you can with drones. There are no Rocket Science for Dummies books that you can order from Amazon."
The Mark 1 is guided by artificial intelligence to reduce vulnerability to jamming and the need for skilled pilots, Frankenburg argues. That autonomy is central to the sales pitch because, unlike Ukraine's interceptor-drone crews, the West lacks thousands of trained pilots to protect thousands of critical sites round the clock.
Former British Army officer Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon applauded the new invention and explained what it could mean for drone warfare. He told The Sun: "First of all, I think this is a demonstration that drones now are sort of the ubiquitous currency of modern warfare, and it's something that perhaps yesterday it wasn't, it is today, drones are having an impact."
He added: "It's not only the Estonians who've developed this drone, but the British are doing a lot of work into lasers, with the realization that you can't use air defense missiles like stingers, at $500 a pop or Patriot missiles at $4 million a pop to knock down $500 drones when there are tens of thousands of them."
De Bretton-Gordon went on to warn electronic warfare remains a potent risk. He explained: "One of the issues that we're having at the moment is electronic warfare. And again, he who controls the electromagnetic spectrum again controls the battlefield."
But he added the Mark 1's AI guidance "looks to be the potential answer, simple to use, gate guided by AI and is a reflection that this is a threat that we've really got to take seriously."
The last major incursion on European soil was on November 6, when drones were spotted nearby Brussels airport, forcing officials to close the site down. Not long after the incident, Sir Richard Knighton, the UK's Chief of the Defence Staff, said his Belgian counterpart had requested military assistance, to which he has agreed.
Sir Richard said during an interview with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that the way forward for the continent would be in forging closer alliances. He said: "As hybrid threats grow, our strength lies in our alliances and our collective resolve to defend, deter and protect our critical infrastructure and airspace."
Frankenburg's talent pitch includes veterans from Iris-T and Spear III projects and self-styled "Latvian geniuses." The company says it has balanced cost and capability by rethinking everything from wing shape to center of gravity to keep accuracy acceptable as fuel burns off.
There are limits. The Mark 1 is expected to struggle in desert heat or Arctic chill, and its effectiveness is focused on short-range, low-altitude threats. But proponents argue that for protecting airports, power plants and other critical infrastructure, the mathematics is simple: if a $50,000 missile can reliably stop a drone that could cause millions in damage, it is a plausible defense.
Salm said: "There's a lot of people who wake up in the morning, read the news and are angered by the injustice going on in the world. We're one of the few places in Europe where you can put your talent to work in somehow ending this madness."