Replies

Pantsir-S1 self-propelled mobile system, each vehicle carries radar, two 30mm cannon and twelve Tunguska missiles. The missiles have a twenty kilometer range, the radar a 30 kilometer range. The missile can hit targets at up to 26,000 feet. The 30mm cannon is effective up to 10,000 feet. The vehicle carrying all this weighs 20 tons and has a crew of three.

Hep me out over here, please. This sounds to me more like a tactical anti-aircraft system, that fills in any gaps left by SAM Batteries. It also sounds particularly vulnerable to NOE missions. Russki doctrine used to be to have dense belts of short-range radar-directed 23, 37, and 57 MM in quick firing mobile mounts, which were pretty effective, even acquiring targets visually, the targets being driven to them by having to evade the SAMs and their longer-range radar. Directed by former Luftwaffe FLAK people from the DDR, the system was pretty damned effective in VietNam ... in reality it's own updated slanty-eyed version of the WWII Kammhuber Line.

So I reckon my question is, "What happened to the Syrian SAMs?" Isn't it logical to assume that we jammed up the SAM radar, leaving this Pantload System or whatever it is, to take on a mission that it was not designed to handle alone?