Posted on 05/16/2010 11:54:05 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Three years after the first foreign customer (Syria) received the Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft systems, the Russian Air Force is getting some. The Russian Air Force recently received the S1E version, with an improved radar (36 kilometer range) and missile (more reliable). Curiously, the air force is using their first ten Pantsir-S1s to guard S-300 anti-aircraft missile bases located around Moscow. There was no explanation from the Russians as to why they felt a mobile, low level anti-aircraft system was needed to guard a larger, high altitude one. Perhaps additional protection against cruise missiles. The Russians aren't saying. These ten vehicles were supposed to arrive two years ago, but there were more technical problems. There's been a pattern of that with Pantsir-S1. Development began in the 1990s, but was sporadic for nearly a decade because there was no money. Meanwhile. several Arab nations have been persuaded to order a total of 150-200 Pantsir-S1 vehicles.
Pantsir-S1 is a mobile system, each vehicle carries radar, two 30mm cannon and twelve Tunguska missiles. The 90 kg (198 pound) missiles have a twenty kilometer range, the radar a 30 kilometer range. The missile can hit targets at up to 8,400 meters (26,000 feet). The 30mm cannon is effective up to 3,200 meters (10,000 feet). The vehicle can vary, but the most common one carrying all this weighs 20 tons, and has a crew of three. Each Pantsir-S1 vehicle costs about $15 million.
(Excerpt) Read more at strategypage.com ...
Probably because of a possibility of a swarm attack by several small, individually guided weapons.
At this point they probably have only a small cadre of technicians who know how to properly maintain missiles.
Perhaps they’re worried that their pal in Tehran will repay their kindness by lobbing something nasty their way.
Wonder, have they been upgraded?
Or they're just not all that confident their friends in Iran can shoot straight.
I read somewhere that they do have a basic ABM capability.
Maybe the Russians are putting together a poorboy version of the old "Galosh" system and protecting it with the mobile system.
The [ABM] treaty was signed in Moscow on May 26, 1972 by the President of the United States, Richard Nixon and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev; and ratified by the US Senate on August 3, 1972.
The 1974 Protocol reduced the number of sites to one per party, largely because neither country had developed a second site. The sites were Moscow for the USSR and Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota, since its Safeguard facility was already under construction, for the US.
(link)
Bush exited the treaty around 2002, but of course the ABM systems are still there. It is indeed true that the first ABM around Moscow was built with Galosh, but it was upgraded several times, and today it is A-135.
I don't know, of course, how those S-400/500 fit into this system, but one thing is obvious - Pantsir is so cheap and apparently sufficiently effective that they decided to sprinkle a few of those around just for good measure. Add high speed data communication and some decent computers to coordinate everything, and with so many radars you can see everything worth seeing, and with so many different missiles you have several options of intercept. As I said, that could be important if there are many warheads coming your way. A 300 miles, 5 min. reload time missile is of no use if the threat is 10 miles away but you need to fire one missile every 30 seconds.
That is very true. There is “brain drain” in Russia right now.
The Russian Air Force did an experiment with a Russian S-400 and the Pantsir-S1 together. A mock warhead war fired and according to reports the S-400 missed the target.The Pantsir-S1 fired an hit the target.
It is quite believable that missiles of those two systems are completely different in terms of acceleration and maneuverability. Just look at their sizes :-)
This article explains that S-400/500 are intended as eventual replacement of existing ABM systems around Moscow. We need to remember that even A-135 was designed for nuclear warheads, so it never needed to hit the target; "close enough" was just as good. But nuclear warheads were removed from those missiles many years ago, and the resulting configuration is probably marginal. By the time S-500 are deployed those A-135's will be at least 20 years old, a good age for retirement.
I do not understand your comment above. You had posted a similar 'they must be junk' post a couple of days ago on another thread, to which I replied (posted below) and you even said 'agreed.' Anyways, maybe I was dreaming. All the same, here is my post ...and saying the S300/400 are junk because they have Pantsir guarding them means that the Standard missiles and AEGIS radar on US Navy ships is also junk since those ships also have ESSM, Rolling airframe missiles, and/or Phalanx 'R2D2s' guarding them.
Anyways, I may have been dreaming about the other thread, so here is my phantom response once again (which you responded to several times in agreement):-
BTW ...sorry for the many spelling and grammar errors in my post. I was typing from my IPhone while walking, and this was a few minutes before midnight (where I am), and thus it appears quite convoluted now that I re-read it. In a nutshell I was saying that the S-300/400 system is quite potent (very potent), and the melding of it with the shorter range SAM system is to provide a layered defense where the Pantsyr-S (and similar) protect the main SAM system from weapons that have already been launched (e.g. JDAMs and JSOWs). In much the same manner that an AEGIS destroyer, with its potent Standard Missiles slaved to the AEGIS radar system, still has Rolling Airframe Missiles, ESSMs and/or Phalanx gun system to provide a point-defence purpose on the ship. It does not mean the S-400 is weak, but instead actually makes the S-400 an even more dangerous system by improving its survivability even further. The greatest threat to legacy fighters (like the F-18, F-16, F-15, Tornado etc) is not enemy air (not even advanced variants of the Flanker like the SU-35, or even op-air 5th Gen fighters like the PakFa prototype), but rather the proliferation creep of advanced double-digit SAMs like the S-300 and the HQ-9 (a Chinese clone of the 300). Those systems will effectively deny airspace to legacy airframes. The S-400 simply makes it worse for legacy airframes. Now, the way the Tor and other shorter range systems come in, is that they remove a major weakness of the S-3/400 ...that is, standoff weapons or expanded range weapons launched by a stealthy platform. A deep IADS penetrator like the Raptor can launch a JDAM or SDB from a very high altitude at supercruise, giving the weapon a vastly expanded range. The Raptor would be able to penetrate deeper into an advanced enemy IADS than what a F-15 or similar could, thus it is quite possible for a Raptor to launch several Small Diameter Bombs (basically missiles without engines due to their shape and pop-out wings), which can be used to target S-300/400/HQ-9 systems at the periphery, and thus the Raptor force could simply use attrition attacks from the outside going in. However, the Pantsyr-S is not able to intercept these incoming weapons, leaving the S-3/400/HQ-9 launch vehicles and their radars safer. This makes a bad situation worse. Particularly for nations like Taiwan which have a series of platforms for the Chinese IADS along China's coast, some of which can reach into the Strait. Anyways, I really enjoy your threads, and you should start a ping list.
Or could the S-400 still has technical problems. So the Russians are adding more Pantsir-S1 to make up what the S-400 lacks.
I agreed before this article came into light.
It did shed some light on some problems of Moscow’s air defense newtork.
Things are not as linear as some suppose them to be. Just because a Raptor is anathema to anything in the air flown by the enemy, with the ability to destroy enemy air from many many many miles away without even been detected ...doesn't mean that it will not have a shorter range solution just in case. It even has a GUN.
Anyways, while some may think the S-300/400 types are 'soviet era junk,' the sad fact is they are not and they are a major threat to the good guys on our side. They are a threat to our airforce, and a threat to our ground forces by denying them the support of the airforce.
When American lives get taxed by the enemy (God forbid) in some future near-peer war (say China), you can be sure that this system will be SOMEHOW involved.
Not being an Intelligence annalyst by occupation it seems to me that the Russians may be planning a preemptive strike against the U.S.Otherwise I can’t see why Russia would build a multilayer defence thats Not needed.
With Obama destroying our military by the day we sure are No threat to Russia now and never have been.
The only other reason I see to beef up those missile defences is China’s growing military strength is making Russia a little uncomfortable.
The latest Pantsir S1 configuration at MAKS-2007, carried by an 8 x 8 KAMAZ-6560 chassis. This variant incorporates a new Phazotron designed agile beam phased array engagement radar, derived from Phazotron's earlier effort on the Zhuk MF PESA air intercept radar. The primary design aim for this system was the interception of PGMs [sic], especially the AGM-88 HARM and GBUs (via Vestnik PVO).
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