Pantsir-S1 News Thread:

Well... shortcomings or not (not imho) the pantsir-s1 is in service and is being used in currently running exercises.

http://en.rian.ru/military_news/20130320/180140654/Russian-Air-Defense-Force-Starts-Massive-Drills.html

Russian Air Defense Force Starts Massive Drills

MOSCOW, March 20 (RIA Novosti) - More than 500 weapon systems, 50 aircraft and some 2,000 troops have been deployed in a large-scale air-defense exercise in eastern Russia, military officials said on Wednesday.

The exercise beginning on Wednesday in the Republic of Buryatia saw the use of S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, Osa, Buk, Strela and Shilka antiaircraft missiles, Igla man-portable SAM missiles, and Pantsir-S gun-missile systems, Eastern Military District press officer Lt. Col. Alexander Gordeyev said.

Gordeyev said the Pantsir-S systems were delivered to the district in late 2012.

The system combines a wheeled vehicle mounting a fire-control radar and electro-optical sensor, two 30-mm cannons and up to 12 57E6 short-range missiles. The Pantsir can engage targets at a range of 20 kilometers (12 miles) with missiles and at 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) with cannons.

The exercise is designed to test the readiness of the district’s air-defense forces and combat aviation to perform joint missions and rehearse a range of combat training tasks in modern warfare, Gordeyev said.

The exercise, under the command of Eastern Military District chief Adm. Konstantin Sidenko, will last through mid-April.

Note if you follow the above link one of the three photos shown is a Pantsir-S1 turret, though the article says the vehicle that is entering service has a wheeled chassis... which is interesting... good for mobility and reduced operational costs.

The photo shows the new search and tracking radar and the roof mounted EO system but it also shows a tracked hull, so it is not representative of the in service Pantsir-S1. Will be interesting to see any video footage of the exercises to see if it is in fact wheeled or if like the error including the Shilka as a SAM system rather than a gun system it was a mistake. Of course the Shilka-M4 does have igla.

By making the standard Pantsir-S1 for the air defence forces (Aerospace defence forces) a wheeled vehicle it means they are cheaper to buy and cheaper to operate so they can have more in service which is a good thing for air defence vehicles.

For the Army however, they will want tracked models to operate with tracked units and wheeled models to operate with wheeled units so they don't slow everything down. For this reason the new army pantsir-s1s will be armata/kurganets-25/boomerang-25/boomerang-10 based vehicles so they will match the armour and mobility of the other vehicles in the unit with the same components/engines etc.

I have one question .IS THE PANTSYIR for export has wheeled chassis or tracked chassis..?

That is up to the customer... they can get any colour they want too.

The wheeled version is currently popular as a standard export item because it is cheaper to buy and operate than a track layer, but there is a trailer based version and even a naval model for small patrol boats. AFAIK the trailer version can actually be positioned on a building like at an air field or command centre.

Russian space forces have wheeled chassis.. and Russian air forces have tracked chassis..? is that so..

Previously, yes, but now not so much.

The Aerospace Defence forces like the wheeled model because it is cheaper to buy and to operate and is as mobile as the other vehicles it will be operating with (ie S-400 etc) which are also wheeled.

The Russian Army however wants its air defence vehicles to keep up with the vehicles it is operating with including BMPs and BTRs and T series tanks, which previously meant tracked vehicles, but in the new brigade structure will mean an armata based pantsir-s1, a kurganets-25 based pantsir-s1, and a boomerang-25 based pantsir-s1 and perhaps a boomerang-10 based mini-pantsir-s2.

The Tunguska is not a light vehicle... at about 35 tons, it might be a squeeze to fit all its capability into a 25 ton vehicle, but squeezing it into a 10-15 ton vehicle would probably be too difficult. I suspect the light brigades will have either sosna-r based missiles... I remember reading an article a while back on future Russian SAMs and it mentioned a missile called Baikanok or something like that, which was described as being an 8km range laser beam riding missile. The other option might be a vertical launch version of Morfei.

In the missile case it can fire from both fixed and even when the vehicle is moving..IS that so..?
I read it some where but I can't remember..

The Tunguska and Shilka could both fire guns while moving, but firing missiles is more problematic and I don't think Tunguska could fire missiles while moving.

The Pantsir-S1 is supposed to be able to fire guns and missiles while moving AFAIK... with reduced accuracy with guns of course.

The truck based models are for defending fixed or road mobile assets, where wheels are useful and low cost.

The Russian Army will likely a Kurganets-25 and Armata based tracked Pantsir-S1... and there will also likely be a wheeled Boomerang model too, though Typhoon will likely be too light for a standard model Pantsir-S1.

The two faced radar offers more accurate tracking and faster intercept calculations as it detects the target twice for each radar rotation instead of once. Ideally a fixed four face antenna with AESA elements would offer continuous 360 degree coverage... two faces is a compromise... better performance than one, but cheaper than four.

A PESA has the advantage of much lower cost, while still having the advantages of electronically scanned radar arrays... a full AESA would still be very expensive now, though in 5 years or so it might be much more affordable.

so is aesa search and aiming radar all in one package planned for pantcir?

I have not seen any models of that... all the ones I have seen have separate search and tracking radar.

that kind of radar wouldnt need rotating turret like the current one but what about the missiles ,they would need a new launching method.

The cost of a radar vehicle would probably mean they went back to a separate radar vehicle... with the very high acceleration solid rocket motors vertical launch is not really an option and some sort of turret would still be needed.

Over the relatively short range Pantsir-S1 operates I don't think an AESA radar would make an enormous difference in performance, though more accurate tracking data about the target and missile would certainly improve performance.

im sorry ,you said 4 fixed aesa antennas so i guessed they could continue search while tracking and aim at the target with certain percentage of their elements. the turret could still turn dispatching missiles around.

I was thinking in terms of a radar vehicle that had the AESA with the four fixed arrays that transmitted its data directly to the launch vehicles, which would have their own search and tracking radars so they could operate on their own, but with cheaper single face search radars to keep the price down. When operating with the AESA it could use electronic scanning in LPI mode to find targets without being too obvious and the launch vehicles could operate with their search radars turned off using data from the radar vehicle.

Obviously they could all use EO sensors passively too to detect targets as well.

i guess that is why they added 1 more side to their search radar so that the crew could plan their strategy.

The ability to engage 4 targets at once uses the radar for three targets and optics for the fourth in the export model of Pantsir-S1.

Targets wont be selected at random, the command module (in the naval version) and the command vehicle in the ground version will collate all the target data from the regiments vehicles sensors as well as data from its own sensors and that from the network that it is connected to and it will direct specific vehicles to engage targets. The tracking radar at the front of each launch vehicle is like any PESA radar in the nose of a fighter aircraft and should be able to track targets and send radio control signals at angles of up to 70 degrees from the angle it is facing. It tracks the targets and the outgoing missiles and sends guidance commands to the missiles. The EO system has long wave and medium wave thermal sights to track targets and outgoing missile beacons respectively.

The primary purpose of the multi target engagement capability is if it has an A-10 locked or an Apache locked and starts to engage that aircraft if the A-10 starts launching Mavericks or the Apache starts launching Hellfires, the Pantsir-S1 will not need to break lock on the aircraft to engage the incoming weapon to defend itself... it can rely on the very high speed of its missile to defeat the target aircraft and for its second and subsequent missiles to engage any incoming threat. With a peak speed of 1.3km/s the SA-22 is a very useful tool for swatting flies.

so i think only one will just HAVE to do the job for a given regiment.

Tanks never operate alone, why do you think air defence vehicles would?

A Regiment of Pantsir-S1 vehicles will have 6 vehicles. They might pair off and operate in groups of two but all 6 will share data and usually operate within one or two kms of each other.

45 left and 45 right. also aiming radar target parameter calculation time is about 1 sec...and rcs treshold for 0,03 m2 target is 7km- for 2 m2 is 24 km ,the radar curve gives us for 0,1m2 about 10km.
so the *15 mil $ question is can the pantcir take down 4 high-subsonic cruise missiles (300 m/s) with rcs of 0,1m2 coming from 4 different directions in time?

Assuming they have not had warning from another platform this means the incoming threats will be detected at 10km, the search radars will detect all four missiles at approximately 10km range and be able to continue to monitor their position while each vehicle engages a target. If there, for some reason is only one vehicle it will likely engage the first target at about 7km or so, the second target can be fired upon before the first missile hits because the radio command link does not start directing the missile till its has jettisonned its booster... at 1.3km/s the first missile will hit the first target before the other three missiles have moved 2km, so the second missile can be launched while the three remaining missiles are 5km away, and this missile will hit the target in even less time, so the last two targets which were continuously tracked by the search radar will likely still be 4km away when the third missile is launched to hit the third target. The fourth target will likely be engaged with guns, though it might be outside the inner range limit of the missiles.

In the more likely event that the four cruise missiles launched likely from the same sub or aircraft pass the pantsir-S1 on their way to another target and all come from the same direction the one vehicle could launch 4 SAMs and engage all three weapons at once...