A barge doesn't have the equipment for testing a missiles.
They have barges especially designed and equipped for testing naval equipment in sea conditions (ie on waves instead of solid ground).
I didn't mean just any old barge.
And new ships don't have equipment for testing missiles fired off their decks either...
The missile is angled because it is used only on buk-M3 as of now so they still didn't modify it to use VLS.
What on earth would be the point of testing a missile on a brand new ship that that ship can't carry?
And even if they did want to test it... a test from a metal frame sitting on the deck will tell them what exactly?
That ship has UKSK launch tubes... which the BUK-M3 would actually fit in to... they would probably need liners or adapters but physically it would fit... there is no point in putting a 76.2mm shell on the deck in its own short tube barrel and firing it for testing before deciding whether to replace the gun with a 76.2mm gun mount... they wouldn't learn anything useful from that either.
Those tests probably are made to see if the equipment on the ship is enough to use ARH missiles.
Sitting the ship next to the testing barge so it can use its radars and missile directors to control the missile would make rather more sense would it not?
A land based BUK battery has Search radars that can be hundreds of metres away from the TEL vehicles...
Also it's not dangerous because old version had a single arm launcher which launched missile at the same angle as this one.
A couple of problems there... first it was a different missile... the new one hasn't got the large stabiliser fins and when testing from a launch tube you need to be sure it clears it properly without damaging the missile or tail fins... launching on rails on an arm launch guides the missile as it accelerates... by the time the rear portion of the missile is clear it is already well on its way.
Arm launchers also have a clear area around them and blast protectors to stop the rocket blast from damaging anything near by... like the door hatches to other missile tubes of vertical launch systems...
So they will get a 70km ARH missile. It was expected. Nice improvement.
AFAIK the 11356 has UKSK and Redut launchers... BUK-3 wont fit in Redut unless I am right and LMFS is wrong regarding the missile capacity of the system (if it can fit S-300 and S-400 full sized missiles in the space under each hatch... and therefore fit four S-350 missiles per hatch, then they should be able to carry a BUK-M3 missile under each hatch too... but the 36 tube Shtil launcher is probably a better bet.
What might be happening is that they are testing it but the missile is resting there out of the way rather than blocking the helicopter pad, so they will sail out to where it will be tested but it wont be launched from there it will be lifted off there onto the barge by crane most likely as they wont launch it from that metal frame with will likely have a vertical launch tube test frame set up for testing.
This would enable them to use the ships existing and operational systems to launch and guide the missile with the missile being launched from a barge... if it works out well they can then offer the ship for export with BUK instead of Redut, and if they want a future ship upgrade... because I really don't think the BUK-M3 vertical launch system will fit in the space of the Redut one used currently.
If it works properly the BUK might because an option for Redut or for UKSK launch.
The radars on it and weapon systems of shtil launcher are made for the SARH. They can't use the updated radars/computers of buk-M3 directly so they need software changes to use ARH missiles with the older stuff found on the ship.
That can take some time.
Surely the problem would be going the other way.... a system designed to find targets and launch missiles to fly to a location close to them is something a SARH system can already do... and instead of illuminating the target for the attack it can look for the next target while monitoring the engagement to see if it needs to fire again at the same target...
Good point will be that India will be interested for their own frigates as an upgrade. They have around ten frigates using shtil. That will improve their defence from 45km to 70km which is even better or India because they use single arm launcher with longer launch time as it needs to relaod. The longer they shoot the better they have chance against multiple targets.
Also a failure to launch is also an issue with an arm launcher, whereas with bin vertical launch tubes open the next hatch and woosh...
Vertical cell launchers are also much more compact and allow more missiles to be carried... I seem to remember the single arm launcher on the Sovs had 24 missiles each... I suspect the vertical launcher is rather more compact and takes up less space and has 36 ready to launch missiles each.