Pantsir missile/gun AD system: #2

GarryB wrote:As mentioned above even the predecessor of Pantsir... Tunguska has an optical only engagement mode when enemy ECM and ESM is intense.

They would also have Tochka and Iskander to deal with any jamming system fairly quickly...

The Israeli source also makes it questionable... haven't they been saying they could take out any S-300 or S-400 system deployed in Syria... and is it equally fair to say that over the last few years when both systems have been present in Syria the Israeli Air Force has gone no where near such systems let alone taken them out...

Now that they have F-35s... an aircraft designed from the outset to defeat S-400 systems they wont even fly in Syrian air space let alone attack anything... pretty clear who is full of number twos here... even if what they were saying is true why is it that after all these years of effort less than four Pantsir systems have been destroyed in combat... makes them sound rather useful and effective to me to be honest...

The US deployed some F-22s to Syria a couple of years ago.   I have not heard a squeak about them since.   If they were such super-tech we
would hear choirs of praise in the western MSM.    It looks like they got lit up a few times by Russian radar systems and the yanquis decided
that their stealth was not good enough to risk them being blown out of the sky.    The F-35 is hardly going to be more effective.

As you highlight, the absence of Israeli jets operating over Syria makes their trash talk look ridiculous.   But this article is intrinsically ridiculous
thanks to its obvious over the top claims.

Well, that and the fact that around that year or last year Israel lost a F-16 to the Syrian AD systems

The other obvious factor is if you knew the Pantsir system was compromised why on earth would you tell anyone or let anyone know that you know by posting it on a website.

I mean there is no reason to think a South Korean jamming system might not be effective against a particular radar... everybody has smart engineers and anyone can make something ground breaking and effective... there is no reason to believe a South Korean company couldn't create a useful jammer system... but you have to ask yourself how is this going to work... the missiles of Pantsir are not radar guided... neither active radar homing nor semi active radar homing nor passive radar homing so a jamming signal can only disrupt the radars on the Pantsir from finding targets. Such a system might exist but the obvious problem is that if you have an active noise jammer... lets move it into the light spectrum to make it simpler... the pantsir system uses an optical telescope to find targets... it uses both active and passive modes so it uses a laser to reflect back targets but it can also detect targets that emit light themselves in a passive mode... it effectively shines a laser light on the target using its tracking radar and uses that information  to transmit course corrections to the missiles it launches to intercept the target.

Continuing the light theme this helicopter mounted South Korean jammer is a laser jammer... it finds radar(laser emitters and telescopes) and directs intense amounts of laser energy at them to render them ineffective.

The problem here is that it doesn't work in the light spectrum it works in presumably the same cmw and mmw radar spectrum the radars of the Pantsir which means the intense beam of radar energy it needs to blind the tracking radar of the Pantsir could be used by the Pantsir to rapidly locate the helicopter carrying the jammer and with its EO system find and lock and shoot down said jammer fairly easily and quickly... or at least pass the target information up the chain for a larger longer ranged system to engage and destroy the threat. I would suspect there are a range of passive radar homing... ie anti radiation missiles (ARMs) that could be used to take out such a jammer too... the R-27EP model would be ideal without modification... its 40kg HE payload would obliterate most aircraft.

The design of the Pantsir is not set in stone and ways to defeat it will constantly be being developed, but equally ways of getting around ways to defeat it will also be developed too... an important way to prevent it being defeated is don't operate them as single vehicles on their own... use them in batteries managed by IADS so they are not easy kills.

There is no such thing as an invincible system, but the fact that Syria has been using them for a few years against Israel and the US effectively and has lost less than four tells you it is a pretty damn good system... which I am sure will reflect in export sales...

As mentioned above even the predecessor of Pantsir... Tunguska has an optical only engagement mode when enemy ECM and ESM is intense.

If optic engagement was that good they wouldn't put radar on the pantsir.

Drones are small targets and their munitions even smaller. I don't think they will see them at max range ... maybe 10km but the munition used by turkish drones have 8-14km range.

And we don't even know how many drones attacked in the same time. If there were 2 of them, one from the right one from the left attacking at the same time then the pantsir is dead.

kvs wrote:
The US deployed some F-22s to Syria a couple of years ago.   I have not heard a squeak about them since.   If they were such super-tech we
would hear choirs of praise in the western MSM.    It looks like they got lit up a few times by Russian radar systems and the yanquis decided
that their stealth was not good enough to risk them being blown out of the sky.    The F-35 is hardly going to be more effective.

As you highlight, the absence of Israeli jets operating over Syria makes their trash talk look ridiculous.   But this article is intrinsically ridiculous
thanks to its obvious over the top claims.

F-22s have flown over Syria plenty of times with no worries - why would they be worried?

And what absence of Israeli jets? Israeli air force carries out raids against Syria all the time - it's become so routine you just never hear about it all the time.

Here, an Israeli raid from a few days' ago.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/no-injuries-or-damage-at-site-of-israeli-strikes-in-syria-report/

They fled into Iraqi airspace as soon as a Su-35 turned up.

The zionist apartheid state air force isn´t flying in syrian airspace. They misuse lebanese airspace, use stand-off Missiles (which are shot down every time) and hide behind civilian airplanes, just like terrorists would do.

If optic engagement was that good they wouldn't put radar on the pantsir.

Optics are not ideal at 20km but the 10km range SOSNA doesn't use radar... it only uses optics... and it seems to be the same with the new AA 57mm gun which uses radar to track outgoing shells but not to find targets, so for air defence purposes optics is fine much of the time.

BTW that works both ways... if Radar was so wonderful why would they put optical alternatives... and these are thermal as well as visible light which makes drones and munitions much easier to spot... both TOR and Pantsir have video auto tracking systems so there is computer based digital tracking of targets...

Drones are small targets and their munitions even smaller. I don't think they will see them at max range ...

So?

Very small targets like drones are difficult targets for radars too, I would say it was easier for optics to track than radars which generally just detect the engines in drones rather than their plastic skins.

maybe 10km but the munition used by turkish drones have 8-14km range.

A munition that has a range of 8km is going to be ATGM sized or bigger and have a rocket motor that will make it very easy to spot from significant distances with IIR sensors. A drone able to carry more than one of these will also be of a significant size too, which might not matter for a radar that sees right through its plastic skin, but for an IIR sensor it makes a difference.

And we don't even know how many drones attacked in the same time. If there were 2 of them, one from the right one from the left attacking at the same time then the pantsir is dead.

The missiles of Pantsir travel at about 1km/s... how many turkish drones move that fast?

Even assuming a single Pantsir vehicle operating on its own engaging two targets would take less than a minute if the target range is less than 10km it could probably deal with rather more.

F-22s have flown over Syria plenty of times with no worries - why would they be worried?

Not Syrian government airspace AFAIK... only illegally US occupied airspace... and not very much.

And what absence of Israeli jets? Israeli air force carries out raids against Syria all the time - it's become so routine you just never hear about it all the time.

Here, an Israeli raid from a few days' ago.

Using stand off weapons from outside Syrian airspace...

...and hide behind civilian airplanes, just like terrorists would do.

No surprise... the nation of Israel was created as an act of violence and terrorism...

New production dummy target.   This will fool the Turks

JohninMK wrote:New production dummy target.   This will fool the Turks  

It seems that Russian fooled Turks , they gave them poisoned ice cream

ahmedfire wrote:

JohninMK wrote:New production dummy target.   This will fool the Turks  

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ESnJXFqWoAcRB-p?format=png&name=900x900

It seems that Russian fooled Turks , they gave them poisoned ice cream

On behalf of Republic of Serbia I expect full royalty payment for use of our trademark patent

Drones are small targets and their munitions even smaller. I don't think they will see them at max range ... maybe 10km but the munition used by turkish drones have 8-14km range.

Would also add if the radar is being jammed effectively then the radar will be turned off so how is a drone supposed to know where the Pantsir system even is?

A flying moving target is much easier to spot than a stationary vehicle...

When the enemy start jamming I would expect some sort of missile would be launched to engage... the Iskander and Tochka familes of missiles have a range of different guidance heads and one detects radar frequencies... so it could be used to target an active jammer quite easily... a 500kg payload coming in at about 7 times the speed of sound should render the jammer quiet for an extended period...

SOSNA-R or Pine would actually be a much better solution as it has no radar and is totally passive and uses small 35kg missiles that are two piece solid rocket booster and slim long missile terminal portion... loaded in tubes like a pantsir but a much smaller cheaper missile that uses cheap beam riding technology.

Ironically it is a similar weight to the new model Kornet and both have a 10km flight range in the HE version, but the main difference is that Pine is a very high speed two stage missile that reaches its target out to 10km in about 12 seconds, while Kornet moves at about 350m/s... so rather slower...

Both have the expensive optics and complex guidance systems in the launcher so the ammo is cheap and can be mass produced in enormous numbers and actually used without breaking the bank...

For the first time since quite some time the U.S military industrial complex may manage to produce an efficient and cost effective weapon against IADS assets such as the Pantsir:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32669/air-forces-gray-wolf-program-tests-game-changing-small-low-cost-jet-engine

This weapon class/concept was pioneered by Israel with the Delilah.

Key is to avoid an expensive, complex turbofan propulsion and go for a rather primitive, single shaft, single compressor and single turbine.

This drives down the cost still offers 500km class range and 100kg+ warhead.

4 F-16 with 6 such weapons each allow an coordinated attack of 24 such terrain masking cruise missiles that allow a multi directional attack. At 250.000$ per round for example, the attack would cost 6m$.

A battery of 4 Pantsir may be able to counter such an attack but a single vehicle could get overloaded.

I hope @Mindstorm can share his opinion on this new weapon path vs. IADS assets with us.

Their f-35 was supposed to be around 80 million $ and now even not mature it is 150 if not more.

If this missile is a miniaturized cruise missile with the same caracteristics as normal cruise missiles, what makes you think it will be 4 times cheaper ?

Miniaturization means more expensive and newest technology. There is no way it can be cheaper.

Let's not forget it is made by US. They would sell shit thousands dollars to the taxpayer if the army needed it... actually they are already doing that with the toilets on their carriers. . Cheap and US military industrial complexe will never go togather.

Yeah, it will never be that cheap. Its all nonsense. When a step ladder into a jet costs $600 back in 1999, there is no way they can get a cruise like missile to be less than $500,000 per round.

4 F-16 with 6 such weapons each allow an coordinated attack of 24 such terrain masking cruise missiles that allow a multi directional attack. At 250.000$ per round for example, the attack would cost 6m$.

The other factor is that it likely wont be flying on an F-16... it will more likely be carried perhaps two at a time in an F-35 to prevent the launch platforms from being shot down and the operational costs of an F-35 is something like $70,000 per flight hour per aircraft, so to launch 24 missiles you will need 12 F-35s, and assuming 3 hour flights to get into position and launch and then return home that means 36 hours of flight time so that adds 2.5 million dollars to the cost of the attack, and of course if any of the aircraft are shot down you will be adding 120-150 million dollars to the cost.

The point is that if Israel could improve its attacks to the point where they started taking down the Syrian air defence network... Russia would have to allow the Syrians to defend themselves and start shooting down Israeli aircraft outside Syrian airspace. That means any money the US or Israel saves on munitions is going to start costing them rather a lot more in aircraft... which simply means they will either need to stop their attacks or dramatically escalate... and lets face it... they wont stop their attacks, so a dramatic escalation is going to be very expensive and potentially bloody... but likely also useful for Russia because it will crystalise in fact what HATO would do when faced with the problem of Russian air defences... so solutions to these problems will be directly applicable to Russian defence from HATO...

I would also second the suggestion that the west does not do cheap or even affordable very well... which is why I find all their talk about swarms defeating IADS to be so amusing... if anyone can create a cheap viable effective swarm attack it would be Russia and China... Soviet anti ship missiles of the late 1970s used swarm technology to overwhelm IADS on US ships protecting US carrier groups... might be where the west got the brilliant idea....

GarryB wrote:

Drones are small targets and their munitions even smaller. I don't think they will see them at max range ... maybe 10km but the munition used by turkish drones have 8-14km range.

Would also add if the radar is being jammed effectively then the radar will be turned off so how is a drone supposed to know where the Pantsir system even is?

A flying moving target is much easier to spot than a stationary vehicle...

When the enemy start jamming I would expect some sort of missile would be launched to engage... the Iskander and Tochka familes of missiles have a range of different guidance heads and one detects radar frequencies... so it could be used to target an active jammer quite easily... a 500kg payload coming in at about 7 times the speed of sound should render the jammer quiet for an extended period...

SOSNA-R or Pine would actually be a much better solution as it has no radar and is totally passive and uses small 35kg missiles that are two piece solid rocket booster and slim long missile terminal portion... loaded in tubes like a pantsir but a much smaller cheaper missile that uses cheap beam riding technology.

Ironically it is a similar weight to the new model Kornet and both have a 10km flight range in the HE version, but the main difference is that Pine is a very high speed two stage missile that reaches its target out to 10km in about 12 seconds, while Kornet moves at about 350m/s... so rather slower...

Both have the expensive optics and complex guidance systems in the launcher so the ammo is cheap and can be mass produced in enormous numbers and actually used without breaking the bank...

I highly doubt that the latest product (TDI-J85 engine) of the program "Gray Wolf" will be really used in the realization of cruise missiles "swarms", as usually mantained in open media, while instead it will be, if realized at affordable cost, used as main propulsion of full UAV formations or mixed UAV/"dumb" cruise missiles swarms with the UAV component providing integrated flight parameter guidance and target assignation and positional data for the "dumb" affordable cruise missiles.

There are some premises for that:

1) US specialists lately became perfectly aware that classical approach to the decoys design, mostly through radar signature's management of the flying object aimed at mimic other products and theirs employment in SEAD/DEAD missions, has been practically rendered totally obsolete by the latests integrated multifrequency sensor of main enemy's IADS and the new algorythms of theirs integrated signal processing , reciving data from irradiations from different point of origin.  

2) Advancement in Federation's air and even more ground-based EW systems render for the future "swarm attack" mandatory the total authonomy of the elements of the attacking group from long range man-on -the-loop guidance, or by means of advanced IA integration - an element that however collide with the necessity of very low unit cost and time of construction of the single elements - or through guidance carried out by some elements present directly in or near the attacking swarm - in the initial Pentagon's plan F-35 or F-22 ,but the plan has been abandoned lately toward specilaized UCAV -.

3) The size of the swarm (number of the component elements) and the stand-off distance from the enemy AD systems , necessary for a staple node of an enemy IAD continue to grow enormously year after year and those growing requirements, togheter with the secure guidance technique from point 2, collectively collide directly with the ever lowering unit cost's requirements.

In substance a future offensive air group need an ever growing number of  highly-expendable UAV/UCAV/cruise missiles , with ever growing stand-off range ,so that theirs delivering platforms or ground bases would noit become easily destroyed by enemy air defenses or stand off attacks, and with sensor suit and flight guidance methods that must be more and more independent and resistant to EW. Those three ever changing factors do not combine favourably for weapon designers.

The new trend among US planners is to create relatively affordable stand off products that, to the contrary of identified decoys, cannot be totally eliminated from engagement sequence by part of the EW and SAM of enemy IAD because potentially capable to generate some damage to the defensive structure or provide aid ,in the shape of short range jamming or positional data, to second wave stand off weapons : in substance the aim has became that of generate the maximum menace's disambiguation problems for the enemy IAD.

Returning to the Gray Wolf subject is important to understand that the TDI-J85 is an engine with lower mass but also only about 200 lb of thrust, even foreseeing a very unlikely increase of 25-30% thrust in a future iterations, you have a product that prevent the relative missile to proceed at the same speed and flight parameters of missiles such as JASSM/JASSM-ER and above all with the same radar signature of those product for advanced multi-spectral radar of the latest generation, moreover those low-cost "cruise missiles" would lack the space and energy requirement for authonomous guidance and ECM resistant terminal guidance.

From what said it is very likely that the final iteration of the Gray Wolf program will be likely a suicide or surveillance UAV ,integrated in a pack of similar,but high cost UAVs with very similar flight speed and manoeuvering parameters, relying on those higher cost UAVs -maybe with a degree of AI integration- for guidance and target engagements or, instead, a very low performance cruise missiles almost devoid of avionics relying on guidance by part of ISR elements (both high altitude UAVs or manned fighter/bombers.

Thanks to the detailed answer by Mindstorm.

Yes sure we know the U.S MIC has seldom managed to develop cost effective weapons, that's not the point but the new notion to go for such a weapon (whether sufficiently cheap as endproduct or not).

The threat to IADS assets is a weapon which launching platform can't be intercepted by today SAM systems since it can fly at low level --> launch --> CM fly at terrain masking level 500km away from the target.
Warhead wont be heavy (150-200kg range) but speed will be mach 0,8-0,9.

A weapon with those parameters can be carried by a F-16 (2) and launched from a save distance. (I'm aware of the high operating cost per hour of U.S tac. airpower)

Beside Israels official Delilah program and its secret variants, Iran is also following this concept (Qods-1 and Mobin CMs) and Iranian military industry is strictly cost-effectiveness driven. As said, the key is the very simple mini turbojet designs of today with a single turbine and compressor stage.
Today DSMAC maps, terrain feature comparison, memory, chips, cheap IIR sensors, all are available in miniaturized form and low prices.
Hurdle was the propulsion, which slowly is also solved.

I'm seldom concerned by new U.S weapons, but this one does if it delivers what it promises.
If such weapons become available to U.S tactical airpower, most cost effective active counter solutions such as the Derivatsiya-PVO with guided 57mm shell may be the way to go.
Its no certainly wonder weapon but a kinematically inferior subsonic CM that could however become a threat in high saturation numbers.

The point is that the fact that they are developing standoff weapons shows the success of the Russian IADS.... and it is hardly a fault of an IADS if the enemy then decides to avoid it and fire at it from a distance.

It then becomes the job of your air force and navy to take any conflict to the enemy... if the US is using stand off cruise missiles to slowly wear down Russian defences then they have lost simply because the Russians can respond to any attack by destroying valuable components used in that attack like aircraft and airfields that host those aircraft... the attacker will need to escalate or desist...

For small countries something like Hermes and future developments might be the best solution.... right now a 100km range ballistic rocket delivered munition to hit point targets... in the near future fit a scramjet motor in place of the main solid rocket motor and quadruple its flight range and start targeting Israeli airfields deep inside Israel where individual aircraft can be targeted...

They launch 10 stand off weapons at you... destroy 4-5 of their fighter planes on the ground or in the air... we will see who gives up first...

Even if they don't hit anything the cost in Patriots and Arrows will make it very very expensive...

Like Iran showed, the best to counter western military is huge numbers of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and suicide drones.

Having a very big air defence army is costly and the best you could do is destroy aircraft above your territory. It's not useless but defence systems never make you win a war.

With thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles you can destroy a country (its military bases, airports and its economy).

IMO it is more disuasive to have the power to attack directly deep into the enemy and make huge damages than having the power to destroy its aircraft only.

Russia should invest in a 2000km MRBM to put in danger the rear bases of nato in italya and germany ...

That seems to be the route they are all going - standoff missiles.

Russians are relying on fast quasi ballistic style and cruise missiles. If they manage to make a system that launches more than two Iskander K at a time, which has been shown at least in model form, then Russia is sitting pretty

miketheterrible wrote:That seems to be the route they are all going - standoff missiles.

Russians are relying on fast quasi ballistic style and cruise missiles.  If they manage to make a system that launches more than two Iskander K at a time, which has been shown at least in model form, then Russia is sitting pretty

Iskander's 500km is too small. Look at a map Iran has very few targets that it could hit with a missiles less than 500km. Same for Russia, advanced nato positions are not worth having only a BM with 500km range.

With a missile with 2000km range and two hundreds launchers you can deny nato to use all the airports in that radius. Because the missile needs 10min to reach the target so if the satelittes detect f-22 on an airport you can destroy them in 10min. They won't have time to move.

Kalibr are too slow and the targets may move during its flight. They are good against fixed installations. They can't replace ballistic missiles.

Using you fighters beyond 2000km is impossible in a major war. Just look at the airbases used by the coalition against iraq. All of the ones hosting fighters were within 2000km of iraqi borders and there wasn't enough shelter to protect all of them. So a cluster munition warhead could have taken out tens of foghter at once.

That's what Iran is doing. They already tested 2000km+ ballistic missiles with cluster munitions.

At least Russia has the kinzhal now but too few vectors.

Fuck dude, I know you are smarter than this.

I'll make it simple.

Iskander is mostly held back by software, not hardware limitations due to agreements through INF.  Now that is dead.

Iskander K is a large missile.  Hence why the US was bitching about the new Iskander K missile 9M729.  It shares very similar characteristics of Kalibr missiles.  And this is also why domestic kalibrs are 1,500 km range while export is less than 500km while being same size and design.

As well Iskander missiles have cluster munitions.

http://www.military-today.com/missiles/iskander.htm

And while I agree speed is important factor, the low altitude flight is very important. Iskander M's are ideal at hitting moving formations as short range and high speed with limited maneuvering will gauarantee high chance of a hit. While if they were much further away, that won't happen. Only way is if missile is flying low, undetected, has a massive warhead and the formation on ground isn't aware; could a long range missile (be it fast or not), be able to hit a marching formation accurately.

I guess Russia could spam ballistic missiles

I was talking about the ballistic iskander not the cruise missile which is a derivate of kalibr with probably 2000+km range.

The ballistic missile has a range of 500km and could probably go as far as 700/800km but that still too small IMO.

NATO power is focused on airforce. Having a ballistic missile that can hit at max range in 10min allows you to destroy aircraft that just landed. That's a basic and very effective way to deal with US air power.

The cruise missiles should be used to destroy depots, bases, HQs, fuel tanks or ports or aircraft shelters.

Well, that is why they are working on the next ss-20 as the treaty is dead. They could effectively bring it off the shelf if they so choose too.

Right now ICBM's take priority in budget. Yars, Avangard, etc. Makes sense too.

Eventually they will field a Iskander 2.0 more or less - a medium range model.

The Iskander is a manouvering missile... if you launched it on a ballistic path it could probably reach 1,000kms in its current form... the problem would be that it would be as vulnerable to intercept as any other ballistic weapon like a Scud.

They can easily increase the range of the Iskander, that wont be an issue, but cruise missile development has overtaken such things... sure they could make a 2,000km range model of Iskander, but they are about to introduce long range scramjet powered missiles that fly just as fast or faster than solid rocket missiles.

Why piss around making an Iskander three to four times longer ranged when you could create a hypersonic cruise missile that flys above most existing western SAMs and manouvers making it invulnerable to the ABM systems too... and giving it long range is much easier because it is jet powered and does not need to carry all the oxygen it needs to burn with its fuel... it can carry fuel and scoop up air as it moves... vastly more efficient and faster and longer ranged...


The Russians have no problems developing and building Intermediate range ballistic and cruise missiles... they were already rather good at it when they were banned...