Pantsir missile/gun AD system: #2

George1 wrote:Pantsyr-SM with an installed four-seater container for small-sized missiles. The main objective of these missiles is to intercept small drones and single unguided missiles.

The missile itself is like a toy, maybe 20cm ? But no more than 30 cm .

A toy filled with explosives. The dream of every kid.

Isos wrote:What's the purpose of the antenna on the radar ? Some sort of amplifier ?

Which radar ?

If what you mean is that object supported by four flanges on the engagement radar. That perhaps a feed horn. Which i'm curious on why no more people asking. "why feed horn for an AESA radar ?"

Existence of feed horn on top of a supposedly AESA could only means two points :

1.The radar is actually PESA
2.The radar is what i speculated a "Hybrid" between AESA-PESA that works in different band and they were sharing common aperture.

The feedhorn is for the higher band (e.g mm wave) While the AESA may work in another band (e.g X-band). There of course no disclosure on the design but this one is my speculation :



The PESA part is a reflectarray while the AESA part is behind the reflect-array's reflector.
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The SM appears to delegate the control function to another vehicle.. as there seems to be no crew control cabin as the previous Pantsyr.

The SM is meant to act as independent if need be so the crew is in the cabin of the first part of the vehicle and the second part is simply manless.

These are also meant to act in control with a central command unit.

The missile itself is like a toy, maybe 20cm ? But no more than 30 cm .

On the previous page you see it but I would say the front narrow piece is about 3-3.5cm and the body of the missile might be 5cm-6cm calibre maybe a little bigger.

A toy filled with explosives. The dream of every kid.

One that is supersonic and flys on remote control....

That's actually the normal size. The first missiles were designed in the 90s and made on the basis of tunguska's missiles.

Now, 20 years later, electronics have a reduced size (Moore's law), there is no inboard radar and the rocket engine can work with tiny missiles which would be harder to miniaturized if it was a jet engine.

Also the new missikes with 40km range will just use the technology of the small missiles but in the body of the 20km missile.

The missiles themselves are similar to command guided ATGMs and don't have a lot of electronics inside them... a long slim warhead and control fins...

The SM appears to delegate the control function to another vehicle.. as there seems to be no crew control cabin as the previous Pantsyr.

My understanding is that the only unmanned model is the shelterised model mounted on a trailer. All the rest have crews and can act on their own independently or as part of a regiment or battery or as part of an IADS.

Pantsir-S (VNIIRT TAR), Pantsir-S (KBPA TAR), Pantsir-SA and Pantsir-SM

Why does the arctic version not have the 30mm cannon?

They can't be that heavy and they add an extra layer of air defence.

The-thing-next-door wrote:Why does the arctic version not have the 30mm cannon?

They can't be that heavy and they add an extra layer of air defence.

Arctic version got 6 more missiles instead of guns. Guns have a lot of mechanical parts, which could freeze and jam, also they take a lot of space for ammunition. With taking guns out, they got additional space in turret for heating devices for operations in extream cold.

medo wrote:

The-thing-next-door wrote:Why does the arctic version not have the 30mm cannon?

They can't be that heavy and they add an extra layer of air defence.

Arctic version got 6 more missiles instead of guns. Guns have a lot of mechanical parts, which could freeze and jam, also they take a lot of space for ammunition. With taking guns out, they got additional space in turret for heating devices for operations in extream cold.

I think 57mm cannon would work better in that climate than the 30mm equivalent. Bigger more robust parts.

Potential Tunguska replacement, tracked Pantsir

I suspect the replacement for Tunguska will be those turrets mounted on Armata, Kurganets, Boomerang and Typhoon chassis...

Isos wrote:That's a tracked pantsir-SM.

Tracked pantsir-S1 is already ready since long ago :

That's the old version, from 15 years ago, which was not ordered. If they produce the tracked version their going to deeply modernize it first.

The Tunguska is essentially a Pantsir designed and built for the Army.

Air defence equipment is generally tailored to the force that uses is, so the Army uses Shilka and ZSU-57-2 and Tunguska to operate with its armoured forces to provide air defence for mobile forces. The Navy needs something different... they have AK-630 turrets and now Duet, but they also had twin barrel 30mm cannon mounts firing a very powerful 30 x 210mm round.

The Air force needs close in protection and their version of Tunguska was Pantsir.

The first version had single barrel 2A72 30mm cannon which can be fired at air targets but are not ideal against smaller faster moving targets.

The Tunguska has been upgraded but most of the effort has gone in to the Pantsir upgrades making it a more capable system.

I rather suspect the Army wants the 2S38 vehicle to replace the 2S6M Tunguska, but they will probably also have lots of other vehicles like Pine and possibly an all missile version of Pantsir... note the original concept of the Tunguska was that a Shilka has guns and a radar and is not cheap, while an SA-9 has missiles but no radar and the SA-13 has more missiles and a ranging radar so missiles are not launched at targets outside the effective range of the missiles, and are not super cheap. The Tunguska is more expensive than Shilka or SA-13, but it is not more expensive than operating both systems... and significantly more capable.... longer range higher altitude reach with both guns and missiles and more missiles... plus the fact that it has radar and EO both can be used for both guns and missiles.

The first model Tunguska couldn't use missiles at night, but obviously when the Navy adopted the concept with Kashtan they needed to be able to direct the missiles at night because sometimes enemies launch anti ship missiles at night... I think the Tunguska 2S6M1 fixed that and extended the missile range from 8km to 10km, while the naval missile could reach targets at 12km.

That was when they started on a shelterised wheeled vehicle that was cheaper to buy and operate than a track layer that the Air Force could use with other SAMs to defend against direct attack... of course the Army wants to protect armour moving cross country so the truck version didn't interest them, though radar and missile and EO upgrades have been added to Tunguska to keep it useful...

I suspect their next step, if the air burst 30mm cannon shells prove effective and are cheap enough would be a Pantsir turret on the armoured vehicle base it would operate with, so for instance an Armata brigade would have an armata based Pantsir.

The 2S38 57mm gun equipped air defence vehicle could compliment such a system because it does not have a search or tracking radar... it only appears to have optics so operating together with a Pantsir would improve its local performance getting fresh raw data about the air situation from the nearby Pantsir.

In Army use of course the 2S38 is on a BMP-3 chassis so divisions that don't include BMP-3s like a Kurganets or Boomerang or Armata or Typhoon division would have the turret mounted to the relevant chassis in the IFV version most likely so the rear troop space could be used for extra ammo in an automated ammo handling system so instead of just 150 rounds ready to use in the turret basket autoloader, it might have a further 200-300 rounds in the troop compartment... loaded in a mechanism that might feed the rounds automatically into the turret autoloader when that gets low... perhaps by turning the turret to a specific direction and loading the round automatically...

I would suspect the 2S38 would have a similar mechanism because it would not be carrying troops either.

Tunguska-M1 is still a potent complex for modern needs. Russian army should simply modernize older models to the latest M1 standard. It got new search radar with 25 km range, more capable missiles with 10 km range, new data link for IADS integration and thermal imaging camera for day/night operations. It is not difficult to install complex for using air burst ammunition, which will give Tunguska capabilities to engage small drones and ATGMs like Javelin or Spike. I don't think Russian army will take tracked Pantsir as they already have Tor-M2. Pantsir is SHORAD, the same as Tor, while Tunguska is VSHORAD with guns. Army could take Pantsir-SM as it is medium range SAM, to take the place of older Buks, while Buk-M3 have similar range as old S-300V. Tunguska will stay in armament for some time as it is equipped with own search radar, while Derivatsia and Sosna don't have it and are depending on battery radar and IADS for target deliveries. Maybe army could buy wheeled Pantsir on Bumerang vehicles to have potent SHORAD with guns to protect logistics behind the lines. Bumerang is stable enough to effectively use guns on the move.

Isos wrote:Also we saw in Syria SHORADS are easy to destroy

No, we didn't.  We saw the obvious that SHORADS deployed as isolated units without the benefit of mutual coverage and not within a larger IADS can be picked off by drones when their missiles are deleted.

Pantsir are good, but not invincible.

Also we saw in Syria SHORADS are easy to destroy and their counter jamming capabilities are very limited (they are not using S-400 radar but smaller and less powerfull ones). The more you have the better it is.

No we didn't. How many pantsirs were destroyed in Hmeimim base? Non. We could only see, what happened if you use SHORADs wrong. Basic unit is a battery, not a single Pantsir. If you use it wrong, you get out of ammo and vulnerable for attacks or get overwhelmed by enemy. When you use a battery you have 6 TELARs with 72 missiles and 12 guns with 24 target engaging channels. This is quite a difference. SHORADs are quite good against jammiong, you just need competent and well trained crews and Arabs are not realy example for that. Just look at Saudis...

You never have enough of them and tor-m2 is expensive.

Yes and Pantsir is cheap. They both have similar price. Army decide for Tor-M2 and VKS take Pantsir.

Pantsir is better suited on the front because it has longer range missiles. The 10km missiles of tunguska are already outranged by many helicopters or drones equiped with atgms.

Tor and Pantsir are in the same league of SHORAD and Tor also have longer range missiles than Tunguska, which is VSHORAD with guns. Tunguska is in front of Tor and in front of Tunguska is Strela-10 and AA guns like ZSU-23-4. Behind Tor is Buk. With new sistems introduced in the Army, you will have Tunguska and Sosna in front of Tor-M2 and Derivatsia-PVO and Gibka-S in front of them. Tor-M2 and Pantsir have the same capabilities, so no need for Pantsir.

I don't think Russian army will take tracked Pantsir as they already have Tor-M2. Pantsir is SHORAD, the same as Tor, while Tunguska is VSHORAD with guns.

They used Tunguska and TOR together.... essentially TOR replaced OSA which replace S-60 57mm cannons, while Tunguska replaced Shilka and SA-13 and SA-9.

Their air defence regiments within there armoured divisions includes missile (TOR) and gun/missile (Tunguska) regiments and I don't see that changing.

I don't agree that they don't need the full 40+km range Pantsir missiles... the west is adopting 32km range ATGMs and while the odds on hitting a vehicle or helicopter launching missiles from that distance is low the ability to detect and engage such incoming missiles and having a chance of shooting down the launch platform makes them worth considering.

Of course as most of these new missiles are IIR and optically guided some form of DIRCMS systems would also be of value too.

Tunguska will stay in armament for some time as it is equipped with own search radar, while Derivatsia and Sosna don't have it and are depending on battery radar and IADS for target deliveries.

There are still Shilka and Osa in operation... a Tunguska, as you point out has radar, which would make the 2S38 and Pine more effective...

Maybe army could buy wheeled Pantsir on Bumerang vehicles to have potent SHORAD with guns to protect logistics behind the lines. Bumerang is stable enough to effectively use guns on the move.

It gives them a protected mobile chassis that should be relatively cheap to buy and operate and produce in numbers... paired with another boomerang with a 2S38 turret and it would be quite a powerful and potent team... would be an effective anti ambush pairing too...

Also we saw in Syria SHORADS are easy to destroy and their counter jamming capabilities are very limited

I would say the opposite... In Syria where individual vehicles were used to defend targets over quite a time period the Israelis might have taken out 2 Pantsirs that were overwhelmed and ran out of missiles.... but otherwise even before a unified IADS the Pantsirs and BUKs seemed to have a rather good kill rate against a range of targets.

In Russian use I really don't think even against HATO that the enemy would be much stronger than Israel... and they will be properly equipped with large numbers of systems all working together...

Tor-M2 and Pantsir have the same capabilities, so no need for Pantsir.

Enemy helicopters and CAS aircraft and drones means extra range for missiles would be valuable for Tunguska.

Stumbled on an article today (linked at the end), as I was skimming over the Wikipedia page on the Pantsir. It's referenced as a source for a line about the Syrians' supposed general dissatisfaction with Russian radars. Wanted to get any of your takes on it. More importantly, whether any of you know if there's any truth to it (specifically the extracts below), since I'm usually pretty hesitant to trust statements by "A Syrian military source".

I should add, about the source, it seems like an intermediary (Operated out of the UK), since it mentions a Russian website called Avia as the origin of the statements by the source. Gave a quick search to find the original article on the site but gave up (I don't speak enough Russian.)

I don't have any intention to stir up any controversy. More curious as to whether anyone knew about this. The history of the statement; It's veracity, who the 'source' is, etc..

Here are the key extracts.

"A Syrian military source told the Russian outlet that the radar used on the S-300 and the Pantsir-S systems has proven to be incapable of detecting and hitting Israeli cruise missiles on numerous occasions."

"Radars which do work, however, are reportedly those manufactured and delivered by China in recent years, such as the long-range JY-27 and JYL-1 systems as well as the LLQ120"

And the full article.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200501-syria-says-russian-missile-defence-system-ineffective/#

After some more research into the sources, I've come to the conclusion that it's all horse-shit.

Avia.pro is a Russian sensationalist news website about Russian military-related topics (Some heavily pro-Russian mil, others heavily anti-Russian mil). Translating a few pages made it clear that the only content published was blatant click-bait articles, and in some cases outright lies.

For example, I don't know if you guys have have seen 'The Ready Room's' YT video where a US Pilot in an F-18 performs BFM against a Malaysian Su-30; Long story short, the F-18 triumphs 3-0 (Pilot ability, no doubt, but I digress). Anywho, Avia.pro claimed the opposite scoring, but had the audacity to post the actual video and assume the readers couldn't understand English. That's about when I realised it was all complete tripe)

It also quoted a fair few Israeli websites on the performance record of S-300 and Pantsir, which... well... you can imagine how that goes.

TL;DR
The statement that a Syrian military source complained about Russian radars and praised Chinese radars is from a very sketchy source, at best; At worse, it's complete fiction. It should be taken with a grain of salt