Pantsir missile/gun AD system: #2

medo wrote:
Actually this is very interesting, that in Karabakh old analogue systems like ZSU-23-4 and Osa have no problems to engage different drones in real combat, including suicide Harops, while more modern digital Skyguard and Shahine could not do in real situation. Osa is older than comparable Crotale or Roland and Skyguard came in armament in the eighties, while ZSU-23-4 in the sixties. Skyguard is comparable with Tunguska. I would not be nice to mention, that in that time those western complexes were way more expensive than their eastern analogues, similar as today.

AAA is again in a very different situation. If engagement ranges are 1,5-2km for ZSU-23-4 and 2,5-3km for Skyguard 35mm then tracking and search functions have much lower range requirements.

This means in practice: A Crotale search radar can't support a engagement by detection for a 0,05m² RCS target at over 7km, while it can do it for a 1m² RCS target (20 times larger) at 15km.
A ZSU-23-4 on the other hand, even with a radar 3 times lower performing (5km vs. 1m² RCS) can detect a 0,05m² target at over 2km and start engagement day/night.

That would mean that a Armenian ZSU-23-4 would be able shot down a smallest 0,01m² RCS target at an usual engagement range of 1,5km, at night via radar-only.

The same is true for legacy missile SHORAD at engagement ranges well below the maximum. The Saudi Crotale probably would have been able to engage if the range to the target would have been below 5km, instead the max. 10km. Same thing for Osa.
A problem would be only that the sites (position) were not layed out to counter such LO objects and hence gaps appeared.

I think it is well possible that acquisition search radars detected the targets when they were very close but tracking radars failed to establish a lock at those distances and no thermal camera channel was available to do a "manual" engagement.

GarryB has a point that small/map portable and simple electronic reconnaissance could have helped to map the emitter activity patterns at that site.

PeeD wrote:AAA is again in a very different situation. If engagement ranges are 1,5-2km for ZSU-23-4 and 2,5-3km for Skyguard 35mm then tracking and search functions have much lower range requirements.

This means in practice: A Crotale search radar can't support a engagement by detection for a 0,05m² RCS target at over 7km, while it can do it for a 1m² RCS target (20 times larger) at 15km.
A ZSU-23-4 on the other hand, even with a radar 3 times lower performing (5km vs. 1m² RCS) can detect a 0,05m² target at over 2km and start engagement day/night.

That would mean that a Armenian ZSU-23-4 would be able shot down a smallest 0,01m² RCS target at an usual engagement range of 1,5km, at night via radar-only.

I think you do not understand, what this mean, that Osa and ZSU-23-4 are old analogue systems. Old analogue radar in ZSU-23-4 neither in theory could see such small RCS, because it could not distinguish it from natural noise. More modern digital complexes like Skyguard have far better capabilities to filter such targets from natural noise. But it also depend on capabilities of digital processors and software, what to filter out from noise.

Yes, you could see very small targets with Osa or ZSU-23-4 radar at quite a long distance, but you need a very skilled operator, who could distinguish a noise of such target from other natural noise in crude radar picture. I know, that years ago ex East German Osa operators have no problem to track F-117, because they know what to look in the noise. I'm sure Armenian operators are also very skilled and could well distinguish noise from such drones from natural noice. Other question is, how well skilled are Saudi operators to distinguish them from the noise or they simply filter all noise out and see nothing, only big targets.


At 1:55 you could see crude radar picture from Osa search radar.


Here at 0:04


Clear radar picture at 4:45 with natural noise filtered out in Roland.

Don't underestimate Humint... a battery of OSA or Shilka could receive radio reports from posts around the place that hear the drone or missile and report its general location... even in the dark you could say roughly where it is in relation to where you are... knowing where they are you can plot a general direction on a map and steer radar and optics in that direction and find things you would not otherwise be able to detect.

Obviously intell is critical... if you suspect something is going to happen then alertness wont be a problem, but if you have been working at that plant for years with no threats or problems then you might not be so diligent.

The Saudi leadership have dismissed ideas that the Houthis did this... they say it is too sophisticated... but then the terrorists they fund in Syria and other places also use sophisticated things and modern tactics...

GarryB wrote:Don't underestimate Humint... a battery of OSA or Shilka could receive radio reports from posts around the place that hear the drone or missile and report its general location... even in the dark you could say roughly where it is in relation to where you are... knowing where they are you can plot a general direction on a map and steer radar and optics in that direction and find things you would not otherwise be able to detect.

Obviously intell is critical... if you suspect something is going to happen then alertness wont be a problem, but if you have been working at that plant for years with no threats or problems then you might not be so diligent.

The Saudi leadership have dismissed ideas that the Houthis did this... they say it is too sophisticated... but then the terrorists they fund in Syria and other places also use sophisticated things and modern tactics...

I'm not underestimating it. Visual observation posts are normal part of air defense structure, at least in the east if in the west they forget about it. Of course they receive information, where to look for drones, but Shilka and Osa still have to see them themselves, that they could engage them or they could fire blindly in given direction and hoping to hit something.

Problem with Saudis is bigger. Cruise missiles and drones first have to fly over "front line" on Yemeni border, which is covered by Saudi air defense, EW radars, fighter jets and AWACS. Than they have to fly for hours through saudi air space to hit targets, which are near Persian gulf. This region is also heavily guarded by fighter jets and AWACS planes, which could easily pick them up from above. No F-15E/S or Eurofighter or US F-22 didn't detect them. No AWACS detect them, no warning from satelittes. Also on their flightpath is Riyadh with its air defense and air force protection. Those drones and missiles should be detected from many directions and shot down, but they didn't. We are talking here about last batteries, which were defending Abqaiq rafinery. Difference between Saudis and Amenians in Karabakh is, that saudis have enormous depth of defending space and lines, before those drones came to the last baterries and targets, while in Karabakh those Armenian Osa and Shilka baterries were actually first and last line of defense. They didn't have big debth of defending space in front of them, what quite limited their detecting capabilities. This we could also see in Syria, how difficult it was for syrian air defense before they liberate enough territory that they got enough space to create needed air defense network for effective defense. Before they were easy targetsd for IDF and the rest, but later they were effective against all those strikes and shot down big part of them.

Point is, that those western complexes like Skyguard and Crotale and the rest in the path didn't pass the real combat test against drones and cruise missiles, while Shilka and Osa did. On the paper Skyguard and Crotale are better and more modern than Osa and Shilka, but reality show the opposite, assuming that both crews were equally professional.

They couldn´t detect the drones/cruise missiles. Full-stop.

They claim the attack came from Iran but most of the air defence systems of Saudi-Arabia and Amiland are concentrated in that direction + some ships with the fantastic AEGIS system. That means their explanation (the attack came not from Yemen, but Iran) makes the failure of their systems even worse.

Don't underestimate Humint... a battery of OSA or Shilka could receive radio reports from posts around the place that hear the drone or missile and report its general location...

If those people who filmed pakistani jets during the attack or those lebanese guys who see those low flying f-16 and drones in Lebanon had Igla-s with them I bet you no more aircraft would go around there.

Short range system can protect important targets but if deployed everywhere in your country it would oblige the fighters to fly high making them easy targets for S-300/400.

Russian air-defense structure goes all the way down to company level. In effect it means a few two-man MANPAD teams that act semi-independently. They get vector information from top up &/or relay that information to the top.

The real scary part is the ability for almost all systems to passively scan/receive such information. F-35/22/15/16 could be flying past few BUK's without knowing that they see them and effectively fly into a killing zone. Go low and you're an easier target for MANPADS/Shilka/Osa/Pantsir etc. You also bleed more fuel and likely just failed your mission. Go high and you'll be boned by S-300/350/400 &/or fighter aircraft.

No one but Russia has such structures and no where but in Russia do they exist. All foreign expeditions (syria, for example) have a decent amount of air-defenses, but are mainly bunched up in static-ish locations. This is why Russia provided new IADS to Syria. Not only to protect Syrians, but themselves also. They will keep the slow and methodical work on upgrading their air-defenses & if the Israeli's keep dicking about in Lebanon's aerospace, they will start to provide them with defenses as well. This is the natural flow of thought.

They claim the attack came from Iran but most of the air defence systems of Saudi-Arabia and Amiland are concentrated in that direction + some ships with the fantastic AEGIS system. That means their explanation (the attack came not from Yemen, but Iran) makes the failure of their systems even worse.

That is what makes it so delicious... you could almost accept drones and cruise missiles slipping through their defences from the South from the direction of the war torn third world country of Yemen, but coming from Iran... their mortal enemy where all their weapons and sensors and systems should be being trained as we speak is unforgivable... especially when they train their own surrogate terrorist forces in Syria to mount attacks like that...

medo wrote:

GarryB wrote:Don't underestimate Humint... a battery of OSA or Shilka could receive radio reports from posts around the place that hear the drone or missile and report its general location... even in the dark you could say roughly where it is in relation to where you are... knowing where they are you can plot a general direction on a map and steer radar and optics in that direction and find things you would not otherwise be able to detect.

Obviously intell is critical... if you suspect something is going to happen then alertness wont be a problem, but if you have been working at that plant for years with no threats or problems then you might not be so diligent.

The Saudi leadership have dismissed ideas that the Houthis did this... they say it is too sophisticated... but then the terrorists they fund in Syria and other places also use sophisticated things and modern tactics...

I'm not underestimating it. Visual observation posts are normal part of air defense structure, at least in the east if in the west they forget about it. Of course they receive information, where to look for drones, but Shilka and Osa still have to see them themselves, that they could engage them or they could fire blindly in given direction and hoping to hit something.

Problem with Saudis is bigger. Cruise missiles and drones first have to fly over "front line" on Yemeni border, which is covered by Saudi air defense, EW radars, fighter jets and AWACS. Than they have to fly for hours through saudi air space to hit targets, which are near Persian gulf. This region is also heavily guarded by fighter jets and AWACS planes, which could easily pick them up from above. No F-15E/S or Eurofighter or US F-22 didn't detect them. No AWACS detect them, no warning from satelittes. Also on their flightpath is Riyadh with its air defense and air force protection. Those drones and missiles should be detected from many directions and shot down, but they didn't. We are talking here about last batteries, which were defending Abqaiq rafinery. Difference between Saudis and Amenians in Karabakh is, that saudis have enormous depth of defending space and lines, before those drones came to the last baterries and targets, while in Karabakh those Armenian Osa and Shilka baterries were actually first and last line of defense. They didn't have big debth of defending space in front of them, what quite limited their detecting capabilities. This we could also see in Syria, how difficult it was for syrian air defense before they liberate enough territory that they got enough space to create needed air defense network for effective defense. Before they were easy targetsd for IDF and the rest, but later they were effective against all those strikes and shot down big part of them.

Point is, that those western complexes like Skyguard and Crotale and the rest in the path didn't pass the real combat test against drones and cruise missiles, while Shilka and Osa did. On the paper Skyguard and Crotale are better and more modern than Osa and Shilka, but reality show the opposite, assuming that both crews were equally professional.

Medo the "problem" with your line of reasoning -that paradoxically should lead your thought toward a much more simple hypothesis for the lack of any interception in the Abqaiq EAV attack- is that you continue to provide examples of largely outdated (even more than those at defense of Abqaiq) SHORADs that have successfully downed subsonic UAVs while asking to youtself how several Patriot, Shahine and Skyguard batteries could have all failed to down even only one of those low subsonic UAVs.


The most linear response to this oddity is simply that ,in the first instance - UAVs more advanced than those of the attack to Aramco downed by very old SHORADs - the targets was whitin engagement footprint of those systems while in the latter instance - the attack to Abqaiq - they do not.

You have also questioned how those UAVs and cruise missiles could have ever overcome the KSA's radar coverage placed to the South toward Yemen : also here the most simple response is that those UAVs, during the mid-altitude flight pact toward the target area, have simply capitalized the huge blind area of coverage of AN/MPQ-53s (that is also the main reason behind the LTAMDS program) being the unique KSA radar system with some kind of large area surveillance and coverage; in the proximity of Aramco's facilities the UAV group have lowered to 20-25 m of altitude to remain outside the engagement limits of Shaine SAM, the unique SHORAD in the engagement range of which the UAV group was forced to pass.

How explained previously the UAV group have very likely completed a big turn from a point to the South of the Aramco's installations and is just from this turn that the UAV impacted on the oil structures "apparently" from a NW angle of attack.

This explanation is much more rational that the hypothesis where those low subsonic UAVs have passed in a completely flat and open area just in the NW Sector covered by AN/MPQ-53s and directly over the patriot and Skyguard batteries without that even one of those UAVs engaged.
It is an explanation on the edge of the impossibility.

Very good points Mindstorm... these are very slow flying drones and missiles and to have attacked from Iran means they must have both had enormous range, but also spent an enormous amount of time flying over most of Saudi Arabia to reach their targets... which all sounds rather unlikely... especially at low level where engines are least efficient and the risk of flying into trees or power lines or other obstructions make the journey dangerous to the drone itself.

GarryB wrote:Very good points Mindstorm... these are very slow flying drones and missiles and to have attacked from Iran means they must have both had enormous range, but also spent an enormous amount of time flying over most of Saudi Arabia to reach their targets... which all sounds rather unlikely... especially at low level where engines are least efficient and the risk of flying into trees or power lines or other obstructions make the journey dangerous to the drone itself.

Yes Garry ,at low level the range of those UAVs would have been severely reduced (in the 200-250 km ballpark), totally insufficient to reach the Aramco installations.
As said the An/MPQ-53 leave immense blind spots (it cover near reliably about 100 degrees with side lobe imposed limits for the reamining 20 degrees) therefore knowing the actual sector coverage of this radar in a particular area allow enemy to plan its flight pact around it; it is a trivial task.

US Army rely ,as usual for over ocean doctrine, on Air Forces (anyhow totally unsuited to fight low flight cruise missiles and drones) to cover those blind spot sectors.

Well I would say the a few critical things about blind spots... first of all once the enemy knows about then they will exploit them which makes you even more vulnerable to a successful attack than if you didn't have a system there and relied on other things to detect threats. Second, as we have seen, detection before impact is critical, and if you don't detect them and identify the threat before the explosions, no amount of money or hardware is going to be any good.

Even the Red Baron from WWI knew the best attack was opening fire from above and behind with the target totally unaware they were under attack... and that included not using tracer ammo to warn him he is being fired upon. There is no chivalry in war, this is not a boxing match or chess game... this is life and death... kill or be killed... you can wax lyrical about honour and glory in the books you write after the war.

While Medo has certainly a point that legacy systems like the Shilka can't exploit the advantage of exponential higher range-RCS performance of very short range radars in general (due to lack of automatic MTI/DMTI), I think Crotale/Shahine and more so Skyguard generation systems have MTI/DMTI.

Acquisition/search radars of both systems likely detected the <0,1m² class targets at some point, but this point was outside the range of both tracking radars and no backup manual thermal channel was available.

Hence I would expect that general boundary condition of the attack was to avoid the Skyguard/35mm envelope at all cost, which is fortunately just around 3km. The rest would have been to exploit the reduction of Crotale max. engagement range from 10km down to <5km.

Let me stress again: Iran is in the unique position to operate both, Skyguard and Crotale, envelopes are well known.

Thanks to Mindstorm for the always valuable contribution.

While Medo has certainly a point that legacy systems like the Shilka can't exploit the advantage of exponential higher range-RCS performance of very short range radars in general (due to lack of automatic MTI/DMTI), I think Crotale/Shahine and more so Skyguard generation systems have MTI/DMTI.

Say what you like OSA and Shilka have a decent record against low flying slow targets and these western systems... well this was their chance to shine and they clearly failed.

Of course it counts a lot whether your opponent is clever and does their homework, or just use weapons crudely and expect them to perform miracles.

You can dress it up any way you like, but these weapons most likely came from the south from the houthi rebels... did they get advice and support... well it would be very rich of the west to blame Iran for that sort of crime seeing as how the west has been helping "freedom fighters" around the world for the last three hundred years to do that sort of thing... stinger MANPADS and Milan ATGMs aren't made in Afghanistan... for instance.

Mindstorm wrote:Medo the "problem" with your line of reasoning -that paradoxically should lead your thought toward a much more simple hypothesis for the lack of any interception in the Abqaiq EAV attack- is that you continue to provide examples of largely outdated (even more than those at defense of Abqaiq) SHORADs that have successfully downed subsonic UAVs while asking to youtself how several Patriot, Shahine and Skyguard batteries could have all failed to down even only one of those low subsonic UAVs.


The most linear response to this oddity is simply that ,in the first instance - UAVs more advanced than those of the attack to Aramco downed by very old SHORADs - the targets was whitin engagement footprint of those systems while in the latter instance - the attack to Abqaiq - they do not.

You have also questioned how those UAVs and cruise missiles could have ever overcome the KSA's radar coverage placed to the South toward Yemen : also here the most simple response is that those UAVs, during the mid-altitude flight pact toward the target area, have simply capitalized the huge blind area of coverage of AN/MPQ-53s (that is also the main reason behind the LTAMDS program) being the unique KSA radar system with some kind of large area surveillance and coverage; in the proximity of Aramco's facilities the UAV group have lowered to 20-25 m of altitude to remain outside the engagement limits of Shaine SAM, the unique SHORAD in the engagement range of which the UAV group was forced to pass.

How explained previously the UAV group have very likely completed a big turn from a point to the South of the Aramco's installations and is just from this turn that the UAV impacted on the oil structures "apparently" from a NW angle of attack.

This explanation is much more rational that the hypothesis where those low subsonic UAVs have passed in a completely flat and open area just in the NW Sector covered by AN/MPQ-53s and directly over the patriot and Skyguard batteries without that even one of those UAVs engaged.
It is an explanation on the edge of the impossibility.    

Sancta Simplicitas! Saudi Arabia is not in total peaceful time, when sudden attack happened and surprise them with attack on unguarded facilities. They are in war in Yemen and this attack was not the first one, neither with drones. In July Houties made attack with such drone on Riyadh international airport. They know, that Houties have such drones and they know, this is not the first and last attack. Patriot in the south is only to engage ballictic missiles. To engage drones, they have other complexes, primarily it is most modern compley VL Mica. Air defense is also very well planned and you could bet, that it was not Saudies, who plan such defense, when they have enough foreign military assistants around, who know the job. Today it is far easier with modern computers with digital 3D maps, than in our times with pencils and paper maps. No planner will leave any radar shaddow or gorge uncovered. Every direction is covered in one way or another. Area, from where Houties could, launch drones and missiles is not that wide, so they could made general barrier with VL Mica complex, but the gaps are covered by MANPADs and Vulcan AA guns, controled by portable radars, and they are all connected in network. Army checkpoints on the front could as well serve as visual observation points to give a warniong for such treats.

Last line defense of Aramco facility is also well prepared and builded with concrete platforms. Such defense is absolutely well planned and elaborated with all needed diagrams and radar pictures, that there is absolutely no shaddow gap, that such drones could slip through outside engagement range. If there is, than they could shot all those incompetent planners. My comparison is simply based on assumption, that air defense plans are properly planned with Armenians and KSA and that crews are equally profesional.

GarryB there is no doubt about how great the Shilka and Osa were and are. Medo just got a point when he says that radar power and aperture wise a Shilka may be able to detect a <0,1m² target at 2km but is not able to distinguish it from clutter and noise.
With the generation of the Skyguard and DMTI this may have become possible at its relevant operation range of 2-3km.

The Saudis chose an economical approach to cover blind areas of 35mm AAA with missiles in the form of the Crotale. It would certainly sound more economic to protect a large target with a 10km range missile SHORAD instead of 3 Skyguard batteries.
The problem is however that the Crotale is layed out to counter 1m² RCS target at that max. range.
A tighter net would have been needed to counter such LO targets if Crotale was to be used of lets say 5km distance instead of 10km (if MTI/DMTI could help to pick up LO targets against clutter and noise effects).
Or a system of newer generation such as the TOR-M1 which was layed out from the start to counter 0,1m² at it's max. range.

PeeD wrote:GarryB there is no doubt about how great the Shilka and Osa were and are. Medo just got a point when he says that radar power and aperture wise a Shilka may be able to detect a <0,1m² target at 2km but is not able to distinguish it from clutter and noise.
With the generation of the Skyguard and DMTI this may have become possible at its relevant operation range of 2-3km.

Now we come together, why I said, that theoretically Skyguard should be better at engaging those drones than Shilka, which actually shot them down.

The Shilka has a incredible high rate of fire. Used with a fix time-fuse it can create a box of shrapnel in-front of the incoming object trough which it can't avoid to fly due to the size and proximity of the box.

The Oerlikon 35mm on the other hand has magnitudes lower rate of fire and tries to follow the incoming target with munitions until there is an effect, rather direct hits.
It has longer range and high accuracy to achieve that, but it should be inferior to the Shilka (radar of different generation excluded of course).
Oerlikon 35mm can only play out its accuracy/range advantage if each munition is time fused for accurate timed shrapnel effect close to the target. With the AHEAD system it can improve its low ROF, target-following concept, to have well timed fragmentation effect near the target.
The only question then is if this system is economic enough... it may extend 35mm battery range to full 3,5km and hence allow more sq-km under AAA protection.

In Iran, the IRGC favors is own Shilka-like 23mm "mass-salvo" solution for object protection while the normal army favors 35mm Skyguard for larger area protection and plans to equip it with individual AHEAD-like fuse-timing.

GarryB there is no doubt about how great the Shilka and Osa were and are. Medo just got a point when he says that radar power and aperture wise a Shilka may be able to detect a <0,1m² target at 2km but is not able to distinguish it from clutter and noise.
With the generation of the Skyguard and DMTI this may have become possible at its relevant operation range of 2-3km.

Well that leads to surprise and blind spots....

The older soviet systems displayed radar data with very little or no processing... which meant a radar display filled with signals from the ground and all sorts of other interference. You can argue that that makes tiny slow targets hard to spot because they are amongst a lot of other crap, but if you are sitting in one place for months however you probably start to recognise the clutter shapes and patterns of the local terrain so if something new appears you are more likely to spot it as being wrong and worth attention.

With the more modern systems where computers remove the noise they have to use criteria for determining what is a valid target and what is noise so it uses a set of rules.

Iran uses these systems and probably know what those rules are and can probably design drones in terms of RCS and speed and altitude so they are removed from the screens as noise.

There was an enormous fear in Vietnam about the dangerous north vietnamese stealth planes... An-2s... which can fly at night at very low altitudes at speeds of less than 90km/h... which is slow enough for them to be removed from the displays of look down radar... otherwise cars on motorways would also appear on the displays as well as birds and other shit.

It is a case of new technology making things easier, but leaving gaps an enemy can exploit.

The Shilka has a incredible high rate of fire. Used with a fix time-fuse it can create a box of shrapnel in-front of the incoming object trough which it can't avoid to fly due to the size and proximity of the box.

The Oerlikon 35mm on the other hand has magnitudes lower rate of fire and tries to follow the incoming target with munitions until there is an effect, rather direct hits.

In this particular case however such factors are only valid if both systems detect the targets in good time and are able to engage them.

In this case it seems the targets were not detected, therefore range and rate of fire and accuracy etc etc mean nothing no matter how superior or otherwise the guns or missiles being used are.

Detecting the targets or not in this case means you still can't compare the systems... except in the fact that one set of older systems did engage similar targets and the newer models failed to detect the targets. On paper the new systems should have cleaned up the targets the way the older systems probably would have, but you can't just make that assumption really.

Sooo...I've heard a rumor that Serbia will receive in next few months 4 batteries of Pantsir S1/2. Any confirmation about this?

ARMY 2019 , Pantsir-SM Pictures

https://www.armyrecognition.com/army-2019_news_russia_online_show_daily_media_partner/army_2019_kbp_group_unveils_pantsir-sm_cannon_missile_air_defense_system.html

The Pantsir-SM is to replace the Pantsir-S1 but remains compatible with it. The Pantsir-SM is superior to the Pantsir-S1 by 1.5-2 times. It incorporates a multi-functional targeting radar station, increasing target detection range from 40 to 75 km and engagement range from 20 to 40 km, thus twice more efficient than the current Pantsir-S1. The weapon station is fitted on a new KamAZ K-53958 8×8 chassis with armored cab.

The new Pantsir-SM incorporates a multi-functional targeting radar station, increasing the target detection range from 40 to 75 km and the engagement range from 20 to 40 km. It is able to destroy aerial targets at a maximum range of 40km and at a 15km altitude, twice more than the current Pantsir-S1. The new radar is able to detect targets at a distance of 75 km. The weapon station is mounted on a new 8x8 Kamaz truck chassis with armored.

Pantsir-SM is intended to enter service with the Russian army in 2021.

https://www.janes.com/article/89867/russian-sam-troops-deputy-commander-dubs-s-350-cruise-missile-killer

Col Muravkin claimed that the Pantsir-S short-range air defence (SHORAD) system had been used to "deal effectively with" Grad rockets fired by the BM-21 multiple rocket launcher system, small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and quadcopters over the last year and a half and had countered air-to-surface missiles and aircraft for a "long time".

The colonel added that the recently unveiled Pantsir-SM will counter future threats such as hypersonic missiles and UAV swarms, stressing that in addition to a new radar, greater processing power, and missiles with greater speed, range, and payload, the Pantsir-SM will use artificial intelligence.

Col Muravkin also stated that because of the proliferation of precision-guided munitions (PGMs), the focus is shifting from area to point air defence with Pantsir systems, while S-400 SAM systems will deal with aircraft before they launch PGMs.

Pantsir-SM will not be a replacement for Pantsir-S1/S2, but will supplement it. Russian PVO-VKS is layered, with S-500 and S-400 as top complex. Next layer will be S-300PMU2 and S-350. Next layer will be Pantsir-SM as medium range SAM, SHORAD layer is formed with Pantsir-S1/S2 and they will be followed by VSHORAD and MANPAD layer with Verba missiles and Gibka-S complex. This last layer could as well include modernized ZU-23M1 guns, which are still very effective against drones.

A while back they showed a trailer model with a small cabin and EO ball turret with a single twin barrel 2A38M 30mm cannon (2,000-2,500rpm) and a quad pack of Sosna-R or Pine SAMs that looked rather interesting... and would probably form a rather good replacement for the 23mm weapon if one were needed.

It wouldn't have the raw light weight of the 23mm system, but in terms of performance it should have both more reach and better performance in terms of finding and tracking targets.

Over time the S-350 will replace the S-300 models including the upgraded ones.

Regarding the Pantsir systems I wonder if they will use the Pantsir-S models for defending larger SAM systems and radars and HQs etc, whereas the new models might be sent out to operate on their own or with even shorter ranged systems for lower priority target protection.

Will be interesting.

For instance is Pine going to be Army and Navy only or is it going to be more widely used... it looks like a very capable system... and cheap to use.

I think it was in the nineties, when they show that towed AA gun with Sosna missiles. After that, nothing to hear about it.

ZU-23M1 are real upgrades of old ZU-23-2 AA guns. They have many in armament and a lot of crews in reserves.







ZU-23M1 is equipped with thermal imager, TV camera, laser rangefinder and ballistic computer. Calibre of 23 mm have a little shorter range comparing to 30 mm, but those guns are already on Tunguskas and Pantsirs. To be honest, in modern warfare AA guns of both calibers will not engage real combat planes, as they will be too high and too far away jusing stand off ammunition. Their primary targets now will be drones and ZU-23 was already very effective against such targets in real combat. Modernized ZU-23M1 will only enable it to work day and night and in any weather. With additional Igla-S or Verba missiles it will be able to engage cruise missiles and to keep helicopters on distance. They are ideal to give protection around Tors and Pantsirs in layered air defense.