TOR Air Defence system

Will Tor get a fire & forget missile any time soon?

I hope not.

Fire and forget capability makes each missile rather more expensive and a tiny seeker in the missile would be easier to defeat than the rather powerful and sophisticated electronics mounted on the TOR vehicle.


The main advantage of fire and forget missiles is that in a saturation attack fire and forget missiles can be launched rapidly, whereas the current command guided missiles need guidance channels to control them limiting them to about 4 simultaneous targets at one time. The high speed of the missiles and the increase in missile numbers means that should be plenty though more sophisticated tracking radar should allow an increase in that performance factor a phased array with three to four faces covering 360 degrees would be the best solution.

Very simply put the current radar system is amazing for a vehicle mounted air defence system, but having a tracking radar in the front means targets coming in from all directions at once requires a minimum of four vehicles for 360 degree coverage.

Four face phased array radars for search and tracking functions means continuous 360 degree coverage and likely a large increase in the number of targets tracked and missiles guided to targets. An EO channel would add options in heavy jamming situations too.

The advantage of the TOR and Pantsir systems was the fact that the missiles are simple and cheap so the system is cheap and easy to use against even drone targets.

A few IIR or MMW radar guided missiles would make sense within a battery I suppose... the HERMES missile will be getting such sensors and will be used together with Pantsir batteries too.

The automation of the TOR system is likely to allow fitting of the automated turret system onto the new platforms with unmanned turrets... I wonder if they will take the opportunity to make dramatic changes to the design... ie imagine an ARMATA vehicle with a tiny forward mounted turret and front mounted engine with the small turret consisting of a 3 or four faced array radar system with an EO ball on top for IIR detection and the rear deck consisting of an array of vertically stacked missiles in a large pallet. If they can fit 16 of the new missiles in the old turret they should be able to fit double that in the rear deck area of an armata tank with the engine at the front... 32 missiles ready to fire and being at the rear it could be module based and able to be removed in one piece and replaced with a fully loaded module for fast reloads.

The three or four faced radar array would not need to rotate and could be fixed. the EO ball on top could be a mini turret with multiple optical ports looking in several directions at once including up and include the optics for the commander and perhaps a self defence MG and grenade launcher.

Actually they had enormous problems with the original naval TOR system... the Udaloy class was in service for several years before they got the guidance system fitted and working... matured into a very capable system however...