Pantsyr-S1 Anti-Aircraft Artillery
The Pantsyr S1 short-range air defense missile-gun system will replace the Tunguska M1 complex in the Russian military following the successful completion of testing. Pantsyr-S1, also known as Pantsir-S1 or Panzir (all meaning "Shell" in English), is a short-range, mobile air defense system, combining two 30mm anti-aircraft guns and 12 surface-to-air missiles. It can simultaneously engage two separate targets, ranging from aircraft to missiles and guided bombs. The Pantsyr S1 short-range air defense system is designed to provide point defense of key military and industrial facilities and air defense support for military units during air and ground operations.
The word Maile comes from the old French for chain. As the name implies, this armour is constructed by the linking of metal rings. The Russians distinguished three types of Maile armor. The Russians used a Hauberk of flat rings which was distinguished by the name "Baidana". The "Kolchuga", which may simply be translated as Maile, is of a loose weave, using large rings. The Hauberk of tight weave, using smaller and thicker rings is called "Panzir Kolchuzhnik", which may be translated as Armour of Maile. The Panzir Kolchuzhnik was often reinforced with small disks of bronze or steel and had decorative hook-fasteners of the same metal. Both the Kolchuga and the Panzir Kolchuzhnik were made of round rings.
The system was tested during joint Air Force and Air Defense Forces exercises at the Ashukuk testing grounds in southern Russia. The Russian Air Force will receive the first Pantsyr S1 complexes in 2008.
The integrated missile and gun armament creates an uninterrupted engagement zone of 18 to 20 km in range and of up to 10 km in altitude. Immunity to jamming is attained via a common multimode and multispectral radar and optical control system operating in the decimetric, centimetric, millimetric and IR wave bands.
It can fire on the move, while the Tunguska system can deliver only gun fire on the move. The universal nature of target engagement includes a wide range of air targets: aircraft and helicopters before they fire their weapons, small-size guided missiles, as well as lightly armoured ground targets and manpower.
The automatic mode of battle performance of a separate combat vehicle or several combat vehicles acting as part of an air defence unit, improves time characteristics and reduces psychological and physiological loads on crew members. The great number of targets can be engaged in a short space of time due to the short reaction time, the high speed of the SAM flight and the availability of two independent guidance channels operating in a wide sector (90 x 90ˇ in azimuth and elevation).
Autonomous operation capability is due to the fact that each combat vehicle contains equipment for detection, tracking and engagement of targets. The command system of SAM guidance ensures high effectiveness of the small agile missile.
The gun armament comprises two 2A38 twin-barrel automatic guns of the Tunguska air defence system capable of engaging air and ground targets up to 4 km in range and up to 3 km in altitude.
Depending on local conditions in the area of combat operations and variants of combat employment, the Pantsyr-S1 system can operate in one of the following modes.
Autonomous operation - Each combat vehicle operates independently and ensures the implementation of the full operating cycle: search, detection, identification, dangerous target selection, target designation, supplemental search, lockon, tracking and target engagement by missiles and guns.
Combined operation - The battery operates as a unit of six combat vehicles interconnected by telecoded communication. Each combat vehicle accomplishes the full cycle of battle performance against selected targets and sends information on the selected targets to the other battery’s vehicles that exclude them from the list of the targets to be handled.
Battery command post control - Each of the six combat vehicles accomplishes all the stages of battle performance beginning from acquiring target designation data from the command post.
Leader-follower - The battery operates as a unit of six combat vehicles, one of which is assigned as a leader and the others as followers. The leading combat vehicle operates as a command post and also performs the functions of a combat vehicle as in the case of autonomous operations.
Each follow-on combat vehicle receives target designation data from the leader and operates under the control of the battery command post in all other respects.
As of mid-2007 Russia had signed Pantsyr S1 sales contracts with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jordan, and Syria, and was in talks with Algeria on the deliveries of this highly sought-after weapons system. "We have concluded $2.6 billion worth of contracts for the delivery of this system," Russia's KBP Instrument Design Bureau, which manufactures the system, said in 2006. The United Arab Emirates ordered 50 Pantsyr-S1 systems in May 2000, half to be mounted on tracked GM-352M1E vehicles from Minskiy Traktorniy Zavod of Belarus and half on wheeled chassis. The first batch of was delivered in November 2004.
On 23 May 2007 a first deputy prime minister denied that Russia had approved thesale of its Pantsyr-S1 mobile air defense system from Syria to Iran. "We have received no requests from Syria for supplies to Iran, not a single bullet," Sergei Ivanov said at a news conference in Moscow. "Russia engages in military-technical cooperation with all states that strictly abide by international law... For any arms that Russia sells to its foreign partners, contracts are signed only after the receipt of a certificate from the end user. These weapons cannot then be re-exported and supplied to third countries without the permission of the seller, in this case the Russian Federation." Media earlier reported that Damascus had agreed to sell some of the Pantsyr short-range air defense missile-gun systems it is buying from Russia to Tehran.
