Pantsyr-S1 Anti-Aircraft Gun-Missile System - Problems
Trying to develop an alternative to the MZKT chassis for anti-aircraft and missile equipment, the Russian defense industry spent nine years and $ 270 million in wastage in the framework of the Platform-O project. As a result, at least in the next 8-10 years, the Russian armed forces still have to resort to the services of the Belarusian side to obtain special wheeled chassis and tractors of medium and heavy class.
As a prototype for the "Shell" was taken the well-known Soviet air defense missile system "Tunguska". However, the new complex was put not on the tracks, but on the chassis of a cross-country vehicle. They explained this by the desire to reduce the cost of the complex. "Shell-C1" based on the KamAZ-6560 wheeled chassis was adopted by the Russian army by order of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of November 16, 2012. And almost immediately, the complex came under criticism from the military and experts.
In an article published on the website of the Military-Industrial Courier weekly in July 2013, it was noted: the KamAZ-6560 chassis (like the whole family to which it belongs) was originally created for the usual transportation of goods, and not for military purposes. Therefore, the key requirement of the military was not met - the ability to travel on all types of roads and sections of the terrain.
In addition, the “Shell-C1” on the KamAZ-6560 chassis has a number of other serious flaws. Among them is the insufficient overall width and high location of the center of mass, which does not allow firing from the cannons of the complex on the move in the transverse direction relative to movement due to the risk of tipping over.
Insufficient passability was also indicated in connection with the use of continuous axles, dependent suspension and insufficient overall width. The tests revealed insufficient smoothness, which reduces the accuracy of shooting, as well as a low average speed of movement over rough terrain. Moreover, the imperfections in the design of the “Shell-C1” are especially pronounced in mountainous terrain.
The complexity of driving the wheeled “Carapace” and its tendency to tip over were also paid attention to by the famous Russian automobile journalist Fedor Lapshin in the article “Anti-aircraft gunner's day” published in the eighth issue of AutoRevue magazine for 2016. The author described his impressions of the “Shell” test drive. With a car length of about 11 m, the turning radius turned out to be very large - 17 m. Lapshin also noted that due to the high center of gravity of the car, the driver must be careful when cornering so as not to roll over.
According to a number of commentators, most of these shortcomings could be eliminated if the designers of the Shell went along the path of the developers of the Tor and Buk mobile anti-aircraft missile systems, that is, use the special hull chassis of the Minsk Wheel Tractor Plant type MZKT-6922. Moreover, a variety of such a machine with an 8x8 wheel arrangement has already been created.
In these Minsk vehicles, as well as in caterpillar ones, the instrumentation complex and the crew are located in the chassis housing itself. This reduces the overall height of the combat vehicle and sharply reduces the risk of overturning. And although the body of the MZKT-6922 is slightly higher than that of the caterpillar chassis, the Minsk car has a variable clearance. As a result, the complex based on the MZKT-6922 is able to freely pass under bridges and overpasses, fit into the aviation and railway dimensions.
However, considerations of technical feasibility and combat effectiveness, as we see, are not always prevailing. Say, military observer Leonid Nersesyan in the Russian industry magazine “New Defense Order” in 2015 argued as follows:
“Does Russia, which was in many areas dependent on the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, need to now become dependent on Minsk itself? The political situation now is such that it is possible to “not have time to blink an eye” as the ally begins to rapidly change its friendly positions. Therefore, the priority should still be the deployment of production of key components of military equipment in Russia, even if it is longer, harder and more expensive. ”
True, a few days later, the then head of the Presidential Administration of Russia, Sergei Ivanov, in an interview with TASS called “insanity” the desire for total import substitution. “We do not strive for total import substitution. And we are not going to fence ourselves off from the outside world, ”said Ivanov. According to him, Russia “does not need an imitation of a process for a bulldozer” when a commodity position appears, but is noticeably inferior to foreign counterparts.
At the V International Military-Technical Forum "Army-2019" for the first time, specialists and guests were openly presented with the latest development of domestic defense industry - the Pantsir-SM anti - aircraft missile and gun system based on the KamAZ-53958 Tornado multi-purpose chassis. At previous exhibitions, this system was demonstrated only in closed mode.
The Pantsirs saw action in January 2018, when the Hmeimim base came under attack by multiple mini-drones armed with explosives and launched by an unknown group. The effect of the attacks is unclear; there were claims of several deaths among Russian personnel and of several combat aircraft being damaged or destroyed. Russia has denied the claims and said that its ground defences – notably the Pantsir-S1 – had downed the approaching drones.
In a 10 May 2018 attack, the Israelis destroyed one of the Syrian Pantsir S1 anti-aircraft defense supervised by the Russians and widely released a video showing the destruction. The broadcasting of the video seems to have had the aim of boosting morale, in particular of the US and Israeli soldiers, according to the idea that we can clearly see that the Pantsir S1 is not invincible."
The Russian reaction was immediate and remarkable for its importance, showing clearly that they intend to protect the reputation of the Pantsir at all costs. Several articles have been published to explain the destruction of this system which is in the form of an autonomous truck carrying all of the armaments and the radar and electronic detection, identification and firing systems operating at a very great speed. There is in particular a very documented article on RT, with various statements by Russian specialists explaining how this Pantsir could have been surprised and destroyed.
Cited in the article, Aytech Bizhev, a former deputy commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force, explains the incident by the fact that the Pantsir was either short of ammunition, or in an inactive mode prohibiting its intervention (it takes two to five minutes to put the system in active mode, internal work in active mode being too demanding for the crew to keep this system continuously in this mode): " There can be no third option because the system would not have been destroyed… When the Pantsir is ready for battle, it constantly monitors enemy aircraft and has a very fast reaction time… ”Bizhev explains that the contiguity between Israel and Syria being complete (the two countries having a common border), the Israeli planes can strike the Syrian systems close to the border before being spotted, and without the need to enter Syrian airspace: the Israelis "approach at very low altitude in Israeli airspace, then suddenly take a little altitude out of the protection of the Golan Heights, fire their missiles and turn back."
Additional material was quickly released on the Russian side to clarify the incident, including a photo showing the state of the system after the strike. The thesis of the system in passive and stop mode seems to be corroborated by the fact that the crew did not appear to be on board the vehicle, as seems to appear on the video of the Israeli missile.
As a result of the military operation “Volcano of Wrath” conducted by the army of the Government of National Accord (GNA) of Libya, nine Russian-made Pantsir anti-aircraft missile-cannon systems (ZRPK) were destroyed ove four days by 22 May 2020. The Syrians were decent with Pantsirs. even shot down a Turkish fighter jet. It was the entry of the Bayraktar TB-2 and ANKA-S armed drones operating under the Koral electronic jamming system that changed everything.
On May 20, the press center of the operation of the GNA army, reported that one of the air defense missile systems was destroyed by a Turkish drone. Another “Pantsir” earlier in May was captured by GNA forces at Al-Vatiya airbase near Tripoli, from where they managed to dislodge parts of the Haftar army. The Libyan army destroyed three Russian-made Pantsir type air defense systems used by Haftar’s forces that were supplied by the United Arab Emirates.
The US Armed Forces obtained a Russian Pantsir-S1E air defense system from the militarized formations of the Government of National Accord (PNC) of Libya with relocation from the US Air Force Ramstein AFB (FRG) to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (Ohio). Analysis of the radio-electronic architecture of the Pantsir-S1E air defense missile system by American experts will require partial processing of the element base and software of the weapons control systems of the modernized Pantsir-S1M / 2 air defense missile systems. The choice of the Wright-Patterson airbase as the final delivery point for the trophy Pantsir-C1 is not accidental, because this object belongs to the AFRL (Air Force Research Laboratory).
Based on the data obtained, the specialists of the Raytheon corporation will be able, firstly, to simulate and load into the on-board computer of the NGJ-HB electronic warfare systems supplied to the combat units of the US Air Force, an individual counteraction mode for the Pantsirei-C1 radar guidance subsystem with flexibly simulated amplitude-frequency parameters, secondly, to fix in advance the maximum permissible EPR for the currently developed advanced aerospace attack vehicles (OTBR and their supersonic / hypersonic gliding warheads, anti-radar and anti-ship missiles, as well as multipurpose tactical missiles and guided missiles).
Secondly, AFRL employees get access to the element base of the 10ES1-E multispectral optoelectronic complex. The design features of the parameters of the optical components of the optoelectronic complex (optical magnification / zoom range, aperture, aperture, etc. TV / IR modules), as well as the type, geometric parameters and resolution of its matrix photodetectors will be determined. Based on these data, it will be possible to determine the maximum effective bearing range for heat-contrast targets with different infrared signatures in different meteorological conditions.
Thirdly, if even a single 57E6E SAM interceptor remains in the ammunition load of the "Trophy" "Pantsir-S1E", the AFRL laboratory staff and specialists from key American military-industrial corporations will have the opportunity to assess the flight performance of its second / combat stage (angular velocity turn, range of maximum angles of attack at different speeds, specific impulse of thrust, etc.). So, starting from the above parameters, the specialists of the Raytheon corporation can make significant adjustments to the programming of the inertial navigation systems of the promising operational-tactical ballistic missiles "Deep Strike" (today prototypes are at the stage of flight tests, one step away from gaining an operational combat readiness and the start of large-scale production),
An equally weighty list of consequences may be fraught with the access of our overseas "colleagues" from the AFLR laboratory to the programming principles of coding and frequency parameters of the radio command guidance channel of the 57E6E missile defense system, the laser transponder channel (located in the tail section of the 57E6E missile defense unit), as well as protected radio exchange channels information on the tactical air situation between the 96K6E combat vehicles as part of a battery / division / mixed anti-aircraft missile brigade (including target distribution and receiving target designation from third-party radar and optical-electronic reconnaissance means). All these factors must be taken into account (with the appropriate processing and / or reprogramming of the nodes, as well as the modernization of the interceptor missile defense system) by the specialists of the Tula KBP.
