Another Russian weapon that the “Leader of the Free World” must catch up with

3/14/2019

Below is our translation of an article from TASS. Commentary is by Vince Dhimos.

Isn’t it funny how trolls at various military and political forums keep telling us that Russia is not a superpower or that it is just a pipsqueak? Yet most ranking military brass and also some top political analysts, like Richard Haas, tell us that top Russian arms cannot be intercepted or that Russia cannot be defeated. Most tellingly of all, Rand Corp. and other arms sellers warn that the US needs to catch up in key areas. Now why would the powerful US have to keep catching up with a country that is so far behind in technology? Nothing to worry about, right, guys?

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There are no direct equivalents of this newest Russian anti-aircraft missile and artillery complex (ZRAK) on the world armament market.

For the first time, the maritime SARK "Pantsir-ME" is being shown abroad - the demonstration took place at the international exhibition of weapons and military equipment IDEX 2019, which opened on February 17 in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates).

"Pantsir-ME" (NATO calls it the Greyhound) Is the only anti-aircraft ship-based system in the world with a single-post combat module, which includes both air defence artillery and missile weapons, as well as a control system. It can be installed on most Russian ships and is ideal for equipping ships built in other countries. The Pantsir-ME is a shipborne version of the Russian anti-aircraft missile-gun complex, the land version of which is called the Pantsir-S.

Rosoboronexport is confident that the marine Pantsir has a large export future in the countries of the Arab East, Southeast Asia and Latin America. It is expected that the complex will go into service with the Russian army in the near future and in the future should replace the Kortik complex, which was developed back in the 1970s.

Possibilities of the "Hound"

The Russian SIRK is equipped with a multi-channel control system and is designed to destroy aircraft, helicopters, high-precision weapons (including anti-ship missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles), as well as surface and coastal targets.

The special feature is the possibility of simultaneously downing up to four targets, attacking from different directions within the same group. "The complex can be installed on all types of warships - from a missile craft with a displacement of about 500 tons to an aircraft carrier," TASS was told at the holding company High-precision Complexes (included in Rostec). It can also be installed on fixed platforms.

The complex includes:

a command module;
a combat module;
a storage and reloading system.
The command module is able to detect and accompany small-sized low-flying and surface targets, determine their degree of danger, and issue target designation data to combat modules.

The combat module finds air targets for tracking according to target designation data from the command module, accompanies them and, using radar and optoelectronic control channels, hits targets in automatic mode.

The armament of the naval "Pantsirya" includes two 30-mm six-barreled anti-aircraft guns AO-18KD with an ammunition load of 500 shells per machine gun and eight two-stage 57E6-E1 ready-to-launch anti-aircraft guided missiles with a solid-propellant accelerator and a stick-rod warhead. "32 missiles are stored in the storage and reloading system of the underdeck accommodation," Precision Complexes noted.

"Pantsir-ME" is capable of hitting air targets flying at speeds up to 1000 m/s. At the same time, the zone of destruction of targets of most modern combat aircraft in terms of slant range amounts to 20 km with missile armament and up to 4 km with artillery.

A special feature of the SCR is the possibility of destroying surface and coastal ground targets, if necessary.
holding "High-precision complexes"
The control system is capable of tracking four targets and firing four missiles at the same time, and if the target is not sufficiently defeated, they can be equipped with automatic artillery weapons.

The rate of anti-aircraft machine guns of the complex is up to 10 thousand shots per minute, which provides a lower average firing distance of one and a half to two and a half times compared with counterparts and a greater probability of hitting targets. It is worth noting that the Pantsir-ME complex can shoot both armour-piercing-sabot and high-explosive fragmentation projectiles.

It also differs in quite compact dimensions: the mass of a combat module with full ammunition is 8250 kg, while it is operated by three people: the commander of the command module, the commander and operator of the support of the combat module.

A representative of the Pella shipbuilding plant told TASS that the newest small rocket ship (corvette) of the project 22800 (Karakurt) Squall was equipped with the complex.

Foreign equivalents

There are no direct equivalents of the newest Russian SAME on the world arms market: the leading foreign developers of naval equipment have not yet solved the problem of combining missile and artillery weapons in one compact combat module.

The most popular systems performing similar tasks are the anti-aircraft artillery complex (CIWS) Mk.15 Phalanx developed by the American company Raytheon and the naval small-caliber artillery complex Goalkeeper developed by the Netherlands division of the European consortium Thales.

Currently, the US Navy’s arsenal consists of the Block 1B version of the Phalanx CIWS, which is located on the outer deck of the ship. In the absence of missile weapons, the American complex is distinguished by a fairly large mass - 6,120 kg.

Mk.15 is designed to defeat anti-ship missiles and manned aircraft. They are actively working to modernize it in order to shoot down drones. The CIWS is armed with one six-barreled anti-aircraft gun M61A1, with a rate lower than the Russian counterpart, ie, 3–4.5 thousand rounds per minute depending on the type of target. The guidance system of the American complex includes a radar station and an optoelectronic sensor.

Dmitry Fedyushko, Roman Azanov, Nikolay Novichkov

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1 Comment

John McClain

3/17/2019 07:25:25 am

It's not hard to keep up with adversaries, in armament, while fighting continuous, never ending wars, it's impossible.
It takes a special kind of idiot, to believe one can spend infinite money, on operational commitments, driving deep beyond "mere debt, into debt, compounded daily", and also idealize, invent, proto-type, test, revise, improve, meet needs, and go into production of new systems, when one can't even keep current two generations behind aircraft, functional, sufficient to field necessary numbers for close air support, train pilots, and rotate them to maintenance to avoid utter failure in operation.
Our F-35 program is perhaps the worst we've ever chosen to take, with intent to upgrade, meet the necessities of current, and possibly future challenges, while stuck with the notion "jet fighters and attack aircraft must include vertical launch capabilities."
When Igor Sikorsky stated unequivocally, he had designed an aircraft that could fly like a "dragonfly", lift off, move in any lateral direction, and do so at 200 knots, he was laughed at by all the aeronautical engineers.
He built the prototype, no controls over the twin rotors, chained it to anchors in the ground, fired it up, it hit the end of the chains, and he stood there laughing at all the amazed "engineers" who had previously laughed at him.
I watched the Brits, playing with the Harrier, in the late sixties, and we choosing to follow early in the seventies, and have laughed at it, and all who have championed its remaining, without having any substantive useful purpose, not better served by other aircraft.
To even consider a "fifth generation fighter" with such enormous demands on the airframe, and all the fitments of engine, fuel, exhaust gas re-routing and nozzle control, and expect to build four or five different versions only one of which needs this irrational airframe, simply defies logic, intelligent thinking.
I spent two decades in the Marines, from 76, to 97, and in all that time, never saw a single operation the Harrier was a value to, and at war, if one is not an "asset" one is necessarily "a liability", there is nothing between the two. I suspect we still have this notion, because our leadership is still emotionally enamored with "Rocket Man Syndrome", and while the "rocket pack" hasn't even come close to "destiny", the Harrier is as close yet, as "pilots can get", and they won't let go.
Russia looks at a chink in its armor, and designs a weapon or system to close it, or make it cost too much to attempt to exploit.
We've gone ever more complex, to increase our warring capacity, because we want to replace soldiers with technology, to be able to continue our endless aggression.
The first "distant contact weapon" of great value was the stone, thrown, by hand, then stick, and perfected by the sling. It was an impact, inertia weapon, dependent on velocity to achieve results.
We've replaced stones with bullets, then missiles and rockets, and explosives, as the primary weapon, the rocket merely replacing the sling, but using explosives to replace the need for dead on accuracy.
By choosing "kinetic energy weapons", Russia has gone with "accuracy, velocity, unevadeable, and "kinetic energy", as its force, with all the expense in the rocket, able to reach mach 10 or more, guidance capable of ensuring a hit, but no enormous expenditure on explosives, which are expensive, and degrade with time.
They have also had the time and real money, to invest in science we haven't been able to penetrate, for lack of funding, and lack of vision, and have fully developed "quantum based electronics", something I've been looking forward to arriving, for more than fifty years of my life, having gotten into electronics at six or seven.
We field a trillion in capital when we send out a "carrier group", at the very least, not counting fuel for aircraft, all non-nuclear vessels, and the far vaster cost or the weapons we routine burn up, so often with no positive results what so ever, sometimes because we "can't shoot straight, or don't know our target", other times because the response is politically necessary, but if fulfilled, would bring on a far greater, "counter-response", as in our last couple of missile shoots into Syria, abject failures, unless one counts not having any carriers sunk, and no world war.
We fight like "a Jedi Knight" with light sabre, against a stalwart opponent with both the finest steel, and decades of experience wielding it, against superior forces. Yep, that light-sabre will cut the sword, if crossed, but the sword won't cross, because the swordsman knows his weaknesses, and knows the Jedi is unaware of his own, in the face of a generation of weapons he only imagines he understands.
The light sabre never required the skills of real swordsmanship, "sabre against sabre" seems invincible, because of like training, while the "swordsman" knows he's

Military affairs.

Another Russian weapon that the “Leader of the Free World” must catch up with

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