Russia shows the Pantsir-S1M modification at the Tula parade

Many eyes were on the military parade in Moscow on May 9 on the occasion of Victory Day, which is always celebrated in Russia on that date. There were also parades in several Russian cities on the same day. The city of Tula, located in the northern Central Russian Upland, also held a military parade on May 9.

The city’s citizens and guests could see the Pantsir-S1M modification, bulgarianmilitary.com reports. According to Russian media, the anti-aircraft missile gun complex was of greatest interest in Tula. Pantsir-S1M was one of the 50 units of military equipment that “paraded” on the central main street of the city.

Pantsir-C1M is quite different from the basic Pantsir-SM model. The first impression is made by the new KAMAZ-53958 Tornado armored chassis. Rostec says this chassis allows the mobile air defense system to have a payload of up to 25 tonnes. The cabin is unified, Rostec also says. Typhoon-K armor was used for the cabin, and the manufacturer of the armor guarantees protection according to GOST 6a class. According to those more familiar with Pantsir-S1M, this armor can withstand hits from 12.7 mm B-32 armor-piercing incendiary bullets.

The Pantsir-S1M modification has a new multifunctional targeting station. It is equipped with AFAR radar, which has a detection range of 75 km. According to Russian experts, the destruction range of the radar has been increased to 30 km.

Rostec says in its advertising brochure that Pantsir-S1M is capable of hitting aircraft with an RCS of 2.5 m2 and a speed of 300 m/s. The distance according to the officially published striking characteristics varies from 1,200 meters to 30,000 meters. The height at which Pantsir-S1M hits enemy targets is between 15,000 meters and 18,000 meters. The complex can simultaneously fire at four aerial targets, Rostec claims.

Over the past three years, Russia has been working on upgrading Pantsir. Russia’s mobile air defense system suffered a serious image loss after it failed against Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones. First in Libya in 2019, then in Syria the same year, and the following year, Pantsir-S1 was often a victim of the Turkish drone.

The defeats of the Russian Pantsir-S1 were noticed among the Russian media as well. In 2020, even the Russian Zvezda newspaper expressed the opinion that it is useless against Turkish drones.

The defeats in Libya and Syria were painfully accepted by the Russians. BulgarianMilitary.com recalls that Pantsir-S1 has a Russian and an export version. The export version is quite mutilated compared to the original Russian version. The Russian Pantsir-S1, for example, has a three-coordinate target detection station with a semi-active phased array antenna and a dual-band centimeter-millimeter radar tracking system for targets and missiles. While the export version only has an optical control system.

The expensive and supposedly high-quality equipment puzzled Russian engineers as to why Pantsir-S1 was vulnerable to Turkish drones. This was the reason that in 2020, Russia withdrew a large part of Pantsir-S1 and returned it to the production workshops for deeper modification.