The Russian air defense concern Almaz-Antey on Tuesday, September 22, spoke about the successful tests of the Tor-M2U short-range anti-aircraft missile system when firing on the move. Test firing from a 9A331MU tracked vehicle from the Tor-M2U air defense missile system was carried out in the Astrakhan region. It is reported that the vehicles of the complex were moving at a speed of 25 km / h along a steppe country road. Without stopping, the Tor-M2U air defense system was able to detect the Saman target missile, took it for auto-tracking, and then shot down the target missile at a distance of more than 8 km.
The tests carried out in the Astrakhan region proved the possibility of firing from a complex in motion. As a result, this should give the air defense system a very important tactical advantage, which ultimately will allow the Tor-M2U air defense system accompanying military columns to reflect enemy air raids on the move. Until recently, covering the troops on the march with this complex was possible only with a short stop, Pavel Sozinov, who holds the post of general designer of the concern, told reporters about this.
SAM "Tor" (NATO codification SA-15 Gauntlet "Plate gauntlet") is a Soviet and Russian all-weather tactical anti-aircraft missile system, the main purpose of which is to solve the problems of air and missile defense of troops and objects at the divisional level. Air defense complexes "Tor" in various modifications have been in service with anti-aircraft air defense units of the Ground Forces since the mid-1980s. Moreover, over the past 30 years, these complexes have been repeatedly modified. Complexes "Tor-M2U" are intended for the organization of air defense of ground forces in the areas of their concentration, during the conduct of hostilities and on the march, the protection of communication centers and command posts, bridges, airfields, radio equipment, etc. from airplanes, helicopters, radio-controlled missiles, corrected and gliding bombs, UAVs and other elements of modern precision weapons.
In order for the Tor air defense system to keep up with the ground forces units covered by them, they were initially mounted on a tracked chassis, which provided the air defense system with the ability to follow the covered parts on almost any off-road. But until recently, Russian "Torahs" could not shoot on the move. If there was a danger of an enemy air strike on a convoy of troops making a march, then the air defense systems had to stop and wait in order to carry out rocket firing at the detected targets without any problems. At this time, the convoy accompanied by them could move far enough, and the effectiveness of its cover at the same time decreased.
To "teach" the air defense missile system to fire on the move turned out to be far from the easiest thing. In any case, not a single modern anti-aircraft missile system in the world is able to do this. Therefore, the designers of the Almaz-Antey concern were able to solve a seemingly unsolvable problem. Thanks to their efforts, "Tor-M2U" is able, without stopping, to cover army units and subunits along their entire route to the designated deployment and deployment sites. During the tests at the Kapustin Yar test site, the means and forces of the test site itself were involved, as well as the Kupol training center of the Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant (IEMZ), where the Tor air defense missile system is being manufactured today.
Yan Novikov, General Director of the Almaz-Antey Concern, which includes the IEMZ Kupol, noted that within the framework of the tests carried out, it was possible to confirm in practice: the possibility of detecting and acquiring a target for automatic tracking in motion; accuracy and quality of tracking air targets in motion; the unstressed exit of the anti-aircraft missile from the container and a number of other technical parameters. According to General Designer Pavel Sozinov, the concern's specialists managed to bring the Tor complex to a qualitatively new technical level of its development.
All air defense systems of the Tor family use a single anti-aircraft guided missile (SAM), which was developed by specialists from the Fakel ICB. This SAM was specially created for effective interception of small-sized and actively maneuvering air objects in flight. In addition to the basic variant of placing the combat assets of the Tor-M2U anti-aircraft missile system on a tracked chassis, other placement options are offered on the market. In particular, at the MAKS airshows, since 2007, a variant of the complex was demonstrated with placement on an off-road wheeled chassis, the base in this case was the MZKT-6922 wheeled chassis. The use of this chassis makes it possible to improve the habitability conditions of the crew, as well as to increase the operational characteristics of the complex on paved roads. In addition, a modular version of the complex was presented, which received the designation "Tor-M2KM".
The Tor-M2U complex developed by the Almaz-Antey Air Defense Concern belongs to the new generation of short-range air defense systems. The complex can be used to organize air defense of tank and motorized rifle troops on the march, important military and state objects from enemy air attacks within its zone of destruction, at any time of the day, day or night, as well as in difficult jamming and meteorological conditions. SAM "Tor-M2U" was adopted by the Russian army in 2012. The complex is capable of simultaneously hitting 4 air targets located at an altitude of 10 kilometers with 4 anti-aircraft missiles.
SAM "Tor-M2U" is able to effectively fight at short range with all existing types of modern air attack weapons, including intensively maneuvering, small-sized, low-flying, as well as made with the use of stealth technology. The complex has no analogues among Russian and foreign air defense systems in this class. A high degree of work automation allows the complex to detect and rank 48 air targets according to the degree of danger presented. Compared to the previous version of the Tor-M1 air defense system, the number of guided missiles simultaneously firing at air targets was increased from two to four. In addition, it was possible to increase the detection range of air targets by more than a quarter (from 25 km to 32 km), as well as the range of their destruction (from 12 to 15 km).
Thanks to almost complete automation, this modern short-range air defense system is very effective. The combat crew of the complex only has to make a decision on the destruction of the most dangerous objects of air attack, among the targets detected by the complex, which are selected by the combat vehicle itself according to various criteria. This opportunity was realized using a modern computing system. One of the main advantages of the complex over foreign counterparts also include the minimum reaction time of the air defense missile system, its deployment, as well as the ability to escape from a possible attack from the enemy. Due to the sufficiently high mobility, it is possible to minimize the risks both for the complex itself and for its crew. In addition, the "Tor" air defense missile systems are quite easily integrated into the air defense systems existing today, while maintaining the possibility of independent, fully autonomous use of this anti-aircraft missile system.
Currently, the Tor air defense system is in steady demand on the international market and is in service with many armies on the planet. In particular, Greece, China, Egypt, Venezuela and Iran are armed with these air defense systems. And the fact that the complex was able to hit air targets while on the move, in the long term only add to its popularity in the international arena. The updated complexes are supplied to the Russian army. So already on September 23, 2015, information appeared that the air defense units of the Eastern Military District, stationed on the islands of the Kuril ridge, took up combat duty on the new Tor-M2U air defense systems. This was reported by the Interfax agency with reference to the headquarters of the Eastern Military District. “At present, the air defense watch is organized as part of two batteries of the Tor-M2U anti-aircraft missile systems. In total, the Russian armed forces have more than 120 Tor complexes.
