Monday, January 14, 2008

Another Surface-to-Air beast: Medium Range Tor 1M air defence arm


The Tor Missile System (Russian: "Тор"; English: torus [1]) is a Russian made low to medium-altitude, short-range surface-to-air missile system designed for engaging airplanes, helicopters, cruise missiles, precision guided munitions, unmanned aerial vehicles and ballistic targets. GRAU designation of the earliest model is 9K330, and NATO reporting names are SA-15 Gauntlet and SA-N-9 Gauntlet. It is designed to protect targets from attack at all times and in any weather, not only by shooting down attacking aircraft but also by destroying any munitions before they reach their target. It is air-portable and equipped with NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) protection. The price per single unit was quoted as being $25 million in 2007.
* Typically, a battery of Tor vehicles is accompanied by the mobile Ranzhir-M (Russian: "Ранжир-М") command center. It allows for efficient allocation of tasks between the individual Tor-1M crews.
* Tor-1M is a low- to medium-range system. For shorter range, the missile-gun systems Tunguska and Shilka are used. For longer range, the Buk-M1/M2 (SA-11 Gadfly) system is used.

3K95 "Kinzhal" (Russian: Кинжал – dagger) is the naval version of the Tor and has the NATO reporting name SA-N-9. It is installed on Admiral Kuznetsov class aircraft carriers, Kirov class multimission cruisers, Udaloy class anti-submarine destroyers and Neustrashimy class frigates. It can guide missiles to up to four targets at once. Range of the ship-borne surveillance radar is 45 km (28 miles). 32 (Neustrashimy), 64 (Udaloy) or 192 (Kuznetsov, Kirov) are carried in multiple eight-round revolver VLS arrays. Some sources report that the 3K95 is equipped with a secondary infrared guidance system.

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