October 2, 2024: In August of this year Russia launched a new model of its one of its current, and much maligned, short range air defense system. The new Pantsir-SMD-E displayed at the Russian Army 2024 event does away with the 30mm autocannon and just uses anti-aircraft missiles. The 57E6E missile has a range of 18 kilometers, while the new TKB-1055 has a range of 6.4 kilometers and is optimized to take down drones. Pantsir has had a long and generally disappointing history.

Despite this, in 2023 Russians were surprised and dismayed by the ability of Ukrainian aircraft, especially unmanned jet or propeller driven autonomous systems, to evade the elaborate and supposedly effective Russian air defense system. Effective it wasn’t as the Ukrainians carried out several spectacular attacks during 2023 that took place deep inside Russia, some not far from the capital Moscow. Blowing up air bases or missile storage sites is one thing, but the targets could also be the senior military and political officials running the war against Ukraine. So far, the Ukrainians appear to believe that missiles and military aircraft that carry them are more important and less easy to replace than the military and political officials in charge of wartime operations.

The successful Ukrainian attacks on air bases near Moscow called into question claims that the air defenses around Moscow were effective. In response the Russian air defense forces have added short-range SAM (surface to air missile) systems like Pantsir S-1 to tall buildings around key military headquarters or places where senior leaders like President Vladimir Putin live or work. This may not work because that’s been the experience with Pantsir.

Russia has long been unsure about how effective its new short-range anti-aircraft systems actually are. In 2020 the troubled Pantsir S1 anti-aircraft system was given more chances to be useful in combat. A new version, Pantsir S1M, was shown in public for the first time in a 2020 Moscow parade. S1M was first made public earlier at the IDEX 2019 trade show. S1M systems didn’t reach users and new customers until after 2021.

It was specifically noted that the S1M model had changes based on combat experience in Syria and Libya. That combat experience was disastrous, with over twenty Pantsir S1 vehicles destroyed by Turkish and Israeli aircraft and electronic countermeasures. Most of the losses were incurred in Libya where Russia supplied the LNA or Libyan National Army faction fighting a civil war there with over 20 Pantsir S1 vehicles. Most were lost to Turkish TB2 drones firing laser-guided missiles after the Pantsir S1s had been blinded by Turkish Koral jammers. Israel used similar tactics in Syria.

The Pantsir S1M was equipped with a new, 75-kilometer range, radar plus an advanced electro-optical target tracking system. Electro-optical systems cannot be blinded easily and certainly not by electronic jammers. The S1M was equipped to detect and take down all manner of drones, no matter what their size or operating capabilities. S1M uses a new missile with a range of 30 kilometers and an improved internal guidance system. At the same time, there has been a less publicized effort by the Russian army and navy to obtain a new system to replace Pantsir, which they have lost confidence in. Given the dismal state of the defense budget, it may be a while before a Pantsir replacement can be developed and delivered. Meanwhile, Russia put the S1M model to the test in actual combat. While Turkey and Russia are allies, they avoid killing each other’s personnel in Syria and Libya and the new Pantsir S1M would be out to destroy Turkish drones. That will cost Turkey some hardware and reputation if S1M works but won’t do the kind of diplomatic damage Russians killing Turkish troops does.

Pantsir-S1 is a mobile, truck-mounted system. Each vehicle originally carried a radar, two 30mm cannon and twelve Tunguska 9M311-M1 missiles. The original 90 kg missiles had a twenty-kilometer range and the radar a 30-40-kilometer range. The missile was designed to hit targets up to 8,400 meters. The new Tunguska was heavier, had a longer 30 kilometer range and presumably could hit targets at higher altitudes.

The 30mm cannon is effective up to 3,200 meters. The vehicle can vary, but the most common one carrying all this weighs 20 tons and has a crew of three. Each Pantsir-S1 vehicle-mounted system costs about $15 million, the S1M costs about a third more. The new Pantsir-SMD-E sells to export customers for about $17 million.

Typically, four to six Pantsir vehicles are organized as a battalion along with a command post and support vehicles. Larger numbers of Pantsir vehicles are organized into a regiment of two or three battalions and more support vehicles. These consist of electronic and mechanical repair vehicles as well as other vehicles carrying spare parts and missile reloads and 30mm ammunition. There is also a system simulator that is carried in a truck or trailer. Russia has made a tremendous investment in Pantsir and does not want to scrap the system. If S1M doesn’t work in combat, Pantsir will have to go if only because its survival depends so much on export customers.

Russia has already gone to extraordinary lengths to protect Pantsir in the media. In a rare instance of Russian media damage control, Valery Slugin, the lead designer of the Pantsir-S1 air defense system, gave an interview to a Russian newspaper in early 2020. Slugin explained how a Syrian Pantsir vehicle was destroyed by Israel forces in early 2019. The Israelis released a video of the incident. Slugin explained that it was the fault of the Syrian crew, which had fired all of their missiles and were waiting for the missile resupply vehicle. Meanwhile, the Israelis noted the missiles being fired, found the Pantsir and destroyed it with a missile. Slugin explained that if the Pantsir crew had moved the vehicle the Israelis might not have found and destroyed it. Slugin also stated that this Pantsir had just destroyed eight targets, presumably Israeli cruise missiles, while firing its twelve missiles. The Israelis reported that the target of their cruise missiles was destroyed and only two cruise missiles failed to hit the target. Nevertheless, the state-owned Russian firm that developed, manufactured and marketed Pantsir to export customers felt it necessary to let the world know what they believed actually happened. Russian media also released a video of Pantsir missiles exploding in the air. In response, Israel revealed that the cause of this was that its Delilah cruise missiles carry a radar jammer that makes Pantsir lose track of their target. When that happens Pantsir missiles self-destruct rather than hit the ground and risk friendly casualties. Russia implied that the missile was exploding near an unseen target. This was accurate, but not the way the Russians wanted it to be.

Another marketing effort in late 2019 publicized the fact that over 30 Pantsir-S1 systems had been sent to Syria, and implied that this many Pantsir-S1 vehicles could defend all of Syria from attack by warplanes, drones, cruise and ballistic missiles. The problem with Pantsir is that only Russia and Syria claim the system is effective. Their critics Israel, the United States, Turkey and apparently Ukraine have another perspective that contradicts Russian and Syrian claims. Moreover, the Russian air defense systems used by Syria have, since 2011, brought down only one aircraft, an elderly Turkish RF-4E reconnaissance aircraft shot down by accident in 2012. The Turkish aircraft was flying off the coast and apparently not expecting to be attacked. Syria was then using Cold War era Russian equipment. When the Russians intervened in 2015, they brought more modern air defense systems with them, including the Pantsir. The problem is that the much-hyped Pantsir has been a flop. No proof of any Pantsir kills has ever been presented and Israeli airstrikes consistently destroy their targets, even when Pantsir is present and firing lots of those Tunguska missiles.

Then there was an earlier incident where Russia was caught suppressing bad news about the performance of Pantsir-S1 in Syria. In one case the comments were from a Russian source. This took place in late 2018 when Islamic terrorists used multiple small, explosives-armed drones to launch several attacks on the Russian controlled Hmeimim airbase in Syria. Russia reported that these attacks failed because Russian air defense systems shot down over fifty of the small drones. Unofficial reports, via the Internet, indicated that the two short-range anti-aircraft systems guarding the base performed very differently. The older Tor-M2U system used its missiles successfully to shoot down the drones while the more recent Pantsir-S1 missiles all missed. Russian Internet censors were quick to take down some of the negative comments but the news was now out and spreading. Around this time Russia was also given lots of publicity to new, much improved, Pantsir models. Most of the upgrades were in the radar and fire control systems. These new Pantsir S2, S2E and SM models entered service in late 2018 and early 2019. Not all Pantsir vehicles have been upgraded and the overall impact of the upgrades does not appear to have been dramatic.

The late 2018 incident was not the first time Pantsir-S1 has been described as a failure. The Hmeimim airbase incidents were important because they involved a Russian controlled airbase in a combat zone. Hmeimim was built by Russia in 2015 near the port city of Latakia, which is 85 kilometers north of the port of Tartus and 50 kilometers from the Turkish border. Russia brought in Pantsir-S1, Tor-M2U and S-400 air-defense systems to protect it from attack.

The irony of this is that the Tor-M system is much older, with development begun in the 1970s while Pantsir-S1 development began twenty years later. The major difference between the two was that Tor-M was more successful and more expensive. The cost factor was one reason for developing the Pantsir-S1 but at first only export customers could afford it because the Russian military procurement budgets were sharply cut in the 1990s. In 2010, three years after the first foreign customer (Syria) received the Pantsir-S1, the Russian Air Force began getting some. The Russian economy was recovering sufficiently to expand defense spending. Initially, the Russian Air Force received the S1E version, with an improved radar (36-kilometer range) and missile (more reliable). Curiously, the air force used their first ten Pantsir-S1s to guard S-300 anti-aircraft missile bases around Moscow. There was no explanation from the Russians as to why they felt a mobile, low level anti-aircraft system was needed to guard a larger, high altitude one. Perhaps as additional protection against cruise missiles.

These ten Pantsir vehicles for Moscow were supposed to arrive in 2008, but there were more technical problems. There's been a pattern of that with Pantsir-S1. Development began in the 1990s. Work was sporadic for nearly a decade because there was little cash available. Meanwhile, several Arab nations were persuaded to order a total of about 150 Pantsir-S1 vehicles and most of those have not yet been in combat. Russia does not want these customers to question Pantsir reliability. After all, the system has worked during test firings and is a very popular and profitable export item.

Yet the main problem with Pantsir-S1 is that in combat it doesn’t work. Failures have been reported at least three times since 2007, and all occurred in Syria. Two months after Syria received Pantsir-S1s in 2007, Israel bombed a Syrian nuclear weapons development facility. The Syrians were very dismayed at how ineffective the new Pantsir-S1 systems were during the Israeli strike. The 2007 failure was attributed to Israelis figuring out how to blind these systems electronically. In 2017 Pantsir S1 again failed during an Israeli attack and the excuse this time was that the Pantsir-S1s were not turned on. The 2018 failure was with operational Pantsir systems firing missiles at drones and missing while Tor-M2U systems detected DRONEs and regularly shot them down with missiles. The video of Israeli weapons destroying a Pantsir vehicle was something the Russians felt they had to explain away, or at least try to.

The Tor-M has been around since the 1980s and has no autocannon, just missiles. It has been frequently updated. A late 2015 upgrade for their 30-year-old Tor-M, called SA-15 by NATO, enabled the launcher vehicle to fire its guided missiles while on the move. The latest version of Tor is the Tor-M2U which can hit aircraft up to 12 kilometers away and cruise missiles at a distance of five kilometers. The missile launcher vehicle has a crew consisting of a commander, driver and missile systems operator. The 176 kg missiles are three meters long, 235mm in diameter and carry a 15 kg warhead. Each battery has search radar and command center vehicles controlling four launcher vehicles each carrying eight missiles, and another radar.

The original tracking radar on the missile vehicle could track one target at a time but the latest (Tor-M2) can track four at a time. Missiles can be launched from the vehicle at three second intervals. The original missile carrier/launcher vehicle was armored against small arms and shell fragments, tracked and weighed 34 tons. Since then a cheaper towed, wheeled trailer version appeared followed by a version on a 6x6 truck that proved more maneuverable, comfortable and cheaper than the armored version.

In 2018 a major upgrade was introduced; Tor-E2. With this model, the tracked vehicle was redesigned and upgraded to operate independently. The Tor-E2 carries sixteen missiles and its own search radar. The range of the missile has been increased to 15 kilometers.

Russia was the original user but Tor-M has also been exported to fourteen other countries including Greece, Venezuela, China, Iran and Egypt. Russia prefers to sell export customers the Pantsir but knowledgeable customers keep ordering the more expensive Tor-M because they know it works.

Now Russia is trying to do for the Pantsir what they did with Tor-M, keep improving it until it works. As of 2024 that may still be a work in progress.