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The failure of Pantsir in Libya has been fascinating. One has to wonder if it's a failure in design/tech or in training and operations? Same with the drones tha
by greedo 6y ago
The failure of Pantsir in Libya has been fascinating. One has to wonder if it's a failure in design/tech or in training and operations? Same with the drones that were used with impunity in Nagorno-Karabakh. I also wonder if the Russian's have been hyping their SAM systems too much. Not that they're not formidable, but they often seem to make their A2AD systems sound impenetrable.
- angry_octet 6y agoIf you're flying an Apache and you crest a hill and there's a ZSU or an SA-9 on the other side that is a brown pants situation. Obviously you try everything possible to avoid that engagement envelope. But with a drone it is feasible to push harder. It's possible that the Pantsir-S export firmware isn't as good, but being totally spanked can't be good for export sales. The Turkish drones (eg Bayraktar TB2) have the indigenous KORAL EW system for both sensing and jamming, and given the platform SWaP constraints it must be pretty smart, though I don't know how they are preventing algorithm compromise given drones get shot down fairly often. Crypto presumably. Given the relatively static setup, it is likely that the positions of the SAM sites is heavily compromised via local informants, leakage from cell phones and aerial surveillance. And rather than integrated A2AD it is probably more isolated sites. But still very impressive for a 659kg drone to be able to take them out.