The new surface-to-air missile system is made by Russian weapons manufacturer Almaz-Antey. The company demonstrated the system at the Obukhov State Plant in St. Petersburg, home to its branch that manufactures the Vityaz launchers.Russia has for the first time demonstrated the short-to-mid-range air defense platform ‘Vityaz,’ which will replace older variants of the S-300 system due to be scrapped soon. The army will begin testing the new hardware later this year.
The system boasts advanced all-aspect phased array radar, a new mobile command post and a launcher carrying 12 vertical-launch missiles, which will use a variant of the 9M96 active radar homing missile. Similar missiles are used by the S-400, the newer generation of the S-300, which is currently being deployed in Russia.
Vityaz launchers can also fire a short-range missile that was not officially identified, but is likely a variant of the 9M100.
“I believe the system will be able to engage target within ranges from 30km to 120km,” Said Aminov, military analyst and editor of the World of Air Defense website told RT. “It’s a system of object air defense with some element of tactical antimissile defense.”
Almaz-Antey aims to hand over the system to the Russian Defense Ministry for testing before the year’s end, company head Vladislav Menshikov told Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was inspecting the plant.
The company partially based the design of the Vityaz on its work with the South Korean KM-SAM Chun Koong system. Almaz-Antey designed three radar units for the KM-SAM, and is rumored to have also helped design the system’s missiles.......................................
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