Buk-M2E Air-Defence system

Workaday reading. This article is taken from 'National Defence' Russian Arms & Military Technologies review 7.2008 and is actual today as well. 'Buk-M2E' - has the same missiles as its navalised version 'Shtil', installed on the 'Talwar'-class frigates. The OCRed text is fetched below.

Yevgeny PIGIN, Vladimir KAPUSTIN, Leonid BASHKIROV

The Tikhomirov Instrument-Making Research Institute (Russian acronym NI1P), a joint-stock company based in Zhukovsky near Moscow, is Russia's leading developer of stores manage­ment systems for fighters and medi­um-range air defense (AD) missile systems for army air defense. NIIP's

shareholders are the Almaz-Antey AD Concern (51 percent of shares) and the Rostekhnologii State Corporation (49 percent).

NIIP stores management systems for Su-27, Su-33, MiG-31, Su-30 fighters and all their versions, as well as Kub- and Buk-series AD missile systems are well known

worldwide. The Kub (NATO report­ing name SA-6) mobile medium-range AD missile system adopted in 1967, was the institute's first weapon system designed to protect ground troops from air attacks. It 

comprised two combat assets: an acquisition and guidance vehicle (AGV), and four SP launchers. Its export version, dubbed Kvadrat, was successfully used in many local conflicts throughout the 1970s-1990s. As regards Kvadrat's lethality, it will suffice to recall that its unique record set in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War remains unbroken to date: 75 enemy warplanes downed with a total of 95 missiles. The Kub was an open architecture system facilitating its further upgrades. In 1966-1981, its seven modifications were devel­oped and put into service. Despite its venerable age, the Kvadrat is still operational in many countries worldwide, and NI1P is currently upgrading the system upon several orders.

In the mid-1960s, NIIP began developing a new-generation Buk-series medium-range air defense (MEDRAD) system. The Buk series production was launched in 1980, and its improved version, the Buk-Ml (NATO reporting name SA-11), in 1985. The primary manu­facturer of NIIP AD missile systems was the Ulyanovsk Mechanical Plant (Russian acronym UMZ), and the primary developer and manufactur­er of surface-to-air missiles (SAM) was the Dolgoprudny Research and Production Enterprise JSC, which are part of the Almaz-Antey AD Concern. Unlike the single-channel Kub comprising two combat assets (AGV and launchers), the Buk incor­porates a command & control post (CCP), a target acquisition radar (TAR), up to six self-propelled firing vehicles (SPFVs), and the same number of launcher/loaders (LLs) allowing simultaneous engagement of up to six targets flying from vari­ous directions and at different alti­tudes. A new version of this second-generation AD missile system, the Buk-Ml-2 able to engage a wider range of targets including tactical ballistic missiles, surface and ground radar-contrast targets, entered serv­ice in 1998.

The architecture of air defense missile systems is governed by sev­eral factors, largely by the require­ments for their fighting and tactical characteristics. At the same time, fighting characteristics of MEDRAD systems always dictate the charac­teristics of their assets but do not determine their configuration. The configuration of army air defense

weapons depends on a country's military-geographic position, gener­al state of its technology and arma­ment, extent of automated control systems' branching in the air defense system, and theater-level air defense system organization.

Therefore, the organization and architecture of MEDRAD systems can be confined to the following types:

Type I consisting of:

•  own target acquisition sensors linked to a higher ACS;

•  CCP (command & control post);

•  missile guidance radars com­prising target tracking and illumina­tion functions in semiactive homing;

•  launchers with a load of SAMs. This type qf AD missile systems

includes the Advanced Hawk (US), 

NOAH (Norway), Bloodhound (UK), Kub and Buk (Russia), etc.

Type II is identical in configura­tion to Type I, but its AD missile systems generally lack own surveil­lance sensors, whilst air target data comes on-line from a higher ACS. Such AD missile systems primarily include the Patriot, especially its first version.

Type III includes AD missile sys­tems of the following configuration:

•  multifunction radars (MFR) handling target detection and track­ing, missile guidance at the initial phase of flight (inertial guidance with radio updating);

•  CCP providing communica­tions between the MFR and launch­ers;

•  launchers with a load of active homing SAMs.

Such AD missile systems include the EUROSAM, TLVS, NOSAMS, etc.

In our view, the structure of Type I AD missile systems is rele­vant and promising. It is this struc­ture that has also been selected for a third-generation MEDRAD system, the Buk-M2E, capable of engaging strategic and tactical aircraft, tactical 

ballistic missiles, cruise and air-launched missiles, helicopters, including hov­ering ones, in heavy ECM and enemy fire environ­ments.

A phased-array radar used in the Buk-M2E has allowed the SPFV to simultaneously engage four targets, while the whole AD missile system can handle 24 targets. An original design of the sys­tem's illumination and guidance radar with its antenna raised to a height of 21 m has extended the acquisition range of tar­gets flying at extremely low altitudes.

The Buk-M2E provides:

•  reliable air defense of troops in various conditions and kinds of warfare as well as that of vital administrative and industrial assets, with simultaneous engagement of up to 24 targets flying from any directions;

•  high immunity in heavy ECM environments;

•  high adaptability to integration into various groupings;

•  effective protection from precision-guided weapons;

•  all-weather capability, high mobility, high cross-country capaci­ty, short deployment/closure time;

•  operability in diverse climates;

• autonomous operation capability;

•  maintenance-free missile oper­ation within 10 years.

The Buk-M2E AD missile system comprises combat assets and sup­port & repair facilities.

It features:

•  a multimode adaptive radar/optical armament control sys­tem operating in radar, infrared and 

visible bands that ensures high immunity and survivability in heavy ECM and enemy fire environments, involving ECM equipment and HARM type antiradar missiles, as well as reliable operational use of the AD missile system;

•  high firing rate due to short reaction time and availability of a multichannel control system operat­ing in a wide sector;

•  tail-chase engagement capabili-

ty expanding the impact depth and fighting capabilities of the AD mis­sile system against piloted aircraft and cruise missiles by 1.5 times;

•  autonomous operation capabil­ity due to its SPFV carrying both tar­get detection and tracking aids and weapons;

•  modular configuration allow­ing the development of its various versions around the baseline AD missile system.

The SPFV is intended to engage a wide spectrum of various air tar­gets, as well as surface and ground radar-contrast targets.

The SPFV's basic features include autonomous operational use; an immune multiband radar/optical control system; all-weather capabili­ty; automated mode of operations; simultaneous engagement of four targets; coordination of actions with­in the AD missile system; crew pro­tection against bullets and splinters.

The AD missile system can be mounted on soft-skin vehicles and used as a powerful mobile air defense weapon with the Airborne Troops and also on wheeled and tracked chassis in the Air Force and Land Forces' air defense formations.

The Buk-M2E is comparable to its foreign counterparts in terms of basic performance and surpasses them in some characteristics.

Its constant combat readiness is ensured by a branched functional checkout system allowing fault loca­tion to a replacement unit (plug-in module) and repair, including in combat conditions.

Forecasting warfare scenarios involving air defense missile group­ings in possible conflicts suggests that developed countries will use recent-generation perfect stealthy air-launched and missile strike weapons, including ballistic and cruise missiles, precision-guided low-signature weapons to deliver massive missile and air strikes, while the air strikes will be covered by heavy active jamming. In this context, it can be expected that fur­ther upgrades of MEDRAD systems - and the Buk-M2E open architec­ture offers such an opportunity -will proceed in the following areas:

•  introduction of an active seeker surface-to-air missile into the Type II MEDRAD system;

•  use of passive target acquisi­tion and tracking systems (infrared radar, passive radar, TV optical sight with a night vision device) in com­bat assets of MEDRAD systems;

•  integration of passive individ­ual protection systems against preci­sion-guided weapons into the com­bat assets of MEDRAD systems;

•  use of recent computer technol­ogy achievements including an AI system;

•  integration of MEDRAD sys­tems' combat assets with those of SHORAD and LORAD systems.

-> Yevgeny PIGIN - Chief Designer of the AD

missile system

-> Vladimir KAPUSTIN - Deputy Director General

of the Tikhomirov Instrument-Making Research

Institute JSC

-> Leonid BASHKIROV - Chief Researcher