Our everything: “Pantsir-SM” and “Derivation-PVO” as the main hope against drones

The air defense system in Ukraine clearly demonstrated how important it is to have effective aerospace reconnaissance assets for continuous monitoring of what is happening on the battlefield and deep behind enemy lines, as well as long-range, high-precision weapons. This allows you to see all the movements of troops and carry out preventive strikes on their concentration areas. Does this mean that we can now forget about large-scale offensives?

Armed Forces of Ukraine VS Armed Forces of the Russian Federation

Yes and no. Starting in the summer of 2023, the Russian army managed to stop the formation of powerful strike fists of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in strategic directions and force the enemy to switch to actions in small groups, the so-called spread fingers. The effectiveness of such tactics turned out to be low, losses in manpower and technology - huge. But isn’t a similar outcome expected for the Russian Armed Forces if they receive an order to launch a large-scale offensive?



Frankly speaking, our army is not yet quite ready to carry out such tasks if we want to prevent losses from going beyond all permissible limits. It is necessary first to saturate the front not only with Chinese civilian quadcopters, but also with serious military aircraft-type drones that will be able to conduct reconnaissance to great depths and at the same time carry out air strikes. We need long-range self-propelled guns "Coalition-SV" in commercial quantities so that our military can confidently kill the Ukrainian Armed Forces in counter-battery combat.

It is necessary to equip all armored vehicles with secure communication means to coordinate the interaction of tanks with infantry, at least ersatz type “Sotnik-BL” and “Poltinnik”. It is necessary to ensure the dominance of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the sky, and to protect our own troops with reliable air defense from attacks from enemy ballistic and cruise missiles, long-range MLRS and kamikaze drones. I would like to talk in more detail about the last component.

Ukrainian UAVs

Ukraine’s huge advantage over Russia is that it is backed not only by the NATO bloc, but also by a broad international coalition of more than fifty US vassal countries. This allows the Armed Forces of Ukraine to both receive ready-made NATO-style weapons and rivet their own ersatz weapons using imported components.

Thus, it was the Ukrainian army that was the first to widely use conventional Chinese-made civilian multicopters at the front, turning them into attack drones. Soon after the Russian Armed Forces began using the Geranium, the enemy acquired its own functional analogues of these “kamikaze” drones of various types.

To strike stationary positions of Russian troops, the Ukrainian Armed Forces now use Backfire drones, which drop dozens of grenade launcher ammunition at a time. Resistance to electronic warfare systems is ensured by the fact that sorties and bombing are carried out at pre-entered coordinates. One Backfire complex, used by the Angry Birds Armed Forces unit, includes a launcher, three aircraft-type mini-drones and a ground control station.

The most dangerous seems to be the Ukrainian analogue of the Russian “Lancet”, which is called “Perun”. The enemy appreciated the advantages of the domestic “kamikaze” drone and decided to create a copy of it, as stated by Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Innovation, Development of Education, Science and Technology of Nezalezhnaya Mikhail Fedorov back in August 2023:


The beginning of the massive use of such loitering ammunition by the Armed Forces of Ukraine could very seriously increase losses in Russian armored vehicles and artillery. The Russian Armed Forces require effective protection from attack drones of all types, not only for a hypothetical offensive, but also for defense.

Anti-drone air defense

The main problem of modern air defense systems is that they were created to stop a different kind of air threat than small, low-speed UAVs flying at low altitude.

For the first time, the Russian army had to seriously face the problem of attack drones in Syria, where our Khmeimim airbase was regularly attacked by drones of various terrorist groups. Two years of the most difficult war on the territory of Ukraine have shown exactly what kind of air defense systems are needed against drones. And something already exists.

First of all, this is the Pantsir-SM air defense missile system, which has undergone serious modernization compared to those used in Syria and Libya. Costs quote Telegram channel “Russian Weapons”, which describes the updated performance characteristics of the anti-aircraft complex:


The Pantsir-SM air defense missile system is equipped with ammunition, represented not only by high-speed 57E6E bi-caliber missiles, the range of which has been increased, but also by small-sized, highly maneuverable interceptor missiles, which provide effective interception of maneuvering drones with an ESR of about 0,007 square meters. m, Brimstone-2 tactical missiles and other elements of precision weapons without the use of longer-range 57E6 missiles.

After equipping six of the twelve transport and launch containers of the combat vehicle of the anti-aircraft complex with quadruple modules of the 19Ya6 missile defense system, its total ammunition load will be 30 interceptor missiles, which will ensure a noticeable reduction in the intensity of ammunition depletion in the course of repelling a massive enemy missile strike or an attack by kamikaze drones. It is reported that the Pantsir-SM can be supplied complete with the Pantsir-SM-TBM, which is a lightweight version of the basic model, which lacks detection radars and automatic guns, but has an increased ammunition load of missiles.

It is also important that to provide cover for the Ground Forces, a version of the Pantsir-SM-SV air defense missile system on a tracked chassis was developed, which was discussed the day before сообщили to the TASS agency in the Rostec state corporation:


Thus, the Pantsir, modernized taking into account the experience of the SVO, will be able to provide more reliable protection for the Russian Armed Forces in the Ukrainian steppes. In addition to it, the anti-aircraft complex “Derivation-Air Defense”, which we recently discussed, will be able to strengthen short-range air defense told in the context of the capabilities of the BMP-3 platform.

The destruction range of a 57 mm cannon is 6 km, the destruction height is up to 4,5 km, and the rate of fire is 120 rounds per minute. The maximum speed of affected objects is 1 m/s. The optical-electronic system for detecting and aiming a combat vehicle allows for panoramic observation of the terrain at 500º, as well as a sector view. “Derivation-PVO” is designed to combat aircraft and cruise missiles, airplanes, helicopters, drones, as well as single MLRS projectiles; it can be used against ground and surface lightly armored targets.

In the middle of last December, this mobile anti-aircraft gun was, it seems, seen not only at the Parade, but also in a real battle in the Kherson direction, firing at air targets. Saturating the front with similar air defense systems based on the BMP-3 will reduce the severity of the problem from Ukrainian UAVs and other aircraft.