Ukrainian army uses together German Gepard air defense gun system and Russian SA-8 missile system

According to a video published by the "Ukraine Weapons Tracker" Twitter account on September 26, 2022, we can confirm that the German Gepard 35mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun system is now deployed in Ukraine. In the video, the Ukrainian army has deployed together the Gepard and the SA-8 9K33 OSA mobile air defense missile system to provide short to medium-range air defense systems.
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Ukraine's army uses together German Gepard mobile self-anti-aircraft gun system and the Soviet-made SA-8 air defense missile system. (Picture source Twitter account Ukraine Weapons Tracker)

Using together the German Gepard 35mm self-propelled anti-aircraft armored vehicle and the SA-8 9K33 OSA Soviet-made mobile air defense missile system, the Ukrainian army has now the capabilities to destroy aerial targets at short and medium ranges as the Russian Pantsir-S1.

On September 11, 2022, the army Recognition editorial team reported that Germany confirmed the delivery to Ukraine of 20 Gepard 35mm self-propelled anti-aircraft tracked armored vehicles. The Gepard is a mobile self-propelled anti-aircraft gun system based on the tracked chassis of the Leopard 1 Main Battle Tank (MBT).

The original turret of the Leopard 1 is removed and replaced with a power-operated two-man turret armed with a twin 35 mm Oerlikon Contraves 35 mm cannon, tracking radar on the turret front, and surveillance radar on the rear of the turret. Each 35 mm cannon has a total of 310 rounds of ready-to-use ammunition for use in the air defense role and 20 rounds of APDS-T for use in engaging ground armored targets.

The cannons of the Gepard can fire a full range of ammunition including HEI (High-explosive incendiary), HEI-T (High-explosive incendiary Tracer), HEI (BF), SAPHEI-T (Armor Piercing/High Explosive/Incendiary with Tracer), FAPDS (Frangible Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot), APDS-T, APFSDS-T (Armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot with Tracer), TP/TP-T (Target Practice Tracer Projectile) and AHEAD (Advanced Hit Efficiency And Destruction). The cannons have a maximum firing range of 5,500 m with FAPDS ammunition. A bank of four 76 mm smoke grenade dischargers is mounted on either side of the turret.

German-made Gepard 35mm self-propelled anti-aircraft gun system (Picture source Army Recognition)

The 9K33 OSA NATO named SA-8 Gecko is a Soviet-made mobile air defense missile system that is armed with 6 missiles ready to fire, mounted on the roof of the vehicle. The missile is tracked by a radio-command guiding system. The Loading platform can carry from 2 to 6 guided missiles. The engagement range for the SA-8 Gecko missile is approximately 2–9 km and engagement altitudes of between 50–5000 m. The 9M33M2 "Osa-A" missile extends the ranges out to 1,500 - 10,000m and engagement altitudes to 25 – 5,000 m.

The main fire-control radar consists of an elliptical rotating surveillance antenna mounted on top of the array operating in H band (6 to 8 GHz) and has a 30 km acquisition range against most targets. The large pulsed J band (14.5 GHz) engagement antenna is mounted below it in the center of the array and has a maximum tracking range of about 20 km. Mounted on either side of the tracking radar antenna is a small J band parabolic dish antenna to track the missile. Below this is a small circular antenna that emits an I band uplink capture beam to gather the missile shortly after launch. The final antennas in the array are two small white rectangular ones, one on either side of the array mounted alongside the I band. These are used for command uplink to the missile.

Soviet-made SA-8 Gecko mobile air defense missile system (Picture source Army Recognition)