Soldiers of 120th air defense missile brigade Belarus army train with TOR-M2 missile system 2006132

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Defence & Security News - Belarus

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Thursday, June 20, 2013 01:00 PM
 
Soldiers of the 120th air defense missile brigade of Belarus army train with TOR-M2 missile system.

Since 2011, the 120th air defense missile brigade of Belarus army started receiving the newest missile systems Tor-M2 from Russia. Deputy commander of the 120th brigade Lieutenant Colonel Victor Mikheev explained, "Tor-M2 can work both in manual mode with participation of operators and in a fully automatic mode. Along with this, Tor system controls the indicated airspace independently and independently downs all air targets not identified by the friend or foe system".

     
     

Like any new weapon Tor should pass testing and servicemen of the brigade should feel all peculiarities of operation, combat use and maintenance of these systems in field conditions.

The officer says, "At present, entire combat training of the brigade is aimed at high-quality conduction of the field exercises with combat firing practice of the second air defense missile battery armed with tor and the third air defense missile battalion armed with Buk. The exercises take place stringently in accordance with the combat training plan for training year 2012-2013. Special attention is paid to special training, preparation of armament and military hardware and mastering of new air defense missile systems. The field exercises will take place between August and September at Russian training range Ashuluk".

These are not the first field exercises with participation of crews of the new air defense missile system. The second air defense missile battery already went to the Domanovsky training range where it worked out the matters of preparation and firing at air target imitators but without real combat launches. All crews coped with this task with good and perfect marks.

Lieutenant Colonel Victor Mikheev remarks," Our Tors will go to the Russian training range for the second time. Last year, the first air defense missile battery of Tor-M2 participated in tactical exercises with firing practice at Ashuluk and received a good mark. The main problem that was pressing for us then was lack of specialists trained for work with the new hardware. But the problem was solved soon. Servicemen trained on the basis of the military academy of Belarus specifically for work with these air defense missile systems were sent to our brigade".

The new hardware differs from systems of the previous generation radically but the process of training of specialists is the same according to its algorithm.

The deputy commander of the 120th air defense missile brigade explained," Stages of their training are the same. This is training within crews and batteries, coordination of an air defense missile battalion. There are no special differences in training of specialists for the Tor batteries. Besides, a part of the officers from the first brigade that already passed combat training was moved to the second brigade for training of the "youths." All of them, as well as officers from the regulations and repair group of the 120th brigade, are high-class specialists who have invaluable experience of skillful handling of this weapon".