Serbia has taken delivery of first batch of Russian Pantsir S1 air defense missile systems.

According to the Serbian Minister of Defense, Serbia has taken delivery of the first batch of Pantsir-S1 air defense missile system from Russia. According to news published on January 18, 2020, on Sputnik Russian press agency website, Russia and Serbia had signed a contract to purchase up to 6 Pantsir-S1 air defense systems.

Pantsir-S1 Russian-made short-range air defense missile/cannon system.  (Picture source Army Recognition)

The deal was signed last year and the order will be completed in 2020. According to the Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, the contract was signed in October 2019. Currently, the Pantsir-S1 is in service to several countries including Vietnam, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates.

The Pantsir-S1 is a mobile missile/gun air defense system designed to protect military units or installations against aerial threats as aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles, drones, and precision-guided weapons. The Pantsir-S1 is designed by the KBP Instrument Design Bureau of Tula, Russia, and is manufactured by the Ulyanovsk Mechanical Plant, Ulyanovsk, Russia. It has the reporting code name NATO, SA-22 Greyhound. The Pantsir-S1 was unveiled for the first time to the public during the MAKS Air Show in Zhukosvsky near Moscow in 1995.

The armament of Pantsir-S1 consists of twelve 57E6 surface-to-air guided missiles and two 2A38M30-millimetre automatic guns developed from the two-barreled 30mm GSh-30 gun. It is provided with a multi-range radar capable of detecting aerial targets with an effective surface of dispersion of up to 2-3 square meters at a distance of more than 30 kilometers and track them down from a distance of over 24 kilometers.

The sensor package of the Pantsir-S1 includes a target detection and designation radar, target and missile tracking radar and electro-optical (infrared-based) sensor systems. The first radar can detect targets of 2 square meters Radar Cross Section (RCS) at ranges between 32 to 45 kilometers while tracking up to 20 targets simultaneously in a 45-degree cone-shaped field. The tracking radar is able to follow the same kind of target at ranges 24-28 km but tracking only one target and guiding up to two 57E6-E missiles. Each Pantsir system can guide up to four missiles simultaneously with each missile being fired after 1.5 seconds.

The missile of the Pantsir-S1 can destroy aerial targets with a range from 1,200 to 20,000 m with an altitude from 15 to 15,000 m while the gun armament can engage aerial targets with a range from 200 to 4,000 m at altitude from 0 to 3,000 m.