| Dear Member,
The system is an adoption of the missile for the Pantsir-S1 cannon/missile antiair system. Even with its great range it requires a line of sight to engage. A good comparison would be the US/Canadian/Swiss ADATS which uses laser beam riding instead of radio control as with the Panstir-S1. The Russians believe that with their weather conditions laser can not be relied on completely. And the radio link is turned on just for micro-seconds to command anyway because of the hyper speed.
Finally, unknown to many in the world's defense community the Russians before the collapse of the USSR spent a fortune (ie some compare it to the US spending in WW2 on the A-bomb) on developing a new solid fuel rocket propulsion which gave great energy and burned smokeless and did not give a tell tale flash on launch or smoke trail. There have been trials in the Russia of scientists who the US have tried to bribe on this new rocket propulsion.
Jack E. Hammond |