S-300V4 air defense missile system to get three types of hypersonic missiles - Almaz-Antey
PATRIOT PARK (Moscow region). Sept 9 (Interfax-AVN) - Almaz-Antey has prepared three types of hypersonic missiles for an air defense missile (ADM) system, which will allow it to be used both as a ground-to-air and missile defense weapon, a company spokesman told reporters at the Army-2016 forum on Friday.
"The universality of the S-300V4 AMD system as a missile defense system, based on the cost-efficiency criterion, is ensured by the use in it of three types of missiles: a small air defense guided missile, the 9M83M, designed mainly to destroy all types of aerodynamic targets, as well as aero-ballistic, tactical ballistic and cruise missiles; a high-potential air defense missile, the 9M82MD, which intercepts and destroys main types of ballistic targets, including warhead parts of medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) flying at a speed of up to 4,500 meters per second, as well as aerodynamic targets within the ranges of up to 400 kilometers; and the 'interim' version of the 9M82M missile with a maximum range of 200 kilometers," the spokesman said.
"All these missiles are solid-fuel, two-stage, hypersonic and maximally harmonized with one another," he said.
"To achieve the required efficiency in destroying warhead parts of MRBMs and other small-sized targets, for the first time a directional warhead has been used with two fractions of damaging elements ('light' and 'heavy'), which make it more than five to six times more efficient than the classic warhead," he said.
In 2012, the company signed a contract to supply S-300V4s for the Russian Armed Forces, he recalled. The first kit under the contract was supplied in December 2014.
The S-300V4 system is designed on a modern components base and is essentially a new system with an increased protection from airstrikes (twice or thrice as broad as that of previous-generation ones) and an increased firing range.
These and other specifications ensure the S-300V4's capability to counter efficiently all existing and prospective aerial attack systems, in particular, hypersonic aircraft, long-range airborne radars within a range of up to 400 kilometers, active jammers in patrol zones, strategic and tactical aircraft within airborne weapons' operating ranges, as well as air-, submarine- and ground-launched cruise missiles.
Also, S-300V4 is the world's first such system to apply a combined method of inertial guidance on the larger part of the missile trajectory with the possibility of radio adjustment and of semi-active self-guidance on the final portion of the flight. This method made it possible to guide a missile without a missile guidance station's support.
