TOR Air Defence system

Don't those bottom images show the vehicle with the front portion with a crane to load missiles from other vehicles into the rear missile carrying vehicle?

So that top image is the DT based TOR vehicle but not using its crane from the front vehicle to load missiles into the rear vehicle but a separate loading vehicle using its own crane to transfer missiles from the loader vehicle into the rear vehicle of the launch vehicle?

Which would suggest the loader vehicle is reversed the guy controlling the crane in the loader vehicle seems to be in the back section of the loader vehicle, while the missiles he is loading seem to be in the front vehicle of the loader vehicle.

In the launch vehicle as shown in the bottom photos the crane is in the front vehicle obviously with the turret and launcher and search and tracking radars in the rear vehicle portion.

So presumably if the missiles are on flat back trucks the launcher uses its own crane in the front vehicle to load missiles into the launcher in the rear section, while if a loader DT vehicle is there its crane is in its rear vehicle while its missiles are in its front vehicle and it loads the missiles into the launch rear vehicle...

magnumcromagnon wrote:
Ideally this new miniature missile is 50% the diameter of the standard Tor-M2 missile, allowing the tube to be quad packed. With 16 standard launch tubes that are quad packed, you get 64 mini missiles to combat drones. Realistically speaking it will likely be a mix of missiles, and I could definitely see 6 tubes that are quad packed giving 24 missiles to engage drones, and 10 standard missiles to engage aircraft, PGMs, and everything else.

I always thought the Tor system was quite inefficient in its arrangement. By confining all the missiles within a turret ring, they've artificially limited the quantity of missiles they could fit with each TELAR. If I had a go at it, I'd have a fixed superstructure occupying the space where the turret ring sits to house the missiles. I'd then have the sensors atop a folding mast on a rotating turntable just above where the control cabin is located. This should significantly increase the amount of missiles per TELAR (your working area is now a square with sides equal to the diameter of the turret ring instead of a rectangle within that same ring) while making the sensor tower a lot more responsive during training. If you require space for electronics you could mount them as overhangs around the superstructure which is great for servicing as well.

I always thought the Tor system was quite inefficient in its arrangement.

To be fair when it first came out it was amazing... 8 ready to launch missiles that are relatively cheap simple command guided weapons with an incredibly sophisticated radar search and tracking system... it was a significant step up from OSA with 6 ready to launch missiles in terms of tracking performance and the sort of targets it can hit reliably.

The first OSA had 6 missiles (actually the first OSA had only four missiles ready to fire See photo added to bottom of this post...) exposed to the weather and damage, while the later models had the missiles in launch box shaped missile tubes... the TOR protected the missiles deep inside the vehicle from the weather elements and of course enemy fire...

When they upgraded the first TOR with smaller lighter missiles with better range and more accuracy and precision, then having 16 ready to launch missiles was an enormous step up again... and 15km range vs 12km was an improvement too... Tunguska started with 8km range missiles and went to 10kms in comparison...

As it mentions it still uses relatively large heavy missiles because it is supposed to be able to take down A-10s and Apache helicopters as well as incoming Maverick missiles and Hellfires and even bombs and standoff weapons.

Having a much smaller missile to engage rather small drones makes a lot of sense, and because the system still uses very sophisticated radar and optical systems, they can be kept as being simple command guided weapons that are relatively cheap and easy to mass produce in the large numbers you would need them in.

By confining all the missiles within a turret ring, they've artificially limited the quantity of missiles they could fit with each TELAR. If I had a go at it, I'd have a fixed superstructure occupying the space where the turret ring sits to house the missiles. I'd then have the sensors atop a folding mast on a rotating turntable just above where the control cabin is located. This should significantly increase the amount of missiles per TELAR (your working area is now a square with sides equal to the diameter of the turret ring instead of a rectangle within that same ring) while making the sensor tower a lot more responsive during training. If you require space for electronics you could mount them as overhangs around the superstructure which is great for servicing as well.

I had similar thoughts myself... if the missiles are vertically launched then they really don't need to be in the turret itself except that being in the turret allows longer missiles to be used... I was thinking that unmanned trailers could be attached to the standard vehicle that could simply have large numbers of vertically arranged ready to fire missiles. For a battery defending an airfield for instance you could have several trailers for each vehicle and use the vehicle or other light towing vehicle to position trailers around the airfield or facility you are defending with a given launcher optically connected to the launcher by line of sight communication like a laser system so the trailers launch missiles depending on their location in regard to the detect target... the trailers could be dug in and fairly well hidden they just need exposure upwards to allow the missiles to launch upwards... they don't need to move or turn... and could be plugged in to the base power supply and information network too. You could have roaming TOR vehicles with dozens of trailers with hundreds of missiles available.

That idea of having sensors on an arm that could be raised for better field of view is a good idea too.

The reason for the turret is to allow depth for long missiles but having missiles in trailer based systems and of course standard type TOR systems means you could have a custom TOR system with the sensors on the arm for sneaky slow low flying drones that creep up using cover like trees and bushes to remain undetected.

In addition to radar and optics it would be useful to mount some sort of EW weapon to jam or disable the target directly too.

A 40mm grenade launcher with 40mm grenades with tail mounted command laser fuses for air bursts would be useful mounted on the arm too because the TOR has excellent radar capability so it could accurately track the grenades and fire a laser at the grenades to set it off a few metres in front of the drones with a large HE charge and lots of forward flying fragments to take down the drones.... and also for use against enemy ground forces that might attempt to attack the airfield too.

These mini missiles are a great idea too... should greatly reduce their length, so you could have 64 ready to fire short range self defence missiles on a much lower smaller lighter vehicle, and perhaps 64 full sized missiles on a trailer...

The thing is that multiple different solutions would be a good idea, because each has advantages and problems.

Certainly for new vehicles they are much bigger and should allow more missiles to be carried, but advances in radar and electronics might mean much smaller but also much more powerful radar coverage... instead of something like the current TOR system a Boomerang or Armata or Kurganets vehicle might have a rather small turret with 3 or 4 faces with AESA antennas for new photonic radar that is fixed and offers 360 degrees of coverage for both search and tracking in a wide range of frequencies... perhaps even including optical frequencies, while the troop compartment is all just vertical launch tubes for missiles...

Nice... so what they are saying is that the capable electronic and optronic systems of the TOR will be used to detect targets but cheaper systems linked in to the system will be used to engage the targets where practical... so TOR might detect a drone but Kornet-EM or some cheap weapon will be used to bring the target down using target data from the network...

Would make a light vehicle similar to a BRDM-2 fitted with datalink communications and optronic sights and a decent RWS turret with a 40mm grenade launcher with laser command detonated HE rounds or a 30mm cannon with command detonated HE shells located around the place to cheaply bring down drones and other targets.... and maybe some cheap laser beam riding SOSNA/PINE missiles as well as a few Kornets...

Isos wrote:They went from S1 to S2 to SM. S1 and S2 were clearly not good for them. SM is yet to be tested in Syria.

Tor had the M1 modernization back in the soviet times and now the M2. And thry use even the M1 greatly.

That suggests Tor is a much better system.

The experience in Syria also showed that Tor was send after they used the pantsir. If pantsir was good enough they wouldn't have used the Tor there.

Its not. Pantsir is an aerospace defence force system while Tor is an army air defence system. Wildly different requirements for either branches despite both being nominally SHORAD, hence the two entirely different systems made by different companies. Pantsir also had considerably greater export success than the Tor owing largely to how much more expensive the army system is to buy and operate, and thus had better access to extra funding for elemental upgrades or even had the same customers bankrolling said upgrades on request.

Also, there's far more Pantsir stationed in Russia's bases in Syria than Tor, which suggests they are more than enough. Otherwise there'd be more Tors and the Pantsirs would just be replaced. If anything the Tors are just in Syria for testing purposes, possibly as support for the S-300V4 battery, and maybe to provide SHORAD cover for BTGs, but even then they are way too few in number, which leaves testing as most likely.

They went from S1 to S2 to SM. S1 and S2 were clearly not good for them. SM is yet to be tested in Syria.

SM is a different system and is more like a medium range SAM, and will likely be used in specific situations rather than as a general replacement for the S-1 and S-2.

All three are air force weapons and the air force does not use TOR, TOR is an Army and a Navy weapon.

Both are cheap command guided missiles, but TOR is more oriented to defeat incoming munitions and weapons as well as aircraft that stumble within range.

Pantsir on the other hand always got range increases with the purpose of shooting down the launch platform before it could fire its missiles like Tunguska...

Starting with 8km range Tunguskas when the west had Apaches with 6km range Hellfires, they quickly went to 10km range Tunguskas when they got 8km range Hellfire missiles and the Pantsir went from 12km to 20km and now 40km range missiles for all the same reasons with new western large optically guided ATGMs with ranges of 25 to 35km range.

TOR is still more focussed on closer range defence against munitions and weapons and drones, but it is not intended to be used on its own... it operates as a short range defence layer for large systems like BUK and S-300V4 which will shoot down the launch platforms.

The TOR has a very expensive 3D air defence radar system that is very capable and also very expensive, which has limited its export success, but for land or sea it is the best system if you want to protect something important.

It is not an accident that the Kuznetsovs island is dominated by the four Klintok radar systems located in its four corners to provide 360 degree coverage...

and that all large Soviet cruisers had naval TOR and Kashtan mounts.

It is a given that new Russian large ships... cruisers and carriers will have TOR and Pantsir...

Both TOR and Pantsir (via Tunguska) are intended for mobile forces to provide low level defence from attack aircraft and their weapons.

The Tunguska and Pantsir were optimised for use against helicopters and essentially evolved from the Shilka SPAAG and the SA-9 and SA-13 SAM vehicles

The guns and missiles are complimentary so having both on a single vehicle saves money because you only need one set of radar and optronic systems.

Pantsir has CM and MM wave radar but was not as sophisticated and expensive as TOR... but both essentially use cheap command guided missiles... the systems are expensive and also capable but the missiles themselves are cheap... much much cheaper than missiles with seekers like Spyder etc... which means you can use them in volumes you would not consider using more expensive systems... which makes them better.

Soviet Army divisions had gun/missile and missile platoons... the air defence platoons started with 57mm towed guns, but as technology developed they replaced their 57mm guns with OSA missiles, which later were slowly replaced with TOR batteries... OSA was not a bad system, but TOR was too expensive to rapidly replace the older missiles. The Shilka replaced the ZSU-57-2, while the SA-13 eventually replaced the SA-9... which were oriented against US and western helicopters with TOW and HOT type missiles whose range was about 4-5km or so. The Hellfire meant better missiles were needed which led to TOR and Tunguska and an increase in calibre to 30mm.

It was never one or the other... they were both used together.

Of course Pantsir is an Air Force weapon and essentially also a Navy weapon replacing the Kashtan series, though the Air Force Pantsir started with single barrel 30mm cannons (2A72) with a relatively low rate of fire, later replaced with the same twin barrel 30mm cannons of the Tunguska (2A38M) which greatly boosted gun performance. The naval Kashtan used twin 6 barrel 30mm gatlings plus reloadable missiles with a below deck autoloader.

Honestly I think if they add smaller command guided versions of the TOR for close in use against smaller targets I believe that TOR and Pantsir become even more complimentary. The Pantsir needs to point its missiles at its target and is not so stealthy in terms of missile mounts, but the TOR also needs to point its tracking radar at the target too.... of course with a managed battery the four radar can be kept pointing in different directions so all approaches are covered and the same could be said for Pantsir.

I think the best solution is always a bit of everything... they both use cheap missiles and can reach high and decent distances too...

In the Naval environment add a 57mm gun mount with air burst rounds and use 30mm airburst shells and their defences will be formidable... plus the jammers and other equipment...