A new air defence missile launcher using the R-77-1 BVRAAMs mounted on a ZiL truck, reflecting the Western NASAMS in principle, was spotted in Russia.
Russia is improvising alternative air defence system layouts, one of them being a missile launcher truck with the R-77-1 BVRAAMs normally employed by fighter jets, as reported by Militarnyi. Four missiles are seen to be carried by a ZiL-series truck well-known as a general-purpose platform in Russian service.
Historically, Russia studied a ground-launched R-77 variant named R-77-ZRK that adopts a larger fuel section to attain longer rocket motor burn times to compensate for the kinematic drawbacks of surface launch. However, this idea has stood on paper.
R-77-1 is the in-service model of the R-77 BVRAAM, the Russian counterpart of the AIM-120 AMRAAM. The missile incorporates an active radar seeker and the uncommon (For missile use) grid fins. R-77-1 can reach a maximum range of 110 km when launched from an aircraft.
When launched from a truck, the range is likely to be roughly one-third of the air launch case due to no initial elevation or speed involved, as this is the case for Western NASAMS with modern AIM-120 AMRAAM variants.
What makes this improvisation significant is the fact that all other Russian medium-range SAMs use semi-active guidance with radar illumination or command (Can be done with radar or complementary optics) cueing. The use of active RF seeker-fitted missiles offers a flexibility not found in semi-active architecture.
Active RF seekers offer an alternative firing mode that is independent of any platform radar, where the missile’s own radar is responsible for target detection and acquisition. Even though this is not the most desirable option for a fighter jet, ground-based launch with already short range has a greater degree of benefit from this mode due to not necessarily needing a target tracking radar. Despite the independence, this kind of operation is highly limited in situational awareness in the bigger picture, and the reason most active RF seeker air defence missiles work in conjunction with searching radar, such as NASAMS mentioned earlier.
Author:Â Kaan Azman
Editor:Özgür Ekşi
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