Russia resurrects WWII defence strategy to counter Ukrainian drones

The Russians are facing significant issues with Ukrainian drones attacking targets across western Russia. As a result, a system of towers equipped with Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft systems has been built around Moscow. We explain whether this resurrection of the idea of German flak towers built around Berlin during World War II makes sense.

In the second half of 2023, the Russians began constructing towers around Moscow for the Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft systems to increase their effectiveness against low-flying targets.

This continues the desperate plan of placing Pantsir-S1 systems on the roofs of government buildings in the city itself. While this made little sense due to the surrounding buildings, resurrecting the idea of flak towers in the suburbs has certain advantages.

The main problem for ground-based anti-aircraft radar systems is detecting targets flying just above the trees. In such cases, the detection range, depending on the target's radar signature, is at most about 40 kilometres due to the radar horizon.

It is physically impossible for any country to secure a border several thousand kilometres long, as this would require placing an anti-aircraft system every 40 kilometres or less. A solution to this problem is to elevate the radar. The ideal examples are AWACS-type aircraft working with aviation or mobile anti-aircraft systems mixed into the areas where intruders are detected.

However, Russia has significant problems with this due to the small number of A-50 aircraft and their losses. Therefore, the Russians are trying to increase the range of their anti-aircraft systems by improvising to elevate the radar several dozen feet higher. Below, you can see an example of a Pantsir-S1 firing missiles at a Ukrainian drone.

The history of the Pantsir-S1 dates back to Russia's very difficult 1990s when a cheaper alternative to the 2K22 Tunguska artillery-missile system was sought to cut costs. Like the French, who were looking for an economical howitzer, the Russians concluded that the greatest savings for the new weapon system would come from mounting it on a regular truck chassis instead of an expensive tracked chassis.

However, due to budget constraints, the project in Russia was threatened with collapse, which was saved by the interest of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). UAE money allowed the project to be completed, which, unlike in Soviet times, entered service with foreign clients first. The UAE received its systems mounted on German trucks in the early 2000s, and Russia introduced its version into service only in 2012.

The Pantsir-S1 is equipped with two radars, one for detecting targets and another for guiding weapons. These include a pair of 30mm 2A38M automatic cannons with a fire rate of up to 2,500 rounds per minute each and an anti-aircraft missile launcher.

The cannon component of the system has a wide selection of ammunition and can engage targets up to 4 kilometres, while the missile section includes 12 launchers grouped in sets of six. This facilitates firing at multiple targets simultaneously, and the radio-command guided missiles can, according to the Russians, engage targets up to 20 kilometres away and at altitudes up to 15 kilometres.

This is not a "fire and forget" system; the operators must guide the missiles until they hit the target. Moreover, compared to modern systems like Skynex, the Russian solution does not use programmable ammunition.

Despite satisfactory effectiveness against drones, the Pantsir-S1 systems perform relatively poorly against modern stealth cruise missiles such as Storm Shadow.