MOSCOW, March 19, /ITAR-TASS/. Manufacturers will start supplying the new Pantsir-SM air defence system to the Russian army in 2017, Dmitry Konoplev, managing director of the Tula Design Bureau, which makes the systems, said on Wednesday, March 19.

“We are now working to create a totally new system, Pantsir-SM. I think we will get it ready by 2017. It will have new characteristics much better than the present ones,” he said.

Konoplev also said that an upgraded version of Pantsir-S1 would be handed over to the Defence Ministry in late 2015.

A sea-based version of the system is also being developed. The first three Russian warships will be armed with it after 2016.

The Pantsir-S system designed for air defence of small military and administrative-industrial objects and areas against aircrafts, helicopters, cruise missiles and high-precision weapons, guided air bombs and unmanned aerial vehicles as well as for reinforcement of AD groups during repulse of massive air strikes and ensuring of engagement of lightly-armoured targets.

Pantsir-S is considered to be a universal system capable to fighting planes, helicopters, ballistic and cruise missiles, guided aerial bombs, and other high-precision weapons. It can also be used for destroying underwater and surface light-armoured targets and manpower.

The system consists of 12 surface-to-air guided missiles and two 30-millimetre automatic guns. It is provided with multi-range radar capable of detecting aerial targets with effective surface of dispersion of up to 2-3 square metres at a distance of more than 30 kilometres and track them down from a distance of over 24 kilometres.

It can also work in a passive mode using an infrared channel in the long-wave band with logical processing of the signal and automatic tracking.

The system can conduct fire at two targets at the same time and attack up to 12 targets within a minute. The system's effective range for missiles is 20 kilometres and the maximum altitude is eight kilometres, and for artillery shells up to three and four kilometres respectively.

The probability of destroying the target is 0.6 to 0.8 depending on its type and obstacles. The time of response is 5-6 seconds.