ASHULUK TRAINING RANGE, April 23. /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian army will get an upgraded version of the Pantsir-S air defense system and a new missile for it by the end of the year, Colonel Yuri Muravkin, deputy commander of the air defense troops, said on Wednesday, April 23.

“The modernization of the serial Pantsir-S systems with new missiles is underway now, and we expect to get them by the end of the year. It will be a new upgraded version of the serial system,” he said.

The new missile will increase the system’s range of fire from 20 to 30 kilometers. “The dimensions of the missile will be altered slightly but it will fit in as usual and no changes will be required. The missile is undergoing preliminary tests now,” Muravkin said.

In a firing exercise at the Ashuluk Range, Pantsir-S systems engaged targets imitating high-precision weapons. “While before we engaged low-speed targets, today we are trying to hit targets that are moving at a speed of 1,000 meters per second,” Muravkin said.

Yuri Savenkov, First Deputy Executive Director of the Tula-based KBP Instrument Design Bureau, which designs the Pantsir systems, said the high-speed missile for the system had been used during the tests at Ashuluk for the first time.

Manufacturers will start supplying the new Pantsir-SM air defense system to the Russian army in 2017, Dmitry Konoplev, KBP Instrument Design Bureau Managing Director, said earlier.

“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 Defense 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 defense 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-armored 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-armored 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 meters at a distance of more than 30 kilometers and track them down from a distance of over 24 kilometers.

It can also operate 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 kilometers and the maximum altitude is eight kilometers, and for artillery shells up to three and four kilometers 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.