Tor anti-aircraft missile system. Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS
The Izhevsk-based Kupol Electro-Mechanical Plant, a subsidiary of Russian air defense manufacturer Almaz-Antey, has fine-tuned the Tor air defense system to effectively intercept precision-guided rockets fired by American-made M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), the company’s Deputy Chief Designer for Repair and Upgrading Ilya Rykov said on February 8.
“The targets that we began to work on, never encountered before and had no possibility to test are the notorious HIMARS systems. Now that we have encountered them, we can fight them. Some fine-tuning has been done and now these targets are engaged more effectively,” he said in a live broadcast on the Zvezda TV Channel.
The Tor system was designed to destroy aircraft, helicopters, drones, missiles, and other precision guided weapons, flying at medium, low and very low altitudes in all weather.
The older versions of the air defense system are armed with the 9M331 missile which has a range of ten kilometers and a flight ceiling of six kilometers. However, the newer versions of the system can be armed with the 9M338 missile, which has a range of 16 kilometers and a flight ceiling of ten kilometers. While the system can be loaded with only eight 9M331 missiles, it can carry double the number of the more compact 9M338.
The United States has supplied Kiev forces with at least 20 HIMARS systems since the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. These systems are mainly armed with M30/M31 series GMLRS GPS-guided rockets, which have a range of more than 70 kilometers.
The Tor is not the only system being upgraded to deal with the HIMARs. Last month, Russian sources confirmed that the software of the Pantsir-S1 short-range air defense system was upgraded to intercept GMLRS rockets.
It’s worth noting that the U.S. is now preparing to supply Ukraine with Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB). The GPS-guided munitions have more than double the range of GMLRS rockets, specifically around 150 kilometers. However, they are slower which in theory make them easier to intercept.
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