Kazakhstan: Russia to deliver 5 x S-300 Missile Battalions

Each battalion includes several different radars, a command center and six launch vehicles with a total of 24 missiles.

These missile systems are stationed on alert in Russia and now "experts of the two countries will have to cooperate to put them on alert" in Kazakhstan.

The S-300 is a series of highly capable, long-range surface-to-air missile complexes. The fully mobile units have the capacity to engage ballistic missiles as well as aircrafts.

Each battery includes a long-range surveillance radar that can track objects located in the range of 300 km, a command vehicle that identifies and assesses potential targets obtained by the surveillance radar and orders the engagement radar to launch missiles.

After that the best placed of the battalion's six launch vehicles releases two surface-to-air missiles per target and the engagement radar guides the missiles towards the target. It can engaging up to six targets at once and guide up to 12 missiles simultaneously.

The S-300 is regarded as one of the most potent anti-aircraft missile systems currently fielded.

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Russia activates new early warning radar systems

The Voronezh-DM early warning radar in Kaliningrad is set to be put on combat duty in late 2014.
The station itself monitors North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea as far as the Atlantic Ocean, which includes the areas patrolled by American, Ohio-class submarines with strategic missiles.
It covers a radius of 3,728 miles over the Earth’s surface and 4,970 miles into space.

Russia has similar stations in Armavir (to be put on combat duty in June of this year), Lehtusi near St. Petersburg (already operational) and in Siberia, near Irkutsk (the first radar is operational, while the second is still under construction). There are also early warning radar systems in the Kola Peninsula (Dnestr-M and Daryal radars), the Komi Republic (Daryal radar), Belarus (Volga radar) and Kazakhstan (Dnepr and Dnestr radars). (Read more)

Russian missile forces to hold 200 drills in next 6 months

 

Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces will conduct over 200 exercises in the next six months, the Defense Ministry said.

 

Russia’s SMF plans by 2016 to modernize its command-and-control systems in order to improve their ability to overcome missile defenses and increase the survivability of delivery vehicles. At present, six types of silo-based and mobile ICBM systems are on combat duty with the SMF, including the heavy Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan), capable of carrying 10 warheads, the Topol-M (Stalin) and RS-24 Yars systems.

 

On Thursday, SMF successfully tested a prototype of a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which is expected to replace Topol-M and Yars in the future. The missile was fired from a mobile launcher at the Kapustin Yar testing range in the Astrakhan region and hit its designated target at the Sary Shagan testing range in Kazakhstan.