Photo: Alexei Danichev / RIA
The Russian military will receive the modernized air defense missile system Buk-M3 at the end of 2016. The new air defense system will carry up to 72 newest missiles that are capable of hitting airborne targets, targets on the water and on the ground.
The Buk-M3 missile system was armed with the new anti-aircraft missile interceptor 9М317М. According to mass media, the modernized air defense missile system has a range of 70 kilometers, which is 25 kilometers more compared to previous versions of the Buk antiaircraft missile system. The new missiles also can hit targets at an altitude of about 40 kilometers, reaching the speed of up to 3000 meters per second. The number of target channels of the complex was increased from 24 to 36. This all suggests that the Buk-M3 can protect ground forces from tactical aviation enemy attacks committed by missile systems of small and medium-range.
Lieutenant General Alexander Leonov, the commander of Russia’s air defense troops, said that each combined-arms and tank army has military-grades armed with missile systems Buk of various modifications. These complexes will be changed to another modification, the Buk-M3, and this process will be started at the end of 2016, Leonov told the RIA news agency.
According to the Lieutenant General, the new Buk-M3 has a performance six times higher than that of the SAM Buk-M1-2 and the S-300PS, and also reaches the level of the S-300PMU-2 for the targeted objectives speed. It has become a huge achievement for the ‘ordinary’ military medium-range air defense system.