The capture in July of at least one Storm Shadow cruise missile, produced by France and Britain, has allowed Russia to upgrade its latest anti-aircraft systems to better counter the missiles, daily Magyar Nemzet reports.
Europe’s arguably most modern air-launched missile, the Storm Shadow, has been used by Ukraine since May, but having now had the opportunity to study an intact one, Russian technology will be able to devise both more effective counter-measures and perhaps even produce its own version of the missile.
According to a recent report by the Russian state defense conglomerate Rostec, “the capability of the Russian Pantsir short-range anti-aircraft combat vehicle has significantly improved against attacks by the British-French Storm Shadow anti-radar cruise missile,” Military Watch Magazine, a military specialist news portal, pointed out.
“All necessary modifications have been made to the Pantsir-S system to increase its effectiveness against hard-to-detect missiles and long-range missiles such as the Storm Shadow,” a Rostec representative told the Russian state news agency TASS.
The subsonic, turbojet-powered missile, jointly developed by the U.K. and France in the early 2000s, can carry a 450-kilogram warhead and has a range of 550 kilometers. The missile was developed to be carried by a wide variety of Europe’s current 4th generation fighter aircraft.
Military Watch also points out that the modifications to the Pantsir-S Russian air defense system will likely improve their effectiveness against the U.S. HIMARS missile system, originally an anti-aircraft system, which has been recently upgraded for use against land-based targets.
