Artillery: Spawn Of BrahMos Guards The Pacific Coast

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August 22, 2016: In July 2016 Russia deployed at least one battery of its new (since 2010) Bastion-P (K-300P or SSC-5) land based anti-ship missiles in the Kuril Islands, which Russia took from Japan after World War II and Japan wants back. These three ton missiles have a range of 300 kilometers and a 250 kg (550 pound) warhead. Russia says the Bastion-P uses composites for the casing, making it stealthier (harder for radar to spot and track). The stealth is important because after launch the missile initially travels at high altitude (nearly 10,000 meters/30,000 feet) where radar can spot it. But at that altitude the missile can move faster (maximum speed of 3,000 kilometers an hour). Speed makes it harder to intercept and means it takes five minutes or less to reach its target. Guidance is GPS or inertial to reach the general area of the target (usually a ship or other small target), then radar (in the anti-ship version) that will identify the specific target and hit it. For its final approach, the missile drops to an altitude of five meters (16 feet) to make it more difficult to spot and stop. The high speed at impact causes additional damage (because of the weight of the entire missile.)

A Bastion-P battery consists of one or two control vehicles, a support vehicle, four launcher vehicles (each with two missiles in separate canisters) and four reload vehicles. Minimal deployment would be one launcher vehicle and one command vehicle. Several models of 6x6 trucks are used for the command, launcher, support and reload vehicles.

Bastion-P is another variant of the Yakhont (3M55, Oniks and P-800), a design that was able to complete development with an investment from by India. This partnership produced the BrahMos for India while Russian used the new BrahMos tech to perfect the 3M55. While officially entering service in 1999, the 3M55 was not really ready for action until BrahMos development was completed in 2006. In in 2010 Bastion-P entered service. It has since been stationed in Crimea and sold to Syria and Vietnam.

 

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