KOLOMNA, Moscow Region. Oct 3 (Interfax-AVN) - Iranian Minister of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics Ali Shamkhani will visit the local Machine-building Design Bureau on Wednesday, Lev Trofimets, deputy chief of the bureau's foreign relations department, told Interfax-Military News Agency.
The Iranian delegation will arrive here at 12.00 Moscow time (0800 GMT) to study the design bureau and several products which it develops and produces. Particularly, Shamkhani will get acquainted with the Malyutka-2 anti-tank missile system and Arena active protection system.
Malyutka-2 is capable of hitting tanks with dynamic protection and penetrating armour with the depth of up to 800mm. Its semiautomatic noiseproof control makes the operator's work easier. The bureau is negotiating with several countries on possible upgrade of Malyutka systems to Malyutka-2. The modernisation will cost two or more times cheaper than the purchase of any new anti-tank missile, the spokesman said.
The Arena active protection system enables combating any types of antitank guided systems, including promising ones. Its radar detects incoming shells at the distance of 50m from the tank in the sector of about 270 degrees from all directions.
After that, the system carries out primary selection of the targets and defines the trajectory of the attacker no matter if it is guided or unguided. If a shell or a missile poses a threat for the tank a protective element is fired at a calculated moment of time, and target tracking continues while the element is flying.
Following that, the system gives a command to activate the element. It falls into pieces that pose no threat to the tank or to the attacking infantry with the exception of one sector where a field of high-speed offensive elements is formed. The elements are falling down on the incoming shell three to six metres from the tank. The time span between the target detection and elimination is 70 milliseconds.
The system working in the automatic mode is ready to hit the next attacker in 2.4 seconds. Information on the number of shots and the number of munitions in stock is indicated on the commander's display.
Used munitions are easily replaced in silos after the combat. The crew needs about 15 minutes to fully recharge the system.
The Kolomna machine-building design bureau is the leading Russian designer of anti-tank missile
systems and missile systems for the Land Forces. It is a worldwide leader in the sphere of making active protection systems for armoured vehicles. The design bureau has close ties with foreign partners in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The bureau's missile systems have been supplied to over 60 countries and are in licensed production in many states.
Particularly, over 35 countries have the Malyutka system. The design bureau already produced over 300,000 of them.