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In recent weeks, and even months, Government of National Accord (GNA) and Turkish-affiliated media have reported that several Russian-made Pantsir S1s have been destroyed while being operated by Haftar’s Libyan National Army.
However, the most notable incident is the one that was captured when the GNA took control of al-Watiya Airbase from the LNA.
#Libya– another photo of the Pantsir S-1/SA-22 Greyhound (and the manual in Arabic) that was inside the al-Watiyah Airbase when it was captured by the #GNA from the #LNA pic.twitter.com/XaUtLYcX6E
— Oded Berkowitz (@Oded121351) May 18, 2020
The same system was reportedly neutralized by a Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone just days earlier, but it turned out that the report was false, since the Pantsir S1 is clearly intact. It appears to have been slightly damaged in the strike, that purportedly hit a jeep next to it.
And footage from a Turkish TB2 UCAV with the data unblurred showing an air strike that happened today on a target in an aircraft hangar at the al-Watiyah Airbase. 34/https://t.co/Qs0IkIHlKy
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) May 17, 2020
However, photographs were released, purportedly showing a Pantsir S1 destroyed in the debris in al-Watiya, and it would appear that one was captured and one was destroyed there.
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There’s been several Pantsir S1 systems that have reportedly arrived in Libya over the last two years, and most likely from the United Arab Emirates, according to an UNSC report.
The first was seen in June 2018 and they have been visible in photos shared on LNA-associated social media accounts. Critically these are the model supplied to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is mounted on the German built Man-SX 45 eight-wheeled truck. This vehicle is unique to the UAE supplied systems.
Since May 17th, the Pantsir S1s have been in the spotlight, being struck and destroyed left and right.
On the same day the one was captured, another one was reportedly destroyed in Sirte, which is east of Tripoli. There’s a video accompanying the report.
The #GNA forces had conducted a successful aerial attack to South #Sirte and destroyed a Russian made #Pantsir air defence system. pic.twitter.com/ruLbGHiDl3
— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 18, 2020
Furthermore, the GNA said that three more Pantsirs were destroyed in Tarhuna.
“Our forces managed to destroy four Pantsir-type air defense systems on Wednesday, including three in Tarhuna,” Mohamed Qanunu, a spokesman for the government-led Operation Volcano of Rage, said in a statement.
As such, the tally sits at 6 (and one captured).
On May 20th, another two systems were reportedly destroyed – one in Tarhuna and one in al-Waska. And according to reports one of the systems was even active at the time.
The #GNA Air Force has destroyed 2 Russian made Pantsir S-1 (SA-22) air defence system supplied by the UAE in Tarhuna and al-Waska. During the operation one of the systems was active. pic.twitter.com/yrE6s6C2Ww
— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 20, 2020
This brings the total to 8 destroyed, and one captured, Pantsir S1 systems.
Most recently, another video was released, which supposedly hadn’t been shown before and it purportedly provided evidence that 2 more systems were destroyed in an airstrike. At the start of the video they’re sitting idly with their radars on, but then they start moving and get struck by a drone.
Pretty sure the footage of these 2 Pantsir-S1 hasn’t been shown before. 68/ pic.twitter.com/LGfKRtmflD
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) May 20, 2020
Finally, one was destroyed in Suk el-Ahad.
The GNA forces had destroyed a Russian made Pantsir S-1 (SA-22) supplied by the UAE to Haftar in Suk el-Ahad. pic.twitter.com/E7lSDvCRY1
— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 20, 2020
In total, if the video that hadn’t been shown before provides evidence of additional systems that were destroyed the tally sits at 11. If not, then the total of systems reportedly destroyed by Turkish drone strikes is 9, and 1 system was captured.
However, Clash Report, which provides a very pro-Turkish and pro-GNA view of things published an overview video.
Russian #Pantsir Air Defence Systems, purchased by the #UAE and supplied to #Libyan Rebel Khalifa #Haftar, succumb to the might of Turkish #Bayraktar #TB2 Armed Drones. pic.twitter.com/AO61XeD8rb
— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 20, 2020
According to it, since April 2019, when Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s forces began their operation to cleanse the country from terrorists, the GNA has destroyed 15 Pantsir S1.
Meaning that, if the count is accurate – 10 were destroyed within a week, and then for a little over a year, 5 were destroyed in total.
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Like I said before, the dumbass UAE cunts paid close to $1 billion for these weapons systems the illiterate morons can’t operate or know how to deploy such a mobile sophisticated point defence system. The idiots had parked them with radars on, inviting a strike. Good on Russia, time to sell them some more before the petropimps go broke. The Turkish drones that took them out costs a fraction and could have easily been downed if Shikla 23mm quads would have deployed as cover along with manpads. Seriously, there is something totally wrong with the Wahhabi Bedouin mindset.
Pantsir have been operates these years with Russian PMC and UAE crew and Turkish drones have been hunt like sitting ducks…now it seems that are under Libyan crew trained in Syria and they dont know how to use it beside they carry Pantsir mounted in trucks along desert without protection in a clearly unprofessional movements!..of course Turkey ( member of NATO) use these incompetent LNA crew to discredit Russian systems!…but the problem is the Jews Oligarchy and Russian etnic turquic business men who have close economic ties with Turkey!…I remember 2015 when SU 24 was shot down and S-400 was deployed and crew had the order to shot down Turkish jets !..then no Turkish F-16 flew close to Syrian border….but now it seems that Putin wants to preserve business with Turkey and Israel to the detriment of Russian military complex!..Turkish drones was flying over Idlib when just a pair of SU 35 would have shot down all of them….the similar case if SU 35( like the did sometimes) flying over lebanon to avoid Israeli attacks!
Correct, these morons buy these very sophisticated weapons where you need at a BSC or undergraduate engineering degree to operate properly and understand the COMINT environment. They have no concept of redundant supportive AD systems, mobility and EW. These idiots would really be better of chopping each others heads with swords. Russia should only sell them third rate stuff like the USSR used to. Russia should stick with Iran and China.
Which one of them knows anything about anything? Seriously, who commands LNA?
MBS is so very high on horse tranq and Saudi-Emiratis’ military genius is abundantly evident in Yemen. Haftar’s biggest military operation, a small skirmish years ago was a humiliating and ridiculous failure at border with Chad, so he fled from Qadhafi’s wrath and hid for a few decades. Who made him a “field marshal” I cannot understand. Now we say maybe Egypt can save them, a cleansed army of any competent officer, under the command of a third rate colonel (now general Sisi).
Funny is, another army also cleansed of their competent officers which its bulk is made out of of monkey head choppers is handing their ar$es to them!
Indeed, these Arab tinpot dictators have a habit of self-promoting themselves as “Field Marshal” a legacy of their British masters. The pimp Sadat, Mobarek, crazy Saddam etc all like to wear Italian movie house usher uniforms filled with gold braids and fake medals and pretended to be great war heroes, but the dumb bastards lost every war and backstabbed each other and sold Palestine to the Zionist parasites. You have to admit that Hafez al Assad was a pretty decent guy and never promoted himself to anything, even though he was a real combat pilot and founder of the modern Syrian airforce. Kaddafi for all his faults was a pretty modest guy.
And why do you think the Russians withdrew from Libya and handed over control of the systems to LNA forces? I don’t agree with you analysis. For one thing, Russia’s Wagner group are still in Libya. For another, there is no reason at all for Russia to withdraw. Russia needs to pressure Turkey to give way in Syria, and Libya is one such place to do that.
My reasoning on this is that the Pantsi systems have not faced sever challenge before. They did well in Syria against rebel drones, but those drones cannot compare to the Bayraktars. The current Turkish drones might be defeating the Pantsirs. You might not want to believe this out of subjectivity, but you can’t deny that it is a real possibility.
Between 9 – 15 anti aicraft systems destroyed by drones is surely bad news for the Russian manufacturers. They got to figure this out before facing off in a real fight with NATO.
Most of it destroyed while in offline or in transport condition, even most sophisticated system like israeli or german can be destroyed in that condition, its just sophisticated weapon in incompetent operator, even in professional operator hand that cold war antiquated weapon can transform into a nighmare system to fight for shitty incompetent enemy
Russian weaponry is certainly sophisticated. Russia leads the world in Missile and anti-aircraft technology. But just like any system, theirs have weaknesses too. I doubt all the pantsirs were destroyed in offline mode. This is a war zone, and defense equipment shouldn’t be going offline, especially such critical ones like the pantsir. I still think that Turkey managed to discover a weakness of the pantsir after the several shoot downs.
Pantsir have shot down 20 Turkish drone in Syria and 60 in Libya ( the last 2 few hours ago in Tarhuna)…most of PanTsir destroyed have been when were hide in shelters or when long vehicle trucks were carrying many of them..some of them as consecuence of guide artillery
If what you say is true, then you have a good point there. But don’t you think the Bayraktars might have figured out a weakness of the Pantsir they didn’t know before?
Bayraktars are just sitting Ducks for Pantsir….other thing is to put a Pantsir on a truck and carry it along roads…then even a thrown stone vs truck driver can do more damage if the truck vehicle overturns
This is why you won’t deploy anti aircraft artillery close to the battle front and without any air support or radar stations at all.
But why don’t we talk about the +20 Turkish drones grounded since the start of 2020?
Correct, but keep in mind Turkish drones are very basic and crude and very cheap to manufacture. As a Mechanical Engineer, I can tell you that you can make a pretty decent drone with a few thousand dollars with FLIR and rig a couple of hard points for ordinance and missiles. The Pantsir S1 is a first world high tech multiple threat integrated point defence system and these dumbass morons are driving it around like a Toyota hi-lux.
what you say is not correct. this is a short range defence system. it has its own radar to track threats that are near
We are not talking about the 20+ Turkish drones because all 20 combined will cost many $$$ less than one Pantsir.
The Pantsir systems are purchased by UAE – they have deep pockets and their economy can easily sustain such expenditure – however long they commit to involvement in conflict.
Because downing a subsonic low altitude drone is not a big issue, but demolishing a 15 mio USD complex air defence system with such a drones is big one.
That is a true statement. I am amazed at the incompetence of these idiots.
SAA is the same incompetence that LNA…SAA had a Pantsir inside Saraqib city and without moving the complex despite that it is a mobile system…the consecuence was that Turkish 155mm artillery could hunt it!..just monitoring position with many cuadracopters drones…
Pantsirs have an operational range of 20 km. LNA overstretched them so much in a vast 2 million square km area that there range was just unconnected small circles on the map. Turkish drone on the other hand have an operational time of half a day. They simply flied around them and attacked transportation lines. Then they bated the system until they run out of ammunition. Now who provided logistical support for the Turks, is not known, but it wouldn’t have been difficult to gather it by themselves. They only had to observe few highways . Egypt could have prevented this by simply closing the air space of Libya. It could have swept away Erdogan’s terrorist drone army in a day, and gave air cover to LNA. It has a fleet of 500 high altitude aircraft, refueling tankers and AWACS to do it. It has also long range A/A weapons and cruise missiles to prevent any threat to its planes.
Exactly. Good summation. Unless Egypt intervenes from Marsah Metruh and takes control of the skies these idiots will keep on losing to the loitering Turkish drones which are very low cost/low risk option.
without air superiority AA always loses in time depth. Sooner or later AA systems will get spotted . So the best move for LNA was to bomb Turkish cargo planes and ships just before deliver stuff and jihadists . Preventing them creating logistic supply chain GNA would have gone long time ago .
Exactly, the Turkeys are overextended and even admiral was turfed out. The LNA should go after ports and airports and cut off the supply lines which are 1400 kms stretched, and the Turkeys economy is kaput!
Egypt could have prevented this by simply closing the air space of Libya.
egypt has no right
I’m very skeptical of Turkish Clash Report propaganda that was proven to be false in Syria, like the 8 Pantsir systems that wasn’t even in the area.
When inspecting videos closer there are often traces of Turkish propaganda being manipulated and manufactured like we saw in Syria and the videos that was posted by southfront yesterday.
Don’t worry. You are not alone. Everyone is skeptical of the enemy when the war starts going bad. You can see from the comments.
You should be skeptical about all information presented in a conflict, like the number of drones LNA claims to have shot down as they doesn’t post the serial numbers.
MLNA claimed to have shot down 22 TB2 in a period of 30 days but still we don’t have the serials so that number should be questioned.
We have also seen pictures/videos of the same drones at many occasions presented as a new shoot down.
Only an idiot pick sides and believes all that one side presents, a war isn’t black or white.
You should spend some time looking at the presented videos (frame by frame) and you may find that they have been altered or are from somewhere else at another time or edited to show something that never happened, sometimes everything checks out and the video is believable.
Yet the Russian Ministry of Defense even accepted that 2 of its Pantsir S1’s were “damaged” in Syria. https://www.defenseworld.net/news/26495/Only_2_Syrian_Pantsir_Systems_Damaged__None_Destroyed_in_Turkish_Attacks__Russian_MoD#.XsaYFS-r3Vo
Yet Erdoğan claimed eight Pantsir were destroyed and there wasn’t 8 in that area.
https://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12281537
More fake news from Turkisis and Mossad RSS.
Thanks for proving my point.
He was mocking you, thats the only point proven . LOL
Hi Shlomo…
What kind of drooling idiots are using this systems, that is my first question, then how on earth are not the drones idied or neuralized, and I know that they, the Pansisrs are not that vital, but the drones is something else, and makes you wounder about the competanse of this idiots whom is using this sytems and I blame the comanders, above all, since they are the ones whom directs and should have the intellegence to make them work, apart from that, they are just sitting ducks, and I am not that impressed, not because of the missile tech, but the use of them, tsk, tsk, tsk.
peace
Always the same with those Arab countries with to much money, buy expensive shit, just drop it somewhere without a battle plan or any tactical insight, put a crew of untrained apes/monkeys mercenary’s to operate it, en then watch it all fail.
Just proves what kind of crap the Pantsir is.
These Pantsirs have autonomous operation with automatic target engagement mode, where it locks and fires automatically at a target. People saying “poorly trained” isn’t really an excuse.
Why most of it destroyed in offline mode if the operator is shit, where in syria they operated many of them 24/7 and still keep some online even there are maintenance, even we give this shitty operator S400 as turkey had, they still able to get destroyed in second because they just lazy to man it everyday
Only 4 were destroyed in offline mode and this only shows how impressive Turkish HUMINT and IMGINT is in Libya.
Many videos of active Pantsir S1’s being destroyed when their radars are in scan mode.
So crappy, that the Turds went and bought Russian air defence systems, lol.
NoHoper 19, 20 today, the Turks are a goatfucking race who lick Russian ass when they are told.
Go serve a tourist a drink you bum.
bought for testing purpose of enemy weapons. and putin was so stupid, that allowed them ….
4 billion bucks for testing! lol
That would equip an airforce twice the size and quality that the Turds have you muppet.
And the results will sell for 10 billions. do not forget there are 2 dozens of countries, which will pay for those information.
Sure thing boy, those export models will be sold to whoever wants one.
The queues are growing, why pay the Turds for a Turdish export, when you can get your own specifications for your own needs!
As we say around here ‘it’s not the man in the fight but the fight in the man”
It doesn’t matter how good your weapons are if you can’t use them properly. Tactics and strategy win wars not good weapons in unskilled hands. The 1940 German campaign in France, the Arab Israeli wars of the 60-70’s and Vietnam all prove that point well.
Yes this right, system only as good as man who handled them, we cant expect a sand man from middle nowhere suddenly transform to professional operator just one week to operate this thing
Clearly those defence systems have some blind spots where russian engineers should address the issues.
They were pretty useless in Syria last March, too.
No blind spots buddy.
Turkish Airborne Standoff EW Jammers are merely doing their job.
Junk
The whole idea is to install systems and then to move forward others – under the protective shield of the operating systems. By leapfrogging this way, all systems should arrive safely at their assigned destinations. Elementary.
The Pantsirs are supposed to be an excellent system when properly use. As a stand alone system they have to take down the missiles or bombs rather than the launch platforms if the attacking ordnance is fired from outside the range of the Pantsir’s missiles.
At a minimum Pantsirs should always be deployed with Buks. So that Launch platforms like these drones can be taken out and not used as standoff launch platforms. Then there’s the issue of aircover. Drones can be hunted with manned aircraft, they can also be hunted with drones. Where are the hunter drones mitigating the drones attacking the Pantsirs? Does the force with the Pantsirs have hunter drones?
If some Pantirs were destroyed, what were they destroyed with? Artillery rockets, anti tank missiles and artillery strikes can destroy trucks.
Satcom integration is also a big factor. Do the Pantsir operators have it, or are they relying simply on each individual Pantsir’s radar system as stand alone systems?
When the Russians advertise a 90+% kill rate. What are the qualifying factors? Are these interception rates for stand alone systems against all attacks or do they include at a minimum satcom integration so that the operators can see all threats in theater, not just the threats located with their unit’s radar?
On top of all of this there’s the question of where are these drones operating out of, and why aren’t they being taken out on the ground? It looks like most of Libya is under the control of the force with the Pantsir’s. What type of strike capability do they have for shutting down the drone bases.
Then there’s the issue of the veracity of the Pantsir destruction reports. The Turks according to their Idlib accounts were decimating the SAA and company and their equipment. While they were driven back and lost ground and agreed to giving up more territory as part of the ceasefire agreement. So action reports from the Turk side of the conflict have to be viewed in light of their exaggerations in the Syrian Idlib conflict.
The Pantsirs are supposed to be an excellent system when properly used.
the mantra of payed trolls
These reports are from the same types of people who put out reports of massive SAA equipment losses in Idlib without proof. They’re known disinfo peddlers.
As the Turk forces were driven back from the DMZ as the SAA and company gained ground. If the SAA really was sustaining those types of losses they would have lost not gained ground.
i cant really understand what the hell is going on with LNA. they lose their pantsir systems at a rate you cant keep up with….and all by drone attacks. that means only 2-3 things. 1)the Turks have found a weak spot in the systems defence and are exploiting it. That is a huge disaster for Russia. a state of the art system (advertised as such) is wasted by a drone which is worth 100$. 2) the LNA personnel are totally useless in such a system. they luck experience and maybe most important professionalism. they just take this for a ride along. 3)Turks use a swarm of cheap drones that maybe fly on the edge of the systems range ,LNA tries to shoot them down with everything they have (both missiles and guns) and they succeed at shooting down a lot. Ammo is depleted then just one drone with missiles destroys a shitting duck.
christos, I wrote hundred times, russian AD systems are far not so good as are presented. Think! NATO countries were never nervous from overhyped russian AD missiles!!! This fact has a logical reason. ;)
My country is in NATO and we do have both russian and western air defence systems and the army have only good words to say about the Tor and S-300, I would say more favourable than the western ones.
well that’s one strong argument there. could be an explanation as i mentioned.
I always enjoy reading comments from people who have no idea how weapon systems work.
First let me say that no air defence in the world is invisible and indestructible, so if a Pantsir gets destroyed its not the end of the world and it doesn’t mean that this system sucks.
Its main role is to intercept missiles, bombs, drones etc.
Its funny though that those who mock the Pantsir(mainly the Turks and their jihadist supporters) failed to mention the many dozens of drones that Panstir’s have destroyed both in Syria and Libya, mainly turkish made, so in other words, Pantsir did its job.
But its not the miracle weapon made from God Himself that can do everything, there are no weapons in existence like that and will never be in our history no matter how advance our civilization will become.
But how effective a system can be it depends to some factors like:
1) How its been used, like every other air defence system in the world, it works better how its part of integrate air defence network, of course it can used as stand-alone but you handicap a lot its fully potential, networking provide a more clear picture, way longer range that will give you time to activate it, to prepare or even change position if you think that you are going to be overrun.
In the case of Libya that did not happen and still doesn’t happen, they spread way too far the Pantsirs from each other try to cover huge areas without proper intel of enemies movement. A single system eventually will be overrun if you let it alone, it might shoot down a couple of drones and missiles but in the end it will get saturated.
2) Training is a big part of how well a system will perform, especially in this modern era with the sophisticated electronics, and training to operate advance systems is taking a lot of time, months at least to become sufficient, I highly doubt those GNA guys knew what they were doing.
3) I’m pretty sure that the number of destroyed Pantsirs the GNA and Turks claim are a propaganda number, Turks used to add 3-4 times more than the original number, the same propaganda they said about Syria which Turkey claimed destroying 8 Pantsirs when there were no more than 4 in the area which only 2 of them were damaged but not destroyed. The same of course can be said for the amount of drones the LNA has downed, I want to be fair.
Also from what I understand the majority of Pantsirs that got destroyed were in transit or offline or generally speaking were destroyed by ground troops rather than air attacks.
That is the bad use as we talk about earlier because the poor trained troops used it as pickups walking around in hot areas with no sufficient support to protect it.
4) And last those Pantsirs which owned by UAE, are the first version of the Pantsir which UAE took delivery in early-mid 2000s. There were many reports about that version to have problems to track very small targets like UAVs, since then the problem has been solved, there are numerous upgrades better than the UAE version, the largest and most effective upgrades though happened during the Syrian war because Russia had the chance to test it in real warfare conditions in which successfully managed to counter hundreds upon hundreds of missiles, bombs and drones thus improving it with every encounter. Just only look how the Russian Khmeimim base in Syria has successfully intercept everything so far, from small rockets, larger rockets, drones, even tiny plastic drones which are very hard to detect and that success happened because Russian Pantsirs are integrated in a unify network.
The most advance is Pantsir-S2 and even better the Pantsir-SM, this versions are day and night with the UAE first generation version Pantsir, just a reminder the Pantsir versions are the S1(which UAE has), S1M, S2 and SM but also within each version different adjustments were made to improve performance without the need to change the name version.
What I want to say, the Pantsir together with the Tor-M2(there are reports that performed better) are one of the best in their role, if not the best, with Iron-Dome coming next but still far.
I cant think any other air defence system in the world that has better tested in real life war scenarios than Pantsir/Tor/Buk and Iron-Dome, especially in that specifically role of intercepting cruise missiles, smart bombs and drones, especially small drones and bombs which are very hard to detect and engage.
Its very very hard to make a good system against those threats and Russians seem to managed that during the last years especially with all their experience they gathered and to be fair the Israelis too with the hundreds of rockets they been fired upon them.
So people think before you start writing BS.
Just you wrote one TLDR BS. :)))
Is that your expertise answer? lol No argument, just one BS phrase and nothing else lol,
Test post to find out if it works
Very nice! SF begins be objective!
I am glad they reversed the ban. Same thing happened to me and was reversed. I liked your commentary on the protests in the US, spot on. As for Trump, I think Trump is the blunt instrument to smash the status quo in quick order to shorten the dangerous transition period to the new multi-polar world – hopefully completed before the deepening US civil war gets dangerously out of hand.
I am writing an article for publication and half done. May run the draft by you before submission if you would be interested. Cheers…
I will gladly read it when published. Thank you.
Pant-shit
First of All, the Pantsir that Haftar forces have in dotation are UAE very first batch of the first version of the Pantsir-S. Since it have had dozens of different upgrades. The radar of those is too weak compared to the double face Janus that Algeria has in service.
De plus don’t forget that Haftar forces operating the systems have 0 experience compared to Syrians or Algerians
So that’ very normal if Turkish forces destroy all of them easily in Libya, in Syria it was a different story…
Pantsir is very shitty, lame system. This told also one syrian general for Almasdarnews. Russians should remove completely this weapon system.
It is the name of The Game but, the game is crooked. It has many levels. Sometimes loosing is actually winning on long run. So loosing is intentional, to cover up some other tasks which are hidden on first glance.
Also, rockets and bullets for a system are not unlimited like some of us think. they have been sold separately. and not to be found in a desert.
Wow they will be claiming destroying a “Shilka” will turn the tide for them next.