The commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi showed a video of the results of the combat work of one of the units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine to destroy the enemy's air defense elements.
It could be seen in this video how Ukrainian worriors struck a transport-charger with missiles for the latest russian air defense system of the Buk-M3 type as well as the 9С18М3 target detection radar operating as part of the system. In the video, you can see that the radar station was first hit, then the transport-charger was hit, and the secondary detonation from the explosion of the SAM missiles produced incredibly bright fireworks.
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It is quite likely that this was the first case of the Buk-M3 system destruction by the Ukrainian military during a full-scale war against the russian federation. In any case, according to the conservative estimates of the analysts of the Oryx portal, destruction of russian systems of this type had not been recorded before.
Back in 2021, russian propagandists claimed that their Buk-M3 SAM system has "anti-missile" capabilities and is capable of shooting down more than 90% of all launched missiles (although, without detailing exactly which missiles these were). But it seems that these characteristics turned out to be at least exaggerated.
It is known that the Buk-M3 9K317 SAM system includes a 9C510M combat control unit, a 9C18M3 type radar, up to 12 9A316M type launchers (each of which can carry up to 6 SAM missiles), and up to six 9A317M self-propelled launchers, 9T243М transporter-loader. The declared range at which this SAM is capable of hitting targets is from 2 to 70 km.
The 9С18М3 type radar can detect targets at a distance of up to 160 km. There are no publicly available data on how many radar stations of this type the russian army has. But considering the fact that serial production of the Buk-M3 SAM system began only in 2016, it is obvious that the 9С18М3 type radar is rare for the russian army. According to conservative estimates of the Oryx portal, until now the russians have lost at least one 9S18M3 radar.
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