Russian Navy to start receiving 9M317M missiles

In early August, 2016 at the session of the Russian Military-Industrial Commission Board the Almaz-Antei Group revealed test results of the new generation 9M317M surface-to-air guided missile designed for the Russian Navy. Its development, within the Buk-M3 surface-to-air missile system program in the first place, got initiated as far back as in early 1990’s by the Dolgoprudnenskoe Research and Production Facility, a subsidiary of the Almaz-Antei. 

Although the first five pop-up trials were performed at Emba tests range in 1995, being underfunded the works significantly slowed down after that. The missile tests resumed in 2001 at Kapustin Yar test site, whereas pop-up tests within the Shtil-1 naval system program started in 2007. For long time the development of the 9M317M naval version and 3S90 vertical launcher have been made at the expense of the design companies only.

The export version of the sea-launched missile — 9M317ME has a cold vertical start, it is ejected from a transport-and-launch container with a catapult and its own engine ignites when the missile is airborne. Gas vanes are used to incline the missile into desired direction. Shtil-1 naval system can destroy aerial targets at a range of up to 50 km and within the altitude range from 5 to 15 km. The guidance system has a semi-active homing head developed by the Moscow-based Agat R&D Institute and the 3R90 target illuminating radar. Compared to a t-slot launcher, the concept of a vertical start allowed to increase the rate of fire 4-6 times and made it possible to fire missiles with a minimum interval of 2 seconds.