Shtora

Encyclopedia : S : SH : SHT : Shtora

Shtora is a Russian electro-optical countermeasures suite, designed to disrupt the laser target designation and rangefinders of incoming ATGMs.

The system is mounted on the T-80 and T-90 series tanks.

Shtora-1 is an electro-optical jammer that jams the enemy's semiautomatic command to line of sight (SACLOS) antitank guided missiles, laser rangefinders and target designators. Shtora-1 is actually a soft kill, or passive-countermeasure system. It is most effective when used in tandem with a hard kill system such as the Arena active countermeasures system. During the International Defense Exposition (IDEX) held in Abu Dhabi in 1995, the system was shown fitted to a Russian MBT. The first known application of the system is the Russian T-90 MBT that entered service in the Russian Army in 1993.

The Shtora-1 system comprises four key components, the electro-optical interface station, which includes a jammer, modulator, and control panel; a bank of forward-firing grenade dischargers mounted on either side of the turret that are capable of firing grenades dispensing an aerosol screen; a laser warning system with precision and coarse heads; and a control system comprising control panel, microprocessor, and manual screen-laying panel. This processes the information from the sensors and activates the aerosol screen-laying system. Two infrared lights, one on each side of the main gun, continuously emit coded pulsed infrared jamming when an incoming ATGM has been detected. Shtora-1 has a field of view of 360 degrees horizontally and -5 to +25 degrees in elevation. It contains 12 aerosol screen launchers and weighs 400 kg. The screening aerosol takes less than 3 seconds to form and lasts about 20 seconds. The screen laying range is between 50 to 70 meters.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.