Successor to Strela SAM, Russian Sosna to be Unveiled at Army 2018

Russian mobile short-range surface-to-air missile system Sosna (Pinetree in Russian) which continues the line of the Strela-10M SAM used by many militaries across the world will be unveiled at the Army 2018 event in Moscow tomorrow.

While the product has been demonstrated by Russia at different shows but no official international public presentation has taken place yet.

The developer of Sosna, Nudelman Precision Engineering Design Bureau (KBtochmash) officially reported earlier, Sosna is slated to replace the Strela-10M in the Russian Army. This year, Rostec state corporation (parent company of KBtochmash) had declared that the state trials of the Russia-oriented version called Bagulnik (Sosna is the export name) were concluded and it was on way to be introduced into the Army.

Sosna can hit not only aerial targets but also surface ones like armour, entrenchments and naval vessels. The naval version is also developed. It is based on a tracked platform.

The air defense missile system is intended to protect against all types of air threats including cruise missiles and guided aircraft missiles up to 10 km in range and up to 5 km in altitude.

The Sosna system is equipped with the latest electronic systems which provide features including:

Special multichannel automatic high-precision practically all-weather and day/night optronic control system.

Optronic combat control system with sector scan and in the automate target designation mode provide autonomous target detection capability.

India could be a potential market for the Sosna as New Delhi has in its inventory many Strela-10M Soviet-supplied systems whose immediate successor is Sosna.