The Russian military said that its two types of shoulder-fired air defense missiles Igla-S and Verba have shot down 33% of the total number of fighters that Ukraine has lost since the beginning of the special military operation. out so far. The Ukrainian side has not commented on this information.
The commander of the Russian Army, Oleg Salyukov, revealed late last month that one-third of the fighters lost by the Ukrainian army since the beginning of the conflict have been hit by two types of man-portable air defense missiles Igla-S and Verba.
“With low-flying and ultra-low-flying targets, the Igla-S and Verba man-portable air defense missiles have demonstrated good combat ability, effectively shooting down one-third of the country’s armed fighters and UAVs. Ukraine,” Salyukov said.
In addition, Salyukov also emphasized the role of Russia’s short and medium-range air defense systems. Specifically, modern anti-aircraft missile systems S-300V4, Buk-M2/M3, and Tor-M1/2 all showed good performance in Ukraine.
It is known that both Igla-S and Verba man-portable air defense missile systems, in addition to being able to fight low-altitude aircraft and armed UAVs, can also shoot down cruise missiles.
While the 2004 Igla-S is the latest variant of the Igla series of man-portable air defense missiles developed by the Soviet Union, the Verba is a new missile that was developed and commissioned in 2014.
The 9K333 Verba complex is equipped with an anti-jamming system with an accurate and highly sensitive probe that can even distinguish between “enemy” and “we”, thereby being able to bring down enemy aircraft. with a single shot without being affected by heat bait or other interference measures.
Using the Verba complex, it only takes 1 soldier to destroy many air targets, from large aircraft, and attack helicopters to cruise missiles.
Therefore, the Verba complex becomes one of the indispensable systems of the Russian air defense forces, similar to the role of the Strela complex for the Soviet army before.
The missile of this new personal air defense complex is capable of destroying targets at an altitude of 4,500 m, with a range of up to 6.5 km.
In fact, the 9K333 Verba complex is capable of destroying even high-altitude targets
With such power, the 9K333amhj personal air defense complex is better than the Igla-S complex.
The 9K333 Verba’s automatic control system automatically calculates the speed and direction of the aircraft or cruise missile, and then provides these parameters to all soldiers using this air defense system. . The location of the target and the soldiers is determined using the GLONASS system.
Support systems allow soldiers to choose the most precise and reasonable position to fire.
In addition, the 9K333 Verba complex can receive information about targets detected by large radars through the Barnaul-T tactical complex.
The Verba missile has a highly sensitive probe for different types of targets, with the ability to “see” ultraviolet and other types of infrared radiation.
This missile can distinguish between heat decoys released by aircraft or helicopters and the main target and select the right target.
Like many anti-aircraft missile systems or systems of the same type, Verba can be installed on ships or attack helicopters as a supporting air defense system.
In addition, the operation of this system is made much simpler than that of the Igla system – the operation from preparing to being ready to fire only takes a few seconds.
The Russian army has begun to equip a large number of individual air defense systems 9K333 Verba in recent years.
