SA-19 Grison

When spamming Shilkas isn't enough.

In Team Yankee

The Tunguska is the last word in Soviet anti-air platforms. Much of the information on it is now known from previews on assorted sites. It is not a reskinned Gepard, but is a uniquely dangerous piece of machinery in its own right.

Following the trend set by all other Soviet AA platforms, the Tunguska has armour values of 1 all around, and is not well suited to situations where the enemy can shoot back. Even .50 cals on APCs stand a decent chance of penetrating it. However, fighting ground targets is only a secondary purpose.

The true reason to field this vehicle is to rip enemy aircraft out of the sky, and Tunguska does this very well. Its armament includes both missiles and guns, although both are disabled in your turn if you fire them in the enemy turn. The autocannons have a range of 24” (36” when firing at aircraft), ROF 7/5 halted and moving respectively, AT 10, and firepower of 5+. This makes it unambiguously better than the Shilka in most respects. Added to the guns, Tunguska also comes with missiles, sporting a range of 64”, ROF 2, firepower 3+, and Guided AA; this puts it in a middle ground between the Gopher and Gecko.(FM101 clarifies that if a team makes any AA attack besides machine guns in the off turn, it still cannot shoot ground forces on its own turn except with machine guns, and vice versa.)

Points values were said to be double those of the Shilka, with unit sizes of two or four vehicles. A unit of four Tunguskas therefore neatly replaces a unit of Shilkas and a unit of Gophers in terms of point allotment, but brings noticeably superior capability in both gun and missile armament. One disadvantage to this setup is that there is only one AA unit for the enemy to kill, leaving your forces dangerously exposed should they succeed. Another is if you are firing at aircraft with a short range (e.g. Harriers): in this situation, the Tunguska can only use its cannons or missiles (tanks only being able to fire one non-MG weapon still applies in AA fire), not both at once, while the Shilka-Gopher combination can let fly with everything.

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In Real Life

"Two Soviet generals are walking down the streets of Paris one day, Soviet troops marching towards the eiffel tower. One general turns to the other and asks "So, tell me, comrade, who won the Air War? "

– An Army proverb

The 2S6 Tunguska 2K22 (NATO code SA-19 Grison) is a Russian-made self-propelled air defence system which combines 30mm cannon and missile armament.

As the Cold War developed in the mid to late 1950s, it became clear to Soviet military planners that the Warsaw pact (Basically just the Soviet Union) couldn't build and sustain the same number of military combat aircraft that NATO was able to produce and maintain.

This was both a result of the Soviets having simply less capacity to produce aircraft and the logistics of supporting them, but also because the Ground Forces had a strong funding and manpower precedence over the other arms of the armed forces.

While this doesn't mean the Soviet airforce wasn't funded at all, it did mean that it essentially ran off a proportionally smaller budget than the US Airforce has compared to the Army and Navy.

As a result, the Soviet ground forces found themselves taking up a larger proportion of air defence duties than the airforces did in western nations, and came with more 'nuanced' ideas on the role of ground-based anti-air systems.

The early stages of this development lead to iconic Soviet weapons like the ZSU-23-4 Shilka in the 1960s, but by the late 1960s the Soviets knew that they would need to build a new air defence system to accompany ground units and to provide point defence for larger strategic anti-air sites. The key point of new project was also the ability to engage enemy targets without stopping the vehicle so NATO helicopters could be shot down hopefully shortly after popping out of cover or, in the worst case scenario, shortly after ATGM reaching the target tank, avenging its' brave crew.

Lessons from the Vietnam War also taught the Soviets that in order to be effective, their SPAAG systems also needed a form of armament that can operate even when NATO air forces were operating SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defense) Missions, which sees aircraft armed with 'Anti-Radiation Weapons' (Missiles designed to lock onto the radar emissions of enemy radar units and destroy them) try to locate and destroy Soviet anti-air vehicles and installations.

The result of the ensuing development is the 2K22 Tunguska, and it summarises how in several areas, despite their relative backwardness in computer technologies, the Soviets were able to produce world-class anti-air missile systems, often compensating for computational shortcomings with aerodynamic and metallurgical design as well as in doctrine.

By the mid 1980's, the Tunguska was rolling off the production lines. However, it wasn't the ultimate threat to any and all helicopters for too long: AH-64, armed with AGM-114 Hellfire, outranged Tunguska's missiles by 2 km. In the modern-day the Tunguska has replaced it's predecessor, the ZSU-23-4, in Russian service though compared to it's 60's era predecessor, the Tunguska was not as widely exported with only about 7 countries outside of the Russian Federation actually having any.

Although reports of the system being used in actual combat are scarce if non-existant, with a couple of the few known exceptions being in Syria against Iraeli airs raids, and in the South Ossetia War, it still presents a competent threat to any aircraft or munition that decides to enter its weapons range, even if sometimes when shooting things can go awry.