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The ZSU-39 Tigris is a tracked anti-aircraft vehicle used exclusively by CSAT forces in ArmA 3.

Overview[]

  • Role:
    • Low altitude anti-aircraft defence
« The infantry fighting vehicle BTR-K Kamysh and its anti-aircraft cousin ZSU-39 Tigris share the same vehicle platform. Developed by Russia with a pinch of undeniable inspiration from Israeli IFVs, they serve in the OPFOR army as a prime example of a leveling of the technology field with the West. The Kamysh is equipped with a CTWS turret fitted with a 30 mm cannon, coaxial machinegun and 2 guided AT missiles, making the vehicle significant in the infantry support role. The Tigris is fitted with a 35 mm autocannon and 4 Titan AA missiles.
Field Manual
»

Design[]

The ZSU-39 is a dedicated anti-aircraft vehicle variant of the BTR-K Kamysh Infantry Fighting Vehicle. It is configured to use a turret armed with dual 35 mm cannons and surface-to-air missiles.

Armament
The standard loadout of the ZSU-39 gives it a total of 680 high-explosive (HE-T) rounds for the twin autocannons, while the launcher pods mounted on both sides of the turret each have 4 infrared-guided Titan surface-to-air missiles stored in them (forming a total of 8).

Features
Though its main armament is intended for use against aircraft, it can also be utilised against ground targets if necessary, with devastating results against infantry in particular due to both the high fire rate of the cannons and their shells being high-explosive.

Since the ZSU-39 shares the same chassis with the BTR-K, it also shares the same high mobility, sharp handling, and relatively decent protection against small arms fire. In addition, it can be retrofitted with slat cages for additional protection from non-AP munitions and other explosive weaponry, which further enhances its survivability.

Lastly, since the ZSU-39 is data link-enabled, it is able to both receive and transmit contacts to other platforms. This in turn allows the ZSU-39 to serve as a (backup) mobile radar for S-750 batteries if the latter's static R-750 sites are unavailable.

Drawbacks
It is unable to transport any passengers and lacks the ability to adequately defend itself against ground targets (other than infantry/light vehicles) since its main armament is not optimised for attacking heavily protected armoured fighting vehicles. Just like its parent vehicle, the ZSU-39 is also quite soft-skinned and cannot take much damage from large calibre munitions or anti-tank weapons. The sole upside is that its turret is better protected since it isn't left exposed to small arms fire (unlike the BTR-K).

Crew Capacity
The ZSU-39 has a seating capacity of three personnel for a crew consisting of the driver, gunner, and a commander. It is unable to transport any passengers.

Camouflage[]

  • Hex: Arid Hexacam camouflage pattern. Useful for forested, grass plains, and desert environments. Changes any applied camo nets to use a two-tone desert camouflage pattern.
  • Green Hex: Tropical Hexacam pattern camouflage. This is used in heavily forested and tropic environments. Attached camo netting will use a two-tone woodland camouflage pattern.

Protection[]

The ZSU-39 has a base armour value of 500. It uses Composite Armour plating and can optionally support addon Slat cages. A total of eight individual slat cages that surround all sides of the hull. It does not have the ability to install Explosive Reactive Armour blocks/panels.

The following highlighted positions serve as weak points on the ZSU-39:

Arma3-tigris-hitpoints

LEGEND
Green = Hull
Orange = Engine
Violet = Fuel tanks
Light blue = Treads
Maroon = Turret

Note that in order to inflict actual damage, a munition must first penetrate through the surrounding armour plates and directly hit the component's weak point. Any strikes on non-highlighted parts will cause little (if any) noticeable damage.


Hull[]

The hull is able to withstand up to 500 points of damage. Depletion of its integrity will instantly result in a catastrophic kill.

Munition type Damage reduction (%) Velocity reduction (%)
Armour Piercing None 10
High-Explosive 80* 50
High-Explosive Anti-Tank 80* 80
Tandem High-Explosive Anti-Tank 80* 10

(*) Reductions only apply to the explosive component of the munition i.e. Tandem HEAT explosive charge

If the hull has been compromised, no reductions will be applied to the velocity/raw damage of incoming projectiles.

Hull Slat[]

Arma3-vehiclearmour-tigris-slathull

When installed, slat cages surround the entire length of the hull (including the rear compartment hatch). They can take up to 200 points of damage before they break.

Slat cages take 200% additional damage from high-explosive (HE) type munitions, though no damage upon them will be shared with the ZSU-39's "health" pool. If any of the cages are broken, they must be manually repaired by hand or with the aid of a logistics vehicle.

Engine[]

The engine can survive up to 400 points of damage. At least 20% of incoming damage will be shared with the ZSU-39's main "health" pool. It takes 80% less damage from HE-type munitions.

Destruction of the engine will not culminate in a catastrophic kill unless the ZSU-39 is at critical "health" status.

If damaged: Reduces power output, acceleration is decreased and it may become impossible to climb uphill.
If destroyed: Immobilises the ZSU-39.

Fuel tanks[]

The fuel tanks can only resist 250 points of damage before rupturing. Only 10% of damage onto the fuel tank will be shared with the ZSU-39's main "health" pool. It takes 40% less damage from HE-type munitions.

Destroying the fuel tanks will not cause a catastrophic kill unless the ZSU-39 is at critical "health" status.

If damaged: Gradually leak fuel over time.
If destroyed: Rapidly depletes the entire fuel supply over the course of several seconds.

Treads[]

Both treads can resist 400 points worth of damage. They take 20% less damage from HE-type munitions. No amount of damage inflicted onto them is shared with the ZSU-39's "health" pool.

Destroying either one of the treads will hamper the ZSU-39's handling but will not prevent it from moving. Destroying both will severely degrade the ZSU-39's handling to the point of preventing it from being able to move altogether on rough terrain.

Turret[]

The turret can resist up to 400 points worth of damage. No amount of damage incurred is shared with the ZSU-39's "health" pool.

Munition type Damage reduction (%) Velocity reduction (%)
Armour Piercing None 10
High-Explosive 80* 50
High-Explosive Anti-Tank 80* 80
Tandem High-Explosive Anti-Tank 80* 10

(*) Reductions only apply to the explosive component of the munition i.e. Tandem HEAT explosive charge

If the turret's armour is compromised, no reductions will be applied to the velocity/raw damage of incoming projectiles.

Twin autocannons[]

The ZSU-39's dual autocannons can resist up to 300 points of damage. No damage inflicted on these components are transferred onto the ZSU-39's "health" pool.

Destroying them both will lock the barrels and prevent the gunner from being able to change their elevation/depression. It should also be noted that unlike the turret, the barrels are only capable of reducing 60% of incoming damage from HE-type munitions.

Commander viewfinder[]

The commander's optics can only resist a meagre 50 points worth of damage before failing. The optics are fully susceptible to all kinds of damage and have absolutely no resistance to explosive weapons. No damage is returned onto the ZSU-39's "health" pool, however.

Disabling this component will prevent the commander from being able to utilise their optics.

Components[]

  • Slat Cage (Hull): Attaches slat cages around the entire hull; excluding the turret but including the rear passenger compartment hatch. Slat cages will protect the ZSU-39 from non-AP munitions but can be destroyed after multiple hits.
  • Camo Net (Hull): Drapes most of the hull with camouflage netting (the turret is not covered). Partially conceals covered sections from thermal sensors.
  • Camo Net (Turret): Identical to Hull camo netting but for the turret only. However, most of the turret is not actually concealed with only some sections such as the sides and front of the turret being covered. The radar dish, both missile pods, and the gun barrels are not covered.

Sensors[]

The ZSU-39 is outfitted with a dual-band radar dish mounted on the top of its turret optimised for anti-aircraft purposes:

Sensor type Max range (Air/Ground) Min range (Air/Ground) Affected by environment? Target max speed (km/h) Azimuth coverage (°) Elevation coverage (°) Friendly identification range (m)
Active A: 9,000 m
G: 6,000 m
A: 9,000 m
G: 6,000 m
Terrain clutter (200 m) 2,500 km/h 360° 100° 6,000 m
Data Link A: 16,000 m
G: 16,000 m
A: 16,000 m
G: 16,000 m
Nothing 1e+10 km/h 360° 360° 0 m

Data Link[]

The ZSU-39 can freely receive and transmit the locations of radar contacts from any direction.

Active Radar[]

The radar provides full horizontal coverage and is not limited by the radar's facing direction. It has an elevation offset of 45 degrees.

Armament[]

The ZSU-39's gunner position exclusively retains access to both the Autocannon 35 mm and Titan missile pods. For optics, they have access to three fields of view along with day, night and black-/white-hot thermal vision modes:

Autocannon 35 mm[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-zsu39tigris-autocannon35mm
Base damage value Aerodynamic friction Initial velocity (m/s) Penetration depth (mm)
60 -0.0005 1,440 60.48

Twin anti-aircraft 35 mm autocannons.

It can attain a fire rate of ~ 1,099 rounds per minute and has a muzzle velocity of 1,440 m/s. Accuracy-wise, it has a dispersion of 0.0045 rad regardless of distance. It takes at least 20 seconds to fully rearm from a logistics vehicle.

Shells are always fired simultaneously in bursts of two. They are high-explosive (HE) based and have a blast radius of 2.4 metres. While not intended to be armour piercing, they do have the ability to penetrate light vehicle armour.

A laser rangefinder is available but the Autocannon 35 mm does not have a dedicated Fire Control System that supports automatic lead/zeroing. It can be manually zeroed, however. This starts from a minimum of 100 m up to a maximum of 3000 m. Adjustments are made with increments/decrements of 100 m.

Titan[]

Arma3-vehicleweapons-zsu39tigris-titan
Damage type Base damage value Proximity fuse radius (metres)
High-Explosive 80 10

Infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles.

There is a firing delay of only 1 second in-between launches, but it takes up to 50 seconds to reload a fresh batch of missiles or to fully rearm from a logistics vehicle. It takes 3 seconds to lock onto a target and is limited to a cone with an azimuth of 40 degrees and an elevation of 25 degrees.

Missiles are launched with an initial velocity of 44 m/s and take a further 3 seconds for their motors to reach a top speed of up to 850 m/s in-flight. The warhead itself has a blast radius of 6 metres.

The seekers on the missiles use infrared-guidance. It can lock onto aircraft at distances of up to 4.5 km away and are flying at speeds of less than 1,800 km/h. The seeker's lock-on cone is limited to 30 degrees, but it has a field of regard extending out to 40 degrees. It has a 40% chance to lose lock against countermeasure flares.

Trivia[]

  • Like the Kamysh, the chassis of the Tigris is likely to have been based on a combination of two real-world tracked vehicles; the "BMPT" and the "BTR-T" IFVs.
    • The gun turret itself, however, is a shared design that is also used by the IFV-6a. It is modelled after the real-world "Marksman" anti-aircraft gun system.
  • The ZSU acronym (Russian: Zenitnaia Samokhodnaia Ustanovka) is a designation used for Russian gun-based, self-propelled Anti-Aircraft vehicles. However, the Tigris' designation is somewhat of a misnomer since ZSU vehicles typically follow a very specific naming convention:
    • An example of this would be the real-world "ZSU-23-4 Shilka"; ZSU designates that it is a SPAAG, followed by its calibre being 23 mm (-23), and finally that the system has 4 cannons (-4).
    • As a result, the Tigris' name would suggest that it fires 39 mm shells despite the in-game cannons actually being chambered to fire 35 mm shells. Therefore, the correct designation for it would actually be ZSU-35-2 Tigris.
  • The Tigris was not originally featured as an asset in the Alpha and Beta. Unlike the Kamysh, it would not be included into the game until ArmA 3's full release (as part of Game Update 1.00).[1]
  • Prior to Game Update 1.12, fired versions of the Tigris' Titan missiles were much larger than their counterparts inside the launcher pod. This was corrected after the patch's release so that they were no longer oversized in comparison.[2]
  • Before Game Update 1.26, a visual glitch would cause the 35 mm autocannons to not appear on certain LODs (Level of Detail) of the Tigris' model.[3]
  • When the Jets DLC was first released, the Tigris did not actually have data link capability. It only gained data link capabilities after the release of Game Update 1.72.[4]
  • A bug on the model initially caused the commander's viewfinder to not rotate in the direction of where they were looking. This was eventually fixed after the release of Game Update 1.44.[5]

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. van 't Land, J.J. 2013, SPOTREP #00010, Arma 3, viewed 9 April 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00010>.
  2. van 't Land, J.J. 2014, SPOTREP #00019, Arma 3, viewed 24 September 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00019>.
  3. van 't Land, J.J. 2014, SPOTREP #00030, Arma 3, viewed 24 September 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00030>.
  4. Kovařič, V 2017, SPOTREP #00069, Arma 3, viewed 4 October 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00069>.
  5. van 't Land, J.J. 2015, SPOTREP #00042, Arma 3, viewed 24 September 2023, <https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00042>.

External links[]

See also[]

Variants[]

Vehicles of comparable role and configuration[]

Vehicles of ArmA 3
Wheeled AFV-4 GorgonAMV-7 MarshallHatchbackHEMTTHunterIfritKartMB 4WDMSE-3 MaridOffroadProwlerQilinRhino MGS (UP) • StriderSUVTempestTractorTruckQuadbikeUGV StomperVanZamak (MRL)
Tracked 2S9 SochorAWC NyxBTR-K KamyshCRV-6e BobcatED-1D Mini UGV (ED-1E) • IFV-6a CheetahIFV-6c PantherFV-720 MoraM2A1 Slammer (A4 UP) • M4 ScorcherM5 SandstormMBT-52 KumaT-100 Varsuk (X Futura) • T-140 Angara (T-140K) • ZSU-39 Tigris
Rotor-wing AH-9 PawneeAH-99 BlackfootAR-2 DarterCH-49 MohawkCH-67 HuronDemining DroneMH-9 Hummingbird (M900) • Mi-48 KajmanMi-290 TaruMQ-12 FalconPO-30 OrcaUH-80 Ghost HawkUtility DroneWY-55 Hellcat
Fixed-wing A-143 BuzzardA-149 GryphonA-164 WipeoutCaesar BTTF/A-181 Black Wasp IIKH-3A FenghuangMQ-4A GreyhawkTo-199 NeophronTo-201 ShikraUCAV SentinelV-44X BlackfishY-32 Xi'an
Aquatic Assault BoatMotorboatRHIBSpeedboatSDVWater Scooter
(Parenthesis) denote variants.
Karts DLC | Helicopters DLC | Apex DLC | Jets DLC | Laws of War DLC | Tanks DLC | Contact DLC
Arma3-factionicon-csat CSAT - Vehicles (ArmA 3)
Wheeled IfritMSE-3 MaridQilinQuadbikeTempestUGV SaifZamak
Tracked 2S9 SochorAkinaka ED-1D (Sayyah ED-1E) • BTR-K KamyshT-100 Varsuk (X Futura) • T-140 Angara (T-140K) • ZSU-39 Tigris
Rotor-wing Jinaah AL-6Mi-48 KajmanMi-290 TaruPO-30 OrcaTayran AR-2
Fixed-wing K40 Abalil-3KH-3A FenghuangTo-199 NeophronTo-201 ShikraY-32 Xi'an
Aquatic Assault Boat (Rescue) • Speedboat HMGSDV
Parenthesis denote variants.
Helicopters DLC | Apex DLC | Jets DLC | Laws of War DLC | Tanks DLC | Contact DLC
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