9K720 Iskander

9K720 Iskander SS-26 Stone
Russian Iskander missiles on the 9P78-1 Transporter erector launcher at the 2010 Moscow Victory Day Parade rehearsal
Type	Short-range ballistic missile
Place of origin	Russia
Service history
In service	2006–present
Used by	Russian Ground Forces Armenian Armed Forces
Production history
Manufacturer	Votkinsk Plant State Production Association (Votkinsk) - missiles Production Association Barricades (Volgograd) - ground equipment KBM (Kolomna) - developer of the system
Specifications
Weight	3,800 kg (8,400 lb)
Length	7.3 m (24 ft)
Diameter	0.92 m (3 ft 0 in)
Warhead	480–700 kg (1,060–1,540 lb) HE fragmentation, submunition, penetration, fuel-air explosive, EMP
Engine	Single-stage solid propellant
Operational range	50 km (31 mi)-400–500 km (250–310 mi) for Iskander-M
Speed	2,100 m/s (Mach 6.2) cruising (hypersonic)
Guidance system	Inertial guidance, optical DSMAC (Iskander-M), TERCOM (Iskander-K), use of GPS / GLONASS in addition to the inertial guidance system Inertial, use of GPS / GLONASS and optical DSMAC terminal homing
Accuracy	5–7 m (Iskander-M)
Launch platform	Mobile TEL

Russian Ground Forces

The 9K720 Iskander (Russian: «Искандер»; NATO reporting name SS-26 Stone) is a mobile short-range ballistic missile system produced and deployed by the Russian Federation. The missile systems (Искандер-М) are to replace the obsolete systems, still in use by the Russian armed forces, by 2020.

The road-mobile Iskander was the second attempt to replace the Scud missile. The first attempt, the Oka, was eliminated under the INF Treaty. The Iskander appears to have several different conventional warheads, including a cluster munitions warhead, a fuel-air explosive enhanced-blast warhead, a high explosive-fragmentation warhead, an earth penetrator for bunker busting and an electromagnetic pulse device for anti-radar missions. The missile can also carry nuclear warheads. The first successful launch occurred in 1996.

In September 2004, at a meeting with senior defense officials reporting to President Vladimir Putin on the drafting of a defense budget for 2005, the Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov spoke about the completion of static tests of a new tactical missile system called the Iskander. He said that the system would go into quantity production in 2005 and toward the end of that year, Russia would have a brigade armed with it. In March 2005, a source in the Russian defence industry told Interfax-AVN the development of new missiles with a range of 500–600 km, based on existing Iskander-E tactical missile systems, was a possibility. He said, however, that it "may take up to five or six years".

In 2006, serial production of the Iskander-M Tactical Ballistic Missile System was launched, and the system was adopted by the Russian army. The production cost of the missile system was reported in 2014 to have been slashed by 30%.