modifications were displayed together when
the system had its Red Square public debut in
1977.
Work on modernisation of the original Osa
system resulted in a modified Osa-AK version
mounting six rather than four rockets, with the
rockets now located in hermetically sealed
containers and thereby protected from the
elements.
The modernised Osa-AK was introduced from
1973, mounted on the modified 9A33BM2
SPU chassis. The speed of development was
such that the modernised Osa-AK had been
accepted for service long before the earlier
Osa was seen in public for the first time on Red
Square in November 1975.
The system was further improved with regard
to targeting, tracking and data management
systems, with the further modified system
accepted for service in 1980 as Osa-AKM
mounted on the 9A33BM3 SPU vehicle, which
was first seen on Red Square in November- The related TZM transloader vehicle was
designated 9T217, with the later variant for the
Osa-AKM designated 9T217BM2.
Production of the Osa SAM system ceased
in 1990, by which time the system was in
service with 25 countries, as the Osa, and
also sometimes known abroad by the export
version designation ‘Romb’. In the post-Soviet
era several Russian and non-Russian upgrades
have been developed for the system, including
the OSA-1T developed in the former Soviet
Republic of Belarus.
A single later production 9K33 Osa SPU
vehicle liberated from Iraq has for many years
been in the Imperial War Museum reserve
collection at Duxford near Cambridge.
The BAZ plant built a whole range of other
specialised vehicles, some of which were
built in quantity and others not. Such vehicles
include the 8x8 BAZ-6944 chassis for the
9K714 ‘Oka’ (NATO: SS-23 Spider) that was
intended to replace the 9K72 ‘Scud-B’ on
the MAZ-543 chassis. Deployment of the
missile system and its specially developed
and fully enclosed SPU vehicle was scrapped
due to the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF)
agreement between the US and the Soviet
Union on intermediate and short range
nuclear capable rockets. The enigmatic
BAZ-6953 wheeled 8x8 artillery tractor was
however built in moderate numbers and was
used by the Soviet and post-Soviet Russian
armies, though the vehicle was always one
of the most rarely observed of all Soviet-era
developed military vehicles.
The BAZ plant continues to produce
specialised military vehicles to the present time,
which still retain the quirky look that seems to
have been designed into vehicles produced at
BAZ ever since it began building specialised
military vehicles at the height of the Cold War in
the early 1960s.The 9V210 technical support vehicle was, as with
the 9A33 series launcher and the 9T217 series TZM
vehicle, constantly modernised - hence a plethora
of designation suffixes apply to all the Osa vehicles
depending on the latest versionProduction of the Osa and its dedicated BAZ-5937
series chassis ceased in 1990, but the system
has continued to be maintained and updated. The
Osa-1T is a modernised version with electronics
upgrades developed in BelarusAn early prototype BAV amphibian. The vehicle was
an almost direct copy of the US GMC DUKW but
with an extended cargo area and rear loading ramps
allowing artillery and light vehicles to be loadedABOVE RIGHT: A 9A33B SPU vehicle on a train, with
the turret rotated to the rear and the radar antenna
folded for transit
ABOVE: A rear view of the same vehicle, showing the
ports for the hydro-jet water propulsion system‘The Osa short-
range SAM system
had an altitude
ceiling of 5km and
a range of 9km’
The 9M33 rockets for the original Osa SAM
system were originally mounted on launch rails
open to the elements