S-300/400/500 News [Russian Strategic Air Defense] #1

here is a follow up post to the article I posted above:

VKO Cadre Changes
by Russian Defense Policy
Didn't have to wait long for this. This morning President Medvedev signed out the ukaz with appointments to command positions in the VKO Troops (VVKO).

Kommersant's source was mostly, but not completely, right. Valeriy Ivanov will be chief of staff, and Sergey Popov, the chief of air defense for the Air Forces, will move to VVKO to command its Air and Missile Defense Command.

Appoint:

General-Lieutenant Valeriy Mikhaylovich Ivanov, Chief of Staff, First Deputy Commander, Troops of Aerospace Defense, relieved as Commander, Operational-Strategic Command of Aerospace Defense.
General-Lieutenant Sergey Aleksandrovich Lobov, Deputy Commander, Troops of Aerospace Defense, relieved as Deputy Commander, Space Troops.
General-Major Oleg Vladimirovich Maydanovich, Commander, Space Command, relieved as Chief, 153rd Main Test Center for Testing and Control of Space Systems.
Colonel Konstantin Aleksandrovich Ogiyenko, Commander, 5th Air Defense Brigade.
General-Lieutenant Oleg Nikolayevich Ostapenko, Commander, Troops of Aerospace, relieved as Commander, Space Troops.
General-Major Sergey Vladimirovich Popov, Commander, Air and Missile Defense Command, relieved as Chief, Air Defense, Deputy CINC of the Air Forces for Air Defense.
There you have it. What looks like it will be a new service -- VVKO -- is born, and an old branch -- KV -- apparently will go away. More presidential paperwork on that is likely forthcoming. But today we've learned who's in VVKO's head shed, and that it's two major components will be, not surprisingly, the Space Command and Air and Missile Defense Command.

So the VVKO is the Space and Air and Missile Defence force made up of the former PVO of the Air Force, and the Space Defence forces.

Wonder what sort of budget the new force will control.

This is the force that will operate Mig-31s as well as S-400 and S-500 systems.

Russia to build 2 plants for S-500 air defense systems

RIA Novosti

04:43 18/11/2011 MOSCOW, November 18 (RIA Novosti) - Russia’s Almaz-Antey concern will build two plants to manufacture formidable S-500 air defense systems, Chief of the General Staff Gen. Nikolai Makarov said.

“We gave Almaz-Antey two years to build two plants, which will manufacture new S-500 air defense missile systems in the future,” Makarov said on Thursday.

The S-500, a long-range air defense missile system, is expected to become the backbone of a unified aerospace defense system being formed in Russia.

The system, being developed by Almaz-Antey, will have an extended range of up to 600 km (over 370 miles) and simultaneously engage up to 10 targets.

The Russian military has demanded that the system must be capable of intercepting ballistic missiles and hypersonic cruise missiles and plans to order at least ten S-500 battalions for the future Russian Aerospace Defense.

The first deliveries of S-500 are officially expected in 2015, but some Russian experts believe they are more likely to start in 2017, at the earliest.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/russia/2011/russia-111118-rianovosti01.htm

With the new VVKO service I would guess the S-500 now comes under the VVKO budget rather than the VVS budget.

This really confuses things as they are splitting the PVO and VK into the the VVKO, yet the manager at Antei-Almaz that makes all the really big SAMs said the future of ABM SAMs is air launched.

This suggests perhaps my verbal wanderings into a PAK DA based replacement for the Mig-31 might not be too far fetched as they will need an aircraft with speed and range and a fairly signficant payload capacity for large weapons to haul around ABM AAMs... or should that be ASpMs, or Air to Space missiles.

The VVKO will span the 4 military districts and cooperate with the Air Force and Army and Navy units in those districts... and it all starts on 1st December 2011...

Kaliningrad will receive S-400 before end of year.

http://www.lenta.ru/news/2011/12/01/triumph/

Couple that with Iskander in case it gets deployed there and you have a serious spine on NATO northern flank.

Of course they were always going to base them there anyway... it is the ideal forward position to counter NATO expansion.

When Russia withdrew its troops from Eastern Europe I rather suspect they expected the US and France and UK to do the same.

The fact that the Western Allies have stayed in Germany clearly shows the actual cold war never finished.

They have already said they extended its range and improved its accuracy, so I rather suspect that if the US continues with its ABM shield in Europe that the next step will be a with drawl from the INF treaty and a significant further extention of Iskanders performance in terms of range and mission.

Actually AFAIK the Slovaks were the last operational users of the SS-23 Spider SSM system which was dismantled under the INF treaty even though its range of 450-480km meant the INF treaty didn't actually apply.

I suspect the current Iskanders have similar range now to the Spider, though are likely much more accurate.

Of course the main problem with the Iskander... if you can call it a problem, is that the factory that makes them also makes Topols and Bulavas, so ideally they will need to expand production to at least one extra and preferably two more factories to allow production to be ramped up.

Now that the larger of two multiple rocket launchers of the Tornado system uses the same chassis the truck maker might need to expand production as well...

S-400 was always going to Kaliningrad as Garry states, it is going to replace the last remaining S-200 battery operated by Russia. That has been the plan all along, regardless of the NATO ABM issue. My question is whether or not the S-300PS batteries in the area will be affected.

I rather suspect they will try to replace the S-200s first, but they will also try to put the new S-400 batteries where logic dictates... is ABM shield in Europe makes Kaliningrad a good place.

North Korea getting noisy or upset means some S-400s in the Far East make sense too.

Also we need to keep in mind that the VKO will be controlling the S-400s in Kaliningrad, whereas the VVS might want their first S-400s in different locations based on different priorities.

I rather suspect the VKO now that it has been actually formed will start to get a higher priority of S-400 missiles and will likely get S-500s exclusively till a naval version is ready of course.

PVO (ex-PVO now?) S-300PT/PS/PM batteries are currently deployed to protect port facilities. All major fleet ports are relatively well covered, with garrison complexes and inactive prepared sites often available to provide enhanced coverage as required.

SOC I have two questions for you , since you are so hard to find i would put both this question here though one is unrelated to Russia.

1 ) Does the S-300PM or export PMU2 have the end game energy to take on highly manouvering aircraft like modern fighter aircraft in its end game at longest possible range ? Which is to say can a modern manouvering aircraft can evade S-300 PMU2 kinemetically during long range engagement if it knows its under attack which i suppose any modern aircraft will know as its RWR/ESM will give it away.

2 ) Another question is related to Barak-8/MRSAM that India and Russia are jointly developing , the Barak-8 has a range of 70 km but the Barak-8 Long Range has a range of 150 km which is twice that of Barak-8 and the only difference is it has added a small booster , you can check the picture here

Barak-8 and Barak-8 LR http://www.russianspaceweb.com/lebourget2009/images/missiles_sa_barak_8_er_jpg.jpg

Can a SAM more then double its range by just adding a small booster ?

I would assume the only way to maximise its range is to fly a highest possible trajectory using altitude and wings to generate lift to fly further , typical a Ballistic like trajectory but what is the disadvantage of going that way ?

Here is an updated configuration of MR-SAM
http://tarmak007.blogspot.com/2011/12/mrsam-india-israel-developing-450.html

Thanks

2 ) Another question is related to Barak-8/MRSAM that India and Russia are jointly developing

You put Russia but I think you mean Israel.

The S-500's capability and existance for a good while now as a program does make the Russian complaints about where/how the US is planning to put ABMs a bit hilarious.

Yes... it is hilarious that US pretend concerns about non-existent missiles and nuclear warheads from Iran led them to withdraw from the ABM treaty and develop missiles that started the Russians on the path to design and build the S-500 which may ultimately prove a very capable fully mobile ABM and anti satellite system that is more threat to the US than any Iranian nonmissile or nonnuke that US politicians made up to make voters feel unsafe so they could be the heroes that protected them with their pointless and incredibly expensive ABM system that has no chance to be actually tested before it is needed.

Or did you mean is was funny in a different way, like the US driving the expansion NATO towards Russia and moving military bases and radar installations to surround them as some form of friendly reset gesture?

Apparently only American ABM systems affect the strategic balance...

No complaints about US ABM systems in the US, only proposed mobile systems based near Russia.

Exactly what is the challenge in intercepting a Missile or Satellite in higher space , atleast to me the latter would need an interceptor that can intercept something moving around at 8 km/sec but in predictable orbit (LEO ) and for latter something at 7.2 km/sec but can be small and highly unpredictable ( discounting decoys and other stuff ) ,seem the latter still is far more challenging then the former

An ICBM warhead is a much more difficult target than a satellite as most satellites are in stable predictable orbits and are relatively large with delicate bits like solar arrays and various sensitive components. A warhead on the other hand is designed for reentry with heat resistant ablative shells and are slim aerodynamic shapes that need to be smashed... a glancing blow is not sufficient. ICBM warheads are also accompanied by decoys and jammers and stealth coatings etc etc, whereas most critical satellites like communications satellites are huge and covered in antenna and other bits and pieces.

A satellite might very occasionally fire its engines to shift orbit, but these are huge objects with limited fuel supplies so they wont be dodging anything... warheads on the other hand might be refining their trajectory to ensure an accurate hit so minor changes in flight path are very likely.

Once in space the interceptor is basically a spaceship that is flying on an intercept path to impact the target and can move a little, but cannot turn 180 degrees and chase something down.

For the anti satellite role an extra rocket stage could make it fairly straight forward. Aerodynamic controls don't work in space, so some sort of thrust vectoring or puff jet control system should enable the interceptors seeker to be oriented at the target and any minor flight corrections before impact.

Can a SAM more then double its range by just adding a small booster ?

In a word... yes.
Look at a really heavy missile like BUK... the main reason it is so large compared to say the larger 120km range missile in the small S-400 missile family is because how much weight you carry has a bad effect on the total weight.
BUK has a 70kg warhead, so to send that sort of weight to the target you need a lot more fuel... which means a bigger missile with more drag leading to more fuel etc etc in a vicious circle.

As an example of how warhead weight effects performance... look at the Igla-S and the SA-13. Both are short range missiles with flight ranges of 5km, but because of its heavier warhead the SA-13 is a much bigger and much heavier missile with a similar range. If weight is not an issue then you could make the SA-13 a two stage missile with the extra propellent in a second stage, which means instead of making the warhead smaller, you store some of the extra fuel somewhere else so the missile itself can be made smaller and slimmer and lighter.

You also have the advantage that fitting a more powerful booster is an easy way to improve flight performance.

Look at the SA-19 compared with the SA-22. Minor aerodynamic differences but the SA-22 has a slightly more powerful booster rocket so the flight ranges for the same missiles are 8-12km depending on the version through to 18-20km for the SA-19 and SA-22 respectively.

Even more important is that if you add a high profile ballistic trajectory like they do with the HERMES (based on the SA-22) the standard ground to ground model will have a range of 40km while the longer range model has a range of 100km.

Needless to say that putting a booster on a missile makes it longer and heavier, but it is like the difference between a ground launched missile and a missile launched from an aircraft.

I would assume the only way to maximise its range is to fly a highest possible trajectory using altitude and wings to generate lift to fly further , typical a Ballistic like trajectory but what is the disadvantage of going that way ?

No, as I stated above, you can see in the photo you posted that the missile with the booster is a slimmer more aerodynamic shape and once the booster is jettisoned the remaining missile will be much lighter so its cruise rocket motor will accelerate the missile to a much higher speed for longer which will also extend range without having to fly a ballistic path.

Does the S-300PM or export PMU2 have the end game energy to take on highly manouvering aircraft like modern fighter aircraft in its end game at longest possible range ?

It will be moving so fast that its control surfaces will not allow it to turn with a fighter, but its intelligent fuse and directional warhead and of course its incoming flight speed of over a km/s should make it very tricky to evade as the target being tracked will have the warhead fragments of the missile aimed at it and the combined speed of the fragments and missile speed will be enormous... faster than the eye can follow.

Very early warning might allow you to get into an ideal position to evade, but the SAM radars will track your movements so teh missile will react all the way to the target.

There is of course blind luck... and in real life missiles have never proven to be as effective as lab tests suggest they might be. There is no such thing as a hittile yet.

No, as I stated above, you can see in the photo you posted that the missile with the booster is a slimmer more aerodynamic shape and once the booster is jettisoned the remaining missile will be much lighter so its cruise rocket motor will accelerate the missile to a much higher speed for longer which will also extend range without having to fly a ballistic path.

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Actually the angle of the photo give the impression he one with booster is slimmer then the one without.

I saw both the missile at aeroindia 2011 where both missile mockup were there , both missile are of same dimension , except one has the booster the other doesn't.

GarryB wrote:Yes... it is hilarious that US pretend concerns about non-existent missiles and nuclear warheads from Iran led them to withdraw from the ABM treaty and develop missiles that started the Russians on the path to design and build the S-500 which may ultimately prove a very capable fully mobile ABM and anti satellite system that is more threat to the US than any Iranian nonmissile or nonnuke that US politicians made up to make voters feel unsafe so they could be the heroes that protected them with their pointless and incredibly expensive ABM system that has no chance to be actually tested before it is needed.

Or did you mean is was funny in a different way, like the US driving the expansion NATO towards Russia and moving military bases and radar installations to surround them as some form of friendly reset gesture?

The S-500 has been in development for far longer than you seem to think.

No complaints about US ABM systems in the US, only proposed mobile systems based near Russia.

Doesn't matter where you put them if they're still a threat to knock down your ICBMs. Hence my point of the hilarity of the argument. Russia is basically arguing that if we get into a nuclear war, we'll shoot down their missiles earlier in their flight paths than they shoot down ours.

An ICBM warhead is a much more difficult target than a satellite as most satellites are in stable predictable orbits and are relatively large with delicate bits like solar arrays and various sensitive components. A warhead on the other hand is designed for reentry with heat resistant ablative shells and are slim aerodynamic shapes that need to be smashed... a glancing blow is not sufficient. ICBM warheads are also accompanied by decoys and jammers and stealth coatings etc etc, whereas most critical satellites like communications satellites are huge and covered in antenna and other bits and pieces.

It all boils down to tracking. If you can track the objects, be they satellites or RVs, you can probably find people smart enough to build something to kill it. And if you lack a MaRV, you're still flying a relatively stable and predictable path.

For the anti satellite role an extra rocket stage could make it fairly straight forward. Aerodynamic controls don't work in space, so some sort of thrust vectoring or puff jet control system should enable the interceptors seeker to be oriented at the target and any minor flight corrections before impact.

Correct, you just need to give it a bigger booster stage to throw it further out there is all. The question then becomes, if you want to threaten, say, the GPS network, will the missile be anything close to mobile?

In a word... yes.
Look at a really heavy missile like BUK... the main reason it is so large compared to say the larger 120km range missile in the small S-400 missile family is because how much weight you carry has a bad effect on the total weight.
BUK has a 70kg warhead, so to send that sort of weight to the target you need a lot more fuel... which means a bigger missile with more drag leading to more fuel etc etc in a vicious circle.

The 9M317 is also still aerodynamically controlled. You need a big enough motor to give you enough airspeed to maneuver with throughout the flight profile. Too small a motor and you'll lose kE, velocity, and momentum and there goes your range performance.

No, as I stated above, you can see in the photo you posted that the missile with the booster is a slimmer more aerodynamic shape and once the booster is jettisoned the remaining missile will be much lighter so its cruise rocket motor will accelerate the missile to a much higher speed for longer which will also extend range without having to fly a ballistic path.

However, many missiles do use lofted or semi-ballistic profiles to increase range. Fakel got a 48N6 out to 400 kilometers using a ballistic midcourse trajectory. You're basically using your velocity to turn altitude into downrange performance. The trick is to ensure you've got the kE left to maneuver with at endgame. Plus, as Fakel found out, movable control surfaces do not really work well with ballistic profiles at extreme altitude. They can induce accuracy-killing oscillations. The other problem is that going ballistic means you aren't maneuvering. If the target actually knows you shot at it, and figures it out early enough, moving outside the missile's effective maneuvering window becomes increasingly easier the longer-range the engagement is.

It will be moving so fast that its control surfaces will not allow it to turn with a fighter, but its intelligent fuse and directional warhead and of course its incoming flight speed of over a km/s should make it very tricky to evade as the target being tracked will have the warhead fragments of the missile aimed at it and the combined speed of the fragments and missile speed will be enormous... faster than the eye can follow.

Very early warning might allow you to get into an ideal position to evade, but the SAM radars will track your movements so teh missile will react all the way to the target.

There is of course blind luck... and in real life missiles have never proven to be as effective as lab tests suggest they might be. There is no such thing as a hittile yet.

The fighter is still dead. There's a reason the warhead is so damn big, more than double that of the Buk. The lethal radius compensates for any endgame maneuvering. At least in theory. Plus, there's always the ability to program the guidance control system to react after midcourse to maneuver and burn off excess velocity.

SOC wrote:Doesn't matter where you put them if they're still a threat to knock down your ICBMs. Hence my point of the hilarity of the argument. Russia is basically arguing that if we get into a nuclear war, we'll shoot down their missiles earlier in their flight paths than they shoot down ours.

I would beg to defer , having ABM at multiple places during its flight trajectory and having the option to track and kill it on multiple occasion during its flight gives you far greater ability to sucessfully kill the ICBM , if you miss the first or the second time in midcourse you still have land based NMD taking it out what ever leaks out.

If you just have it at a single location then you have so much less chance to track and kill the vehical.

And it not about the nuclear war , its also about how you can effectively utilise your First Strike Capability and how a Defence In Depth ABM system can exponentially give you a greater advantage for First Strike.

So this argument it Doesnt Matter Where You Put them is Flawed , it much like arguing if Russia puts its ICBM in Cuba and arguing it doesnt matter if its in Cuba or Continental Russia becuase you would any way get hit by ICBM.

I saw both the missile at aeroindia 2011 where both missile mockup were there , both missile are of same dimension , except one has the booster the other doesn't.

Even if they haven't taken the new two stage design to optimise the design of the missile to further improve performance, the performance gain will still be pretty significant, though of course the standard penalty is a longer heavier missile.

The Extra stage gives it the thrust of an even larger missile, but when the extra stage falls away its power to weight ratio improves and drag is reduced... and not only has the missile now got a running start, its top speed and operating altitude will be reached faster and it will maintain that higher speed longer, which extends range.

The S-500 has been in development for far longer than you seem to think.

It has been a paper project for decades, but was still an idea on paper when the US withdrew from the ABM treaty, and its parameters have been radically revised... and the likelyhood of it actually being fabricated into actual missiles and vehicles and radars jumped from single figures to 100% when the US withdrew from the ABM treaty as it became the solution to something to match the US new ABM program.

Doesn't matter where you put them if they're still a threat to knock down your ICBMs.

And US carriers are for moral support because defence in layers is a stupid idea. I mean obviously the USN is happy with SEA RAM to defend all their ships at sea and they don't think that a layered defence with fighter aircraft and AEW aircraft forming an outer layer followed by another layer of long range SAMs like Standard SM-2, or medium range missiles like ESSMs are even worth bothering about.
Just like in cowboy movies and kung fu movies the bad guys will line up and attack US ships with one missile at a time.

Putting 50 in the US is one thing, making your navy the primary ABM missile carrier with no limits on interceptor numbers or positioning of the vessels with the ABM systems makes Russian suspicious and their reaction will be to greatly improve the performance of the S-500... it was probably going to be a much better version of THAAD... in other words an ATBM system, but with US moves it has changed in role and is pretty much becoming a mobile Moscow ABM system.

If the US stated it was putting 100 interceptors in Alaska and 100 somewhere else in the US and 100 more in a third place in the US and 100 more in a fourth place, then the Russians would of course say that such a system can only be directed at their missile inventory, and the reaction would likely be to withdraw from the new start treaty and build up weapons numbers... it is always easier to overwhelm a defence with numbers.

Instead of announcing hundreds of new ABM missile systems in the US, the US is saying it will put an unknown number of missiles on its ships... which could easily be stationed to do the job any missiles in the US could do, only earlier.

The US claim is that missiles and warheads that Iran doesn't have are a threat and that is the whole purpose to all of their ABM defences. 10 interceptors in Poland and 50 in Alaska does not stop Russias ability to wipe out the US, but the plans never ended at that. Long term plans called for newer more sophisticated missiles and there was no limit on numbers or even a requirement for the US to notify Russia of any change in policy. Overnight the US could decide to put 300 interceptors in Greenland and decide not to tell anyone about it... it is not illegal... and the currently planned mobile system is not illegal either. Russia is not saying the US can't do what it likes. Russia is saying that if the US continues along this path there will be consequences as there have already been consequences like the radical upgrade of the S-500 system. If the US had not bothered with developing ABM systems that violated the ABM treaty and the Treaty was still in force then the S-500 would be a THAAD like system and the S-1000... being a mobile ABM system would have stayed on the drawing board.
Because the US did withdraw from the ABM treaty, the S-500 basically skipped the THAAD level of performance and was revised to the S-1000 level of performance... which means the S-1000 will move up the scale... if it ever gets built it will likely be a three stage ICBM or at least IRBM sized weapon for hitting satellites out to geostationary orbits and beyond to satellites in retrograde orbits.

Hence my point of the hilarity of the argument. Russia is basically arguing that if we get into a nuclear war, we'll shoot down their missiles earlier in their flight paths than they shoot down ours.

But America has said it wont shoot down Russian missiles... the ABM systems they are building are for Iranian and North Korean missiles. They just wont put that in writing.

They wouldn't be building S-500 mobile ABM missiles if you weren't doing the same.

It all boils down to tracking. If you can track the objects, be they satellites or RVs, you can probably find people smart enough to build something to kill it. And if you lack a MaRV, you're still flying a relatively stable and predictable path.

And more importantly when trying to shoot down one or two Iranian warheads... first of all it is made easy because they don't exist and therefore don't need very much accuracy to hit to kill, but if conversely, your ABM system is really designed to stop a mass attack by Russia then you quietly swap out those hit to kill final stages with a decent size (ie 10-15 megaton) warhead to vapourise lots of missiles at once, but obviously the closer you can hit them to your enemies airspace the better, so mobile systems on... say... ships are the ideal.

The question then becomes, if you want to threaten, say, the GPS network, will the missile be anything close to mobile?

You could use a nuke warhead and time the interception and detonation to get 3-6 satellites at a time or more... moving the satellites to evade impact will dramatically degrade the accuracy of the system.

If the target actually knows you shot at it, and figures it out early enough, moving outside the missile's effective maneuvering window becomes increasingly easier the longer-range the engagement is.

Detecting a lock by a SAM site that is 350km away... what do you do? Accelerate and climb for 5 minutes and then turn and accelerate to supersonic speed in the opposite direction?

The SAM site might have been 350km away but the SAMs launched might have been 100km away and arrive with the motor still running and plenty of energy for several attack runs.

Plus, there's always the ability to program the guidance control system to react after midcourse to maneuver and burn off excess velocity.

The control surfaces on any S-300 missile are not very big, so excess speed is actually a good thing... it is easier to dodge a basket ball than a bullet... assuming the basket ball is not travelling at rifle bullet speeds and the bullet is not travelling and thrown basketball speeds of course.

I would beg to defer , having ABM at multiple places during its flight trajectory and having the option to track and kill it on multiple occasion during its flight gives you far greater ability to sucessfully kill the ICBM , if you miss the first or the second time in midcourse you still have land based NMD taking it out what ever leaks out.

Also attacking the ICBMs early... especially with nuke warheads that will not only destroy a lot of warheads but will also blow away decoys, which makes mid layer and last line defence much much easier.

If you just have it at a single location then you have so much less chance to track and kill the vehical.

Exactly. If anyone remembers a video game from the 1980s where you fire nuclear missiles to shoot down incoming ICBMs... it was always easier to hit MIRVs before they split into multiple targets and if you can position vessels near Greenland then it is like having another player helping you, though it would make the first few levels boring as you would likely have nothing to do later on when the single player game became almost impossible, then having one or even two layers of players above you would become obviously a huge advantage.

And it not about the nuclear war , its also about how you can effectively utilise your First Strike Capability and how a Defence In Depth ABM system can exponentially give you a greater advantage for First Strike.

As I said before... it is all about MAD.

If the US has stealth bombers and SSBNs and a three layered ABM system using tier 4 missiles able to stop multiple threats with each missile... all of a sudden Russias nuclear deterrent is not looking so scary.

In other words a good defence might start to make attack look like a potential option... whether it would even work or not is not important... all the billions killed wont come back to life just because a politician or general thought something and was wrong.

Currently MAD prevents WWIII. ABM systems undermine MAD.

Yes, the Russians are building ABM systems too, but only to match America.

They wont deploy ABM systems on the same scale as the US will however, because that would be too expensive, so they will take the cheaper route of withdrawing from the new START treaty and will simply start building as many missiles as they think they will need to get past any potential ABM system the US might build.

I think one of the disadvantage of lofted profile for missile specially wotj ARH seeker , is if the target is flying low the seeker will be looking at the target against the cluttered background which would be a challenge for any seeker.Specially the SAM seekers limited in scope of size and processing capability.

Plus I think once you go for a dive attack and you miss the target in the first pass , the ability to require a target and plan an intercept is next to impossible.

Modern digital processors in radar equipment are far more capable than they used to be... look down shoot down capability is 1970s technology.

The R-77 can reportedly engage hovering helicopters at low level, so I think most SAMs should be able to manage it.

Also the SAM can form its own interception flight dynamics... it could even fly high past the target and as it comes down turn back towards the target so by the time it gets to the targets height it is horizontal... and if it misses it can climb and loop over for another chance... usually however the proximity fuse will explode the warhead and a second pass will not be needed.

The aircraft might not be killed 100% of the time, but it will likely receive damage.

Garry even with exponontial rise in DSP hitting a low flying target against cluttered background is a big challange. But the targets now got smaller and stealthier and in worst case even supersonic.

My take is the massive increase in range of more than 100 % claimed for Barak-LR with booster is for a target which is subsonic and non-manouvering . The Barak-LR would simply use the booster to quickly gain height and then its additional energy from single stage to fly high and fast ,using control surface and body to generate lift and it would simply dive attack on the target at longest range. Using some left over fuel and trading height potential energy to kinetic , good for slow ,non-manouvering target.

Even Aster-30 uses similar much fatter booster and using Aster-15 missile as second stage , i think in case of Aster-30 the control surfaces can move on the booster giving it some manouveribility to hit target target immediately after launch , which generally is the disadvantage of booster with fixed control surface.

I think the 9M96 missile of S-400 series has a better solution instead of adding booster the missile dimension has been increased by certain percentage completely with control surface giving it the same manouvering capability from initial stage and perhaps better end game energy at its longest range of 100 km with dealing with supersonic manouvering target.

I think the Aster-30 and Barak-8 will lack the ability to handle supersonic manouvering target at its longest range of 120 and 150 km while 9M98E1 will do that much better at its longest range of 120 km due to opting for a new design from scratch and not using the booster route to gain range.

Garry even with exponontial rise in DSP hitting a low flying target against cluttered background is a big challange. But the targets now got smaller and stealthier and in worst case even supersonic.

Are you kidding? For a falling missile looking down at the ground there is very little processing actually required... do a scan and you get a return full of noise... scan again a fraction of a second later and another return of noise... compare the two scans and remove everything that didn't move. With the few things that are actually moving using the time between scans and the distance to the target and the apparant distance the objects moved and do a quick trig calculation that a pocket calculator could do and anything moving faster than about 150km per hour is a potential target... anything supersonic is both a definite threat... and also something that will not be able to manouver very much and should actually be a very easy kill.

DSPs don't even need to come into it.

My take is the massive increase in range of more than 100 % claimed for Barak-LR with booster is for a target which is subsonic and non-manouvering .

Well most long range missiles are most effective against large targets that are considered force multipliers like JSTARS and AWACS and even tankers and troop transports... the effect on a force of losing AWACS aircraft etc would be rather greater than losing a single fighter.

Of course the point of a solid fuelled booster on a standard missile might simply be to extend the missiles close in performance to something similar at medium ranges, or indeed for a medium range missile to long range.

hit target target immediately after launch , which generally is the disadvantage of booster with fixed control surface.

If you are using a missile with a booster stage against a close range target then there is something very very wrong.

In the case of the SA-19 and SA-22 the booster is a rapid burning rocket to accelerate the missiles to very high speed very rapidly... they both burn out in a second or two and fall away at about 1km range having accelerated the missile to 1km/s or 1.3km/s respectively. In both cases the missile can engage targets as close as 1.5km, but any closer they can use the 30mm gatling guns also on the mount. Interestingly the TOR missile has a minimum range of about 1.5km too and it is a single stage missile, so it really isn't that much of a handicap or advantage depending on the guidance methods.

Moving control surfaces on solid rocket boosters are unnecessary complication of design.

A subsonic manouvering target is much harder to hit than a supersonic target that is manouvering... supersonic targets travel in relatively straight lines and cannot change direction quickly.

GarryB wrote:Are you kidding? For a falling missile looking down at the ground there is very little processing actually required... do a scan and you get a return full of noise... scan again a fraction of a second later and another return of noise... compare the two scans and remove everything that didn't move. With the few things that are actually moving using the time between scans and the distance to the target and the apparant distance the objects moved and do a quick trig calculation that a pocket calculator could do and anything moving faster than about 150km per hour is a potential target... anything supersonic is both a definite threat... and also something that will not be able to manouver very much and should actually be a very easy kill.

I think you are underestimating the threats posed by cruise missile which fly low and slow and are virtually not manouvering type target.

Getting a fix on cruise missile against a cluttered background flying low is a big challange even of powerful aircraft radar forget about small SAM radar that are limited in power and processing capability.

If you read the book Russian Strategic Forces , it was mentioned of an exercise where a bomber was suppose to simulate cruise missile attack using Kh-55 and 2 Mig-31 was suppose to detect , track and neutralise it , the Mig-31B has tracked the bomber and saw it launch the cruise missile and as soon as the cruise missile went low it dissapeared from Mig-31 radar against a cluttered background and knowing were to look for it , it mentions that after great difficulty they managed to finally get hold of that single cruise missile and neutralise it.

Now you can imagine the challange for any SAM that does a top attack against a target flying low with ground clutter as background.

DSPs don't even need to come into it.

No they come with Intel Atom processor

Well most long range missiles are most effective against large targets that are considered force multipliers like JSTARS and AWACS and even tankers and troop transports... the effect on a force of losing AWACS aircraft etc would be rather greater than losing a single fighter.

Agree those 150 km is for JSTARS type target and even beating a cruise missile even if detected and slow will be a challange with dive attack.

Of course the point of a solid fuelled booster on a standard missile might simply be to extend the missiles close in performance to something similar at medium ranges, or indeed for a medium range missile to long range.

Agreed but not a elegant solution specially dealing with short ,medium and manouvering target , Check the performance figures of 9M96 missile
http://milparade.udm.ru/security/32/008x.htm

you will realise that the minimum altitude of engagement has not changed for medium and long range missile and it remains 5 m , that because they did not use the booster to enhance its range.

Genrally the missile cannot manouver until the booster ejects.

A subsonic manouvering target is much harder to hit than a supersonic target that is manouvering... supersonic targets travel in relatively straight lines and cannot change direction quickly.

Yeah try to engage a low flying Brahmos and low flying Klub and tell me then which is difficult

In the case of the SA-19 and SA-22 the booster is a rapid burning rocket to accelerate the missiles to very high speed very rapidly... they both burn out in a second or two and fall away at about 1km range having accelerated the missile to 1km/s or 1.3km/s respectively. In both cases the missile can engage targets as close as 1.5km, but any closer they can use the 30mm gatling guns also on the mount. Interestingly the TOR missile has a minimum range of about 1.5km too and it is a single stage missile, so it really isn't that much of a handicap or advantage depending on the guidance methods.

Minimum target engage distance doesn't depend on missile but on missile guidance system on the launching platform. It all happened in the first second of missile flying, where missile come in angle of view of missile locater and when missile locater see the missile, guidance system could start guiding it, so the faster is missile, longer is that minimal distance.

I think you are underestimating the threats posed by cruise missile which fly low and slow and are virtually not manouvering type target.

Getting a fix on cruise missile against a cluttered background flying low is a big challange even of powerful aircraft radar forget about small SAM radar that are limited in power and processing capability.

If you read the book Russian Strategic Forces , it was mentioned of an exercise where a bomber was suppose to simulate cruise missile attack using Kh-55 and 2 Mig-31 was suppose to detect , track and neutralise it , the Mig-31B has tracked the bomber and saw it launch the cruise missile and as soon as the cruise missile went low it dissapeared from Mig-31 radar against a cluttered background and knowing were to look for it , it mentions that after great difficulty they managed to finally get hold of that single cruise missile and neutralise it.

Now you can imagine the challange for any SAM that does a top attack against a target flying low with ground clutter as background.

Cruise missiles are not such problem for competent air defense. Serbian air defense in 1999 war shot down around 280 cruise missiles with outdated air defense systems and they also shot down stealth plane. The main problem for Serbs was, that NATO use large number of modern planes, more than 1000, with intensive use of EW and SEAD/DEAD missions. I don't think NATO will ever have such advantage in quality and quantity as they have in this war.

Cruise missile will not attack soldier or tank hiden somewhere in the forest, but important strategic objects, which are known. By looking on map, you could quickly see, where are most probable flying path for cruise missiles to reach those strategic objects, so you could place air defense to shot them down on that paths. When early warning radar see strategic bomber launching cruise missile or coastal radar see them coming from the sea, you could calculate time, when missiles will come in your range. SAM radar will easier see cruise missile, because it looks from ground and behind missile is sky.

A subsonic manouvering target is much harder to hit than a supersonic target that is manouvering... supersonic targets travel in relatively straight lines and cannot change direction quickly.

Very true for maned airplanes, but cruise missiles fly on planed flying path to the target and is not maneuvering to avoid incoming missile.

medo wrote:Cruise missiles are not such problem for competent air defense. Serbian air defense in 1999 war shot down around 280 cruise missiles with outdated air defense systems and they also shot down stealth plane.

Shooting Cruise Missile is not a problem but detecting and tracking is , Serbia did some very effective AD against NATO which was quite note worthy , specially using 60's sam and radar network with some innovation

Very true for maned airplanes, but cruise missiles fly on planed flying path to the target and is not maneuvering to avoid incoming missile.

Manned aircraft known under attack will manouver hard to avoid getting hit plus simultanously jamming it.

I think you are underestimating the threats posed by cruise missile which fly low and slow and are virtually not manouvering type target.

Cruise missiles are a huge threat to countries with largely ground based radar that is largely fixed as cruise missile flight routes will be used to skirt these systems... for an airborne radar looking down a cruise missile is easy to spot... for AWACS type aircraft such targets are easy... the problem is surprise... cn you afford to keep AWACS aircraft airborne and scanning for targets 24/7... and of course with a country the size of Russia there are plenty of targets and plenty of ingress routes.

It turns out it is easier to base an S-300 or S-400 system near the strategic fixed targets the cruise missiles are going to attack, plus smaller SAMs to protect the larger SAM sites from direct attack.

Getting a fix on cruise missile against a cluttered background flying low is a big challange even of powerful aircraft radar forget about small SAM radar that are limited in power and processing capability.

Weaving through mountain ranges... yes, it is a problem, over the open tundra... easy... their little jet engines are the only heat source for thousands of kms... it is not an accident the Mig-25 and Mig-31 and Mig-23 and Mig-29 and Su-27 are all fitted with IRST sets.

Now you can imagine the challange for any SAM that does a top attack against a target flying low with ground clutter as background.

So what you are saying is that there is no such thing as a long range radar guided missile with a diving profile?

I think evidence to the contrary exists with the systems you have mentioned.

If a Mig-31s radar can't detect low flying targets I guess it should be retired from service as low radar cross section targets are its primary mission.

You suggest the problem is background clutter, yet I have already mentioned dopplar shift to automatically reject clutter so the radar can focus on moving targets only.

Agree those 150 km is for JSTARS type target and even beating a cruise missile even if detected and slow will be a challange with dive attack.

When the missile is diving down from high altitude the actual altitude of the target is irrelevant as the missile seeker is looking downwards and will receive an enormous radar return from the ground anyway.

you will realise that the minimum altitude of engagement has not changed for medium and long range missile and it remains 5 m , that because they did not use the booster to enhance its range.

The Naval Pantsir-S1 can hit targets down to 2m above the wave tops and uses a two stage missile.

Genrally the missile cannot manouver until the booster ejects.

Where did you get that idea?

A missile can manouver as soon as it leaves its launcher... otherwise it is not a missile... it is a rock.

Yeah try to engage a low flying Brahmos and low flying Klub and tell me then which is difficult

Neither would be easy as such, but high speed is no huge advantage in this case except in terms of reducing the interception time. A faster target is a straighter more predictable target in many ways. A target able to pull 50 gs at mach 2.5 could be out turned by an object flying at 300km/h pulling 5 gs, because turn rate is related to the square of speed... travelling a walking speed it is not possible to pull a 9g turn.

Minimum target engage distance doesn't depend on missile but on missile guidance system on the launching platform. It all happened in the first second of missile flying, where missile come in angle of view of missile locater and when missile locater see the missile, guidance system could start guiding it, so the faster is missile, longer is that minimal distance.

Quite right... minimum range is often related to the distance and time needed to gather the missile under the control of the guidance system, though sometimes in some missiles like the SOSNA, the missile has a rear facing sensor so until the booster rocket motor has been dropped there is not chance of guiding the missile.

By looking on map, you could quickly see, where are most probable flying path for cruise missiles to reach those strategic objects, so you could place air defense to shot them down on that paths.

You can even station a couple of soldiers with binoculars and a radio at various locations where cruise missiles might be routed (ie through mountains to hide from ground based radar).

The real threat of cruise missiles is surprise... once the enemy expects them they become very vulnerable as they are fairly dumb and fly predictible manouvers.

Shooting Cruise Missile is not a problem but detecting and tracking is ,

The planner has some problems and some tricks... the problem is that their targets will be fairly predictible and therefore the approach paths are also predictible. Tricks include sending missiles along the base of mountain ranges or through valleys to hide from long range detection.
Counter tricks are patrols with binos and "ears" and a radio to report jet engine noises.

An expected attack is half way to being stopped.

Manned aircraft known under attack will manouver hard to avoid getting hit plus simultanously jamming it.

If the missile has a home on jam capability then that might be counter productive, and to out manouver a missile you really need to know what sort of missile you are up against and its performance characteristics.

For instance it was found that SA-6 flew up in a shallow climb so a steep dive was effective at preventing them from hitting your aircraft... of course a steep dive would put you into the danger zone for ZSU-23-4 and MANPADS threats.

I am just wondering if for space they would go with Kill Vehical concept like US NMD ?

Hit to kill payloads require extreme precision in 4 dimensions, and get one chance to kill.

The US systems have certain features like metal fans that open at the last second to increase the size of the interceptor to increase the chance of an impact, and the Russians have already developed directional HE charges for their SAMS, though obviously in space HE is largely ineffective in damaging things with a blast warhead, so in this context it might have a 200kg payload with a 1kg HE spreading charge and a 199kg payload of metal cubes perhaps with a nylon thread linking them together in a mat or web form with the design opening by explosive charge to form a net tens of metres across... the combined closing speed making any contact lethal.

Of course it would be much cheaper and easier to use a nuke warhead... especially an enhanced radiation warhead that could render useless other nearby nuclear warheads by damaging them with intense radiation.

From what it appears from that interview that i have posted from Igor Ashurbeyli and from other sources , Vityaz SAM has nothing to do with 9M96 missile but it will be a new Single SAM.

Well the new missile they developed with the South Koreans was based on the two small missiles of S-400, but designing a new missile might explain why it is taking so long.

Perhaps they have decided that the larger of the two missiles is not much more expensive than the smaller of the two missiles, yet offers similar performance out to 120km compared with 40km for the smaller missiles. More importantly both missiles are carried in the same containers so you can carry one or the other and there is only likely a weight advantage to carrying the smaller missiles... in other words you don't get any obvious benefits by loading up the tubes with the smaller of the two missiles as the reduced weight and slight reduction in cost has the penalty of 1/3rd the range of the slightly larger missile.

Of course it is always possible they are trying to get the performance of the larger missile into the frame of the smaller missile...

Personally I think a vertical SAM launcher that can take single Rif-M sized missiles or 4 S-400 smaller missiles, plus full sized S-400 missiles might be too flexible. The choice of 250km range full sized S-400 missiles, and long range 400km range full sized S-400 missiles or 4 times more 40km range missiles seems a little strange. For smaller vessels it might make a little sense, though you could simply load those vessels with the new vertical launch Shtil system.

Perhaps they are changing the two smaller missiles for a new missile that is slim enough to fit 4 per full sized tube and offers the performance of larger missiles.

...we can speculate all we want... we will find out when we find out.

From what it appears from that interview that i have posted from Igor Ashurbeyli and from other sources , Vityaz SAM has nothing to do with 9M96 missile but it will be a new Single SAM.

So this will be a new SAM which will be optimised for air breathing targets like manouvering fighter and cruise missile but will have no anti-BM missile capability.

I'm sure that it will have one missile to optimize prices for Vityaz SAM, but even if it will be new missile, I think it will be base on long range 9M96 missile, because there is no point to build Vityaz, which will be inferior to Buk-M2 and Buk-M3 with VLS. If it will be inferior, than I think it will be better for Russian MoD to cancel Vityaz and buy Buk-M3.

I'm sure Vityaz will be more capable than Buk-M2 and Buk-M3 and it for sure will have ABM capabilities as Buk have. Maybe not against long range BMs, but against tactical short range BMs.

I think it will be more clear when the prototype of Vityaz will be shown.

Mindstorm , good to have you back.

Any thing known about BUK-M3 system so far ?

BUK-M2 itself appears a very good system , quite capable and flexible , specially the concept of TEL with radar and passive EO is just very good.