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

Austin wrote:USN is working on Arc Light program that will replace or compliment Tomahawk and it can be launched from Mk 41 launchers.

This is a boot glide hypersonic missile with a speed of Mach 12 and has a range of 2000 plus miles.

Is there any SAM under development of Russian Navy that would be capable of dealing with such hypersonic threats and similar program under development ?

Arclight http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/22/boost_glide_arclight/

Well i see this thing as a land attack missile.. they'll of course likely be dealt with ground based SAM's rather than Naval.

As for similar program.. hmm as far as i know no similar Russian program exist for such precision weapons. As for SAM's..the closest thing i can think for navy is ofcourse the S-300F's

Well it wouldnt take much to get Arclight target Ships or make it Anti-Ship missile for long range applications , targeting ships 1000 km away in couple of minutes.

This is truly a revolutionary weapon both for its Mobility and Speed/Stealth , this would need nothing short of laser to bring it down.

Actually Mach 12 is about 3.8km per second so even S-400 can intercept it... along with its naval equivalent... there is no need for exotic technologies like Lasers yet.

Obviously this weapon is not ballistic, but it is not travelling at 4.8km a second either so it should be able to compute intercept courses and launch a few missiles in the incoming missiles field of manoeuvre capability so one missile should hit it.

Austin wrote:USN is working on Arc Light program that will replace or compliment Tomahawk and it can be launched from Mk 41 launchers.

This is a boot glide hypersonic missile with a speed of Mach 12 and has a range of 2000 plus miles.

Is there any SAM under development of Russian Navy that would be capable of dealing with such hypersonic threats and similar program under development ?

Arclight http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/22/boost_glide_arclight/

Granted that :

- A similar project is still very far from creation of a working sample.
- In the segment of ballistic propelled stratospheric hypersonic gliding vehicles (where stil today no operative US made military system or even only successful experimental products has been created) US lag at least 10-15 years behind Russia).....


a weapon with similar capabilities would ,today, reduce 99% of the Russian Federation Air Defence structure to shred, litterally ; it would achieve and represent in the Reality what "stealth" technology has represented for the collective Immaginary of scarcely knowledgeable people.

In the near future defense against similar terribly effective weapons will be committed almost exclusively, at over-divisional level, to S-500 divisions and S-400's 40N6s with obviously the addition of A-235 for Moscow region (and few some other "cards into sleeves"....).
Naturally also those systems will NOT offer an adequate sustained protection against a full scale attack excecuted with high end hypersonic weapons, except for the limited scope to get the chance to retaliate with strategic thermonuclear vectors against the aggressor.

Is true that in several Russian Scientific Institutes several more radical solutions ,aimed at resolve in a definitive way the problem of neutralization of similar hypersonic weapons, are into examinations already today (and some of them have also surpassed this stage), but theirs time of operative introductions is expected within twenty years at least.

Mindstorm wrote:similar project is still very far from creation of a working sample.

Well in couple of years they would have it , there are other advanced technology in hypersonic platform being experimented which would give a speed of Mach 22

- In the segment of ballistic propelled stratospheric hypersonic gliding vehicles (where stil today no operative US made military system or even only successful experimental products has been created) US lag at least 10-15 years behind Russia).....

Actually Stratospheric Hypersonic Gliding Vehical was proposed for US ICBM in 80's but they did not go beyond that and since US never pursued development of new ICBM/SLBM after 80's no new RV technology was tried.

Read the excellent book "Lightning Bolts" by William Yengest, on US ICBM development ( Google Books has preview )

But as new SLBM are on cards to replace Trident , US will have similar Stratospheric Hypersonic Gliding vehical in a a decade or two.

there are other advanced technology in hypersonic platform being experimented which would give a speed of Mach 22

Yes Austin that is true , USA military Scientific sector is fully committed since several years to those identical high-end technical goals which Rogozin has suggested ,as absolutely central in perspective developments of Russian military sector and the most ironic fact is that in this field ,as previously said, USA started from a distinctive scientific disadvantage in respect to Russia and ,exactly how happened in the past for the so called "Stealth" technology, just the penetration in the US of established scientifical knowledges coming from domestic Institutions...mostly with "collaborations" with NASA in the '90 years...has allowed to them to partially overcome theirs theoretical shortcomings and to be capable to capitalize, on the other side, theirs outstanding engineering proficiency.

Read the excellent book "Lightning Bolts" by William Yengest, on US ICBM development

Thanks Austin for the suggestion ,maybe i will buy and read it ,but let me say that ,on this subject, i have read (and not only) several books much, much much more specific and technical
That don't cancel that serious books on development history in this sector around the world can be sometimes very interesting and offer unexpected details and pieces of information not present in other available sources.


Best regards.

Modern air defence doctrines need to consider the emerging technology of software-defined radar. In this manner the surveillance and tracking abilities of imaging radar are implemented in software. Concurrently there exists the need to forge the other side of the same coin. The devise of a Software-defined Radar Countermeasure System (S-dRCS) is a solution for confusing adversary radar operators ( In this case the radar operators of the S 400/ S500 ) Simulator-defined Radar Countermeasure System (Sim-dRCS) does just that .The simulator approach for imaging radar countermeasures is preferred because it provides a bespoke generation of the required signals valid for a diverse set of adversary observers which are considered to be Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) systems. The simulator receives input from the sensors of the SimdRCS and then crafts false targets matched to the heading and velocity vectors of the threat.


Countermeasures developments for imaging radar are different than for conventional radar. For example innumerable researches have been done on the effects of ISAR jamming on an aircraft target. Although there is a considerable form of distortion the general form of the aircraft is evident. Then there is the concept of generating multiple false targets. This is a major building block in the field of modern electronic warfare. And a software architecture approach is a promising implementer for this type of application.For example if we may implement a false aircraft generator using an algorithm thus requiring less hardware in the form of supportive integrated circuits. Nevertheless the false targets appear in a regular horizontal form to each other having the same slant range coordinates in the ISAR image. This fact might induce suspicions to an adversary radar operator about the validity of this contact.

GarryB wrote:Actually Mach 12 is about 3.8km per second so even S-400 can intercept it... along with its naval equivalent... there is no need for exotic technologies like Lasers yet.

Obviously this weapon is not ballistic, but it is not travelling at 4.8km a second either so it should be able to compute intercept courses and launch a few missiles in the incoming missiles field of manoeuvre capability so one missile should hit it.

The challenge to intercept ArcLight would be very high , not only is it a Boost Glide Hypersonic Vehical which means a controlled guided hypersonic glide in Earth Atmosphere but also it has control surface not dissimilar to aircraft which will give it extra ability to manouer in the atmosphere.

This should be the most challenging target to intercept far more challenging then intercepting something like Iskander-M which boost glides at Mach 6.

The challenge to intercept ArcLight would be very high , not only is it a Boost Glide Hypersonic Vehical which means a controlled guided hypersonic glide in Earth Atmosphere but also it has control surface not dissimilar to aircraft which will give it extra ability to manouer in the atmosphere.

This should be the most challenging target to intercept far more challenging then intercepting something like Iskander-M which boost glides at Mach 6.

Exactly to the point Austin.

If ever realized, a weapon such as "Arclight" would represent an immense challenge for today air defenses , 48N6DMs would show only very poor chances to intercept a similar Mach 12 maneuvering gliding weapon , and only the now to be introduced 40N6 SAM would offer a defense with good neutralization capabilities against similar offensive elements (and ,as anyone could easily foresee ,theirs number would be absolutely insufficient to repel even only a limited strike).

Today a similar weapon, therefore, would represent a true nightmare for Russian Aerospace Defence structure, but luckily no such weapon is near to introduction in any NATO nation and with enough time the situation will change.

Austin wrote:Well it wouldnt take much to get Arclight target Ships or make it Anti-Ship missile for long range applications , targeting ships 1000 km away in couple of minutes.

This is truly a revolutionary weapon both for its Mobility and Speed/Stealth , this would need nothing short of laser to bring it down.

Given how the Pentagon operates these days, I think it will be along time before anyone has to worry about Arclight, if ever.

Mindstorm wrote:
That don't cancel that serious books on development history in this sector around the world can be sometimes very interesting and offer unexpected details and pieces of information not present in other available sources.

Historical rather than technical books can often be amusing. Steven Zaloga's book on Russian nuclear force development was pretty basic with any technical detail, but was a great read as it provided a lot of insight into the politics behind the scenes and the fighting amongst the design bureaus. It pretty much obliterated the standard Western school of thought that believed Russia/the USSR just built craploads of ICBMs just because. This is even more relevant now, with certain politicians or media outlets trying to frame the current force revitalization as some sort of big, bad arms buildup. Which it's not, it's actually business as usual in a historical sense: the old generation gets, well, old, so a new generation replaces everything.

The point is that such a weapon would be the equivalent of a very slow and short ranged ICBM.

The fact that it can manouver is fairly immaterial because its use will result in a full scale nuclear retaliation anyway.

Its capacity to manouver will be restricted over a warhead of a weapon like a MARV, because a MARV is basically a manouvering warhead, so it is small and can be made strong. There will be no large cavities in a MARV for large volumes of fuel because it is basically a falling vehicle.

This new glide weapon would be very much like a space shuttle... sure it will probably manouver, but over what range... we are not talking fighter jet manouver capability... more like bomber... 2gs or so.

Outside the atmosphere its capacity to manouver will be restricted by the power of its side thrusters or its manouvering jets. Inside the atmosphere its ability to turn will be greatly effected by its structural strength and the cooling capacity of the aircraft.

The Space shuttle for example has heat tiles in very specific areas which requires a single re-entry profile. The results of damaged or missing tiles give you an idea of the result of coming in at the wrong angle.

Of course I am not suggesting speed and manouver capability are useless, Russia and India are working on Brahmos II, which when mature should perfect technologies like scramjet engines and fuels and high temperature materials that should allow much much higher speeds to be achieved... and this of course will influence the propulsion choices and designs of future SAMs too.

Today a similar weapon, therefore, would represent a true nightmare for Russian Aerospace Defence structure, but luckily no such weapon is near to introduction in any NATO nation and with enough time the situation will change.

You mean like TOPOL-M represents a true nightmare to the US and NATO?

Such a weapon has a range of 2,000miles and therefore violates the INF treaty and cannot enter full scale development and testing while that treaty is in effect.

If the US wants to withdraw from the INF treaty then they must realise that in the short term Iskander will be able to immediately grow into a system with much greater range and performance in both the semi ballistic and cruise missile models.

You mean like TOPOL-M represents a true nightmare to the US and NATO?

Merely a nightmare ?

What about representing,instead, an element capable to cause ,practically single-handedly, USA to exit ,in 2002, unilaterally from ABM Treaty and remodulate its entire missile defense structure venturing itself in the very risky (both technically and diplomatically) and immensely costly ABM program in East Europe ?

In comparison the earthquake caused in NATO rooms, at the beginnign of '80 years , by introduction in URSS of RSD-10, could be cosidered almost a good news.

If the US wants to withdraw from the INF treaty then they must realise that in the short term Iskander will be able to immediately grow into a system with much greater range and performance in both the semi ballistic and cruise missile models.

INF Treaty ,at today, is directed toward its disappearance and not for Russia choice, we must not forget that, at the heart, INF Treaty was a solution strongly wanted by NATO for cover theirs strategic shortcomings and that only Mikhail Gorbachev's appeasement...for not say open aid...allowed a similar Treaty to go into effect among the immnese opposition of the entire Soviet military gotha.
Probably NATO believe that similar strategic Treaties can be (not differently than ABM Treaty) put in effect and erased following unilaterally theirs strategic needs

But Russian Federation is perfectly aware of that since a long time and the measure suggested by you ,for a certain extent even in-built, will be only the first of a long series.

Garry to keep my answer short due to lack of time.

Intercepting a manouvering hypersonic platform is not for the fain hearted and there are no system even the US ABM or Russian system even 40N6 that has demonstrated that.

These BGRV can fly fast and can pull 40-50 G plus the plasma generated during their flight makes radar tracking very difficult.

Arclight compounds the problem as it can manouver much better than RV's although their speed would be slower then a ICBM RV.

All in All Arclight would be a tough nut to crack even for the most complex ABM deployment envisaged , any thing more tougher would be Topol-M MaRV/Air Breathing RV and Bulava/RS-24 manouvering RV with complex decoys that can enter the atmosphere with their RV.

And its use would be an act of war... and considering there is no way to tell if it has a nuclear warhead or not till it explodes... it is pretty safe to say that a single launch in the direction of Russia would likely lead to a full nuclear retaliation, so as a weapon system is is not really any more or less useful than something like an SS-20.

While it is outside the atmosphere there will be no plasma protection and inside the atmosphere its thermal signature will be pretty significant.

If they can solve the heat and propulsion problems I will be impressed, but I don't think they are that far ahead in propulsion... remember they also had lots and lots of concept ideas for Star Wars in the 1980s and shock horror... most of it didn't actually work!

Err..quick question.

We know that the S-300 and S-400's missiles like 5V55 and 48N6 series uses some sort of "semi-ballistic" or "loft glide" trajectory where they climb up to some altitude ..and later glide down with AOA tailored to maximize Lift to Drag ratio, which as far as i know can maximize range (simple relationship.. Altitude x missile's L/D). From SOC's nice IMINT on S-300/400 history.. i learned that there was a modification on 48N6 missile that allows it to reach higher altitude (70 km of apogee..and assuming L/D ratio of 3 for typical axisymmetric airframe missile.. will give a glide range of 210 Km).

Now my question is.. is there any limit on how high the missile can climb ? hmm i have a "Hacked" version of 9M82 missile here with range of some 500 Km (550 km launch range Vs target with M 0.85 speed) ..and apogee of some 130++ km for AWACS killing utility. In excel spreadsheet the missile looks quite feasible to me.. but i wonder if anyone know better.

And here's the missile in question :
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/125/8/a/veronica_freya_counter_isr_sam_by_stealthflanker-d4ylihb.png

That 48N6 test gave the missile a 400 km range. It was part of the initial development work leading to the S-400.

There is a complete kinematic study being done of the 9M82/3 missiles. I'll post a link when it's released.

SOC had a question on S-300/400 missiles.

What is so sacrosanct on missiles of S-300P/V and 400 series having an upper limit of 30 Km as intercepting altitude atleast thats what is advertised.

Is this the limitation of the missile where rear control surface becomes ineffective due to thin air ?

Limitations of the Fire Control Radar to accurately guide the missile beyond those threshold altitude as most missiles in S-300/400 system lacks autonomous guidance in terms of ARH or IIR seeker.


We know these SAMs have large range ( 200-250 km ) perhaps one of the longest range SAM in the world but they dont trade those range to gain altitude.

For eg Arrow 2 has a range of 80 km and altitude of 50 km and newer Arrow 3 has an altitude of 100 km.

http://i-korotchenko.livejournal.com/459085.html

More photos and info of new Nebo-M.

What is so sacrosanct on missiles of S-300P/V and 400 series having an upper limit of 30 Km as intercepting altitude atleast thats what is advertised.

To be honest, I don't know. Missiles for sure could reach higher altitude, so in my opinion, missile guidance could have software altitude limitation. Maybe there was START or any other treaty limitations and they keep altitude limitations not to fall in strategic weapon and could be widely deployed.

I rather suspect the issue is that these missiles are primarily anti aircraft missiles, and the design requirements to hit targets above about 30km would compromise performance against lower altitude targets.

It is a bit like the problem of a boat. It can be used over 2/3rds of the worlds surface area. If its primary job was to sink boats then there is no need to convert it into a hovercraft that can operate on land as well as on the water.

If they did convert it to a hovercraft then there will be changes in the speed it can move it, the weights it could carry, and of course its operational range.

They clearly think that a 30km interception altitude is good enough.

I rather doubt it is accuracy or lack of resolution in altitude because distance is distance... tracking and guiding 30km straight up would be much easier than 200km sideways through the densest part of the atmosphere.

I rather suspect there was no requirement to intercept at higher altitudes.

GarryB but even dedicated ABM like S-300V/VM ( Anetey-2500 ) have those limitations.

I can understand those limitations for air breathing targets but for anti-BM targets

S-300V and S-300VM are not dedicated ABM systems. They are not PAC-3 Patriots or THAAD.

They are the standard long range SAM for the Army, just like the S-300P is the long range SAM for the Air Force, and the S-300S is the long range SAM for the Navy.

Operating in one environment is cheaper and simpler. Below about 60km altitude is "air"... above 100km is pretty much space. The design requirements for operating in both environments is like designing a missile that will work both underwater and in the air. Certainly not impossible, and in the case of a sub launched missile it is more effective to launch the missile out of the water and have it cruise at high speed to the target area through the air than through the water, but in the different environments you need different controls and sensors and indeed warheads. A blast fragmentation warhead is very effective in air, but in water a pure blast warhead is more efficient as the fragments would be inefficient in the water and just add dead weight. 10kgs of fragments makes thousands of lethal bullets that can scatter widely and be effective at extended ranges in air, but in water even large fragments will rapidly lose their effect, so it would make more sense to replace that 10kgs of metal with a few kgs more of HE. (obviously removing 10kgs of metal will not free up enough space for 10kgs of HE which is much lighter and would need a much bigger warhead compartment to fit that much more explosive.)

Think of it as adapting a naval SAM to be able to operate underwater so it can intercept a Tomahawk as it is launched from a Submarine.

The collision energy of an interception would shatter most incoming threats and those very small pieces would lose their velocity very rapidly, so there would be no enormous advantage to intercepting targets at 100km vs 30km except in the sense that intercepting at 100km will mean you know slightly earlier that you have defeated the target or not.

Unless the incoming warhead is heading straight for the ABM system the chance of a second shot against a target travelling at speeds of 4-5km/s means that by the time you can analyse the telemetry to see if you actually hit the target it might be 10 seconds, which means it is already at 50km, which means you need a fraction of a second to recalculate its new flight path if there was any deflection or effect on the target and then you need to launch another interceptor missile which will take likely another 5-10 seconds to launch and actually manouver to an intercept point... and if the target is nuclear armed it might detonate 5km above the ground.

I rather suspect a more realistic interception would involve the launch of several missiles at once, in which case the lower interception ceiling is no great disadvantage as several missiles will be launched to intercept the incoming threat anyway... so they also get several chances to intercept the threat.

The point is that the missiles are not complicated by a need to be able to manouver in the absence of air for the flight controls to push against to manouver for the intercept.

In other words it makes the system lighter, simpler and cheaper to not need to work above the atmosphere.

BTW every time a progress cargo ship docks with the ISS they are performing "interceptions" outside the atmosphere, so they clearly have the capacity to do it.

Likely the issue is that the Russian military has not made such a requirement... I am sure if the S-300V was able to intercept targets at 185km altitude the US would demand it was withdrawn because it was an anti satellite weapon in disguise.

Garry if intercepting at high altitude was not to be useful then they wouldnt have tried that with S-500 with intercept altitude of 200 km and 40N6 with claims of 185 Km

I suspect the S-300P and S-300V and S-400 series got a limit of 30 km is because they probaby found that to be the right balance for air breathing targets and BM.

These missiles fly as low as 5 m to as high as 30 Km quite demanding to deal with both airbreathing and Ballistic targets

I didn't say it wasn't useful.

If your ABM systems are not based directly on the target then being able to intercept to 200km means you can intercept a ballistic missile bound for another target.

the very high flight speed means that even a small control surface will be effective in directing the missile in flight, but as you get higher and the air gets thinner then those small control surfaces start to have less effect.

They keep them small to minimise drag and weight, so making them bigger would be a bad thing and would not extend the effective altitude that much.

Side thruster rockets would be used in the terminal phase to adjust the path of the interceptor missile rapidly enough to make a difference, but in a near vacuum there is little air flowing over the missile body so a side thruster could just as easily start the missile tumbling which would obviously present a problem if the seeker in the nose can't see the incoming target.

The ISS operates at about 300-400km and of course it is not alone so being able to hit ballistic missiles at 200km is getting very close to being able to easily hit stuff in orbit.

I suspect the S-300P and S-300V and S-400 series got a limit of 30 km is because they probaby found that to be the right balance for air breathing targets and BM.

Like I said, the S-300V was developed in the 1970s and hitting satellites would have been counter productive for the Russian Army.

The S-400 is based on the S-300 and therefore has its features and limitations as well, except in this case they are not really limitations.

Complaining that the S-300 and S-400 can't hit targets above 30km is like complaining that my assault rifle can't reliably hit targets at 1,000m.

S-300 and S-400 are air defence missiles that defend potential targets from everything from cruise missiles and high flying supersonic recon aircraft to ballistic missiles.

If you want a dedicated ABM system that only shoots down BMs then that is S-500, which will be almost of no use to the Army or Navy or Air Force, except defending strategic assets like ports and cities and major airfields and strategic weapon sites.

S-500 is a SV-338 and will likely be accurate to 1,500m but it is no substitute for an assault rifle.

The fourth regiment armed with S-400 Triumf air defense systems will be officially put on combat duty in Russia’s Far East on Thursday, a spokesman for the Eastern Military District said on Wednesday.

“The official ceremony will be held on August 16,” the official said.

The regiment, which is deployed near the port city of Nakhodka in the Primorye Territory, joins other S-400 regiments deployed in the Moscow Region and in the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.

By 2020, Russia is to have 28 S-400 regiments, each comprised of two battalions, mainly in maritime and border areas.

The S-400 Triumph long- to medium-range surface-to-air missile system can effectively engage any aerial target, including aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and cruise and ballistic missiles at a distance of up to 400 kilometers (250 miles) and an altitude of up to 30 kilometers (18.6 miles).

http://www.en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20120815/175230269.html