S-300P/400 News [Russian Strategic Air Defense] #3

The A-235 system is ABM only! It will have three kinds of missiles, ranging from short (40 km altitude) to long (800 km or more altitude). The long range missiles (silo based) will have a nuclear warhead with 5 kt, like the older systems. The short and medium range missiles will have a kinetic interceptor. The short and medium range missiles will be mounted on a truck and are not silo based.

The S-500 is against ALL kinds of air threats, ranging from drones, to aircraft to all kind of missiles. Like Garry wrote it is high mobile and intended for protection of high value targets.

Both systems are needed, S-500 can't replace A-235 and otherwise. Both systems overlaps in protection and will be part of the typical russian layered air defense.

S-500 is worldwide well known, but A-235 is more secret project with only rare information. This is to the reason that Russia will sell S-500 for export, if something new is in the pipe. A-235 is a sophisticated high-tech project, intented to secure the strategic interest and existence of Russia. No A-235 component will be ever sold!

The A-235 system is ABM only! It will have three kinds of missiles, ranging from short (40 km altitude) to long (800 km or more altitude). The long range missiles (silo based) will have a nuclear warhead with 5 kt, like the older systems. The short and medium range missiles will have a kinetic interceptor. The short and medium range missiles will be mounted on a truck and are not silo based.

Do you have any information about these TEL trucks?

The system A-235 is ABM only at at the moment is Moscow ABM only, but might be used in Leningrad and/or Vladivostok in time.

Most Soviet ICBMs were shown on trucks during parades, but the trucks were just used to deliver the missiles to their silos so they could be lowered into those silos ready for use. If you have seen TEL trucks for A-235 I would be very interested to have a look.

The S-500 is against ALL kinds of air threats, ranging from drones, to aircraft to all kind of missiles. Like Garry wrote it is high mobile and intended for protection of high value targets.

Agreed it will be able to hit all sorts of targets just like S-300V missiles and S-400 missiles can, but these S-500 missiles are designed to hit targets moving at up to 7km/s or faster and both inside and outside the atmosphere... these are big powerful heavy missiles that will be co-located with other missile systems... having a TOR battery with them means if a small guided missile is detected approaching then a TOR will be launched rather than an S-500 because the TOR is much cheaper and optimised for that sort of task.

A B-2 flying 500km away and yes they would probably launch an S-500 to take it out because of the value of the target warrants it, but a mini Turkish drone... no... not if there was something else that could take it down cheaper.

Both systems are needed, S-500 can't replace A-235 and otherwise. Both systems overlaps in protection and will be part of the typical russian layered air defense.

For defending a fixed point the A-235 is probably better but its radar and command facilities will not be mobile so even if the lighter missiles are truck mobile the system is not so it would make sense to launch from silos because they are already built and provide protection from attack.

The S-500 is mobile which will be its best feature and when they put it in mass production and onto large ships then Russian Air defence capacity will cover all bases... they might end up using it to shoot at rocks from space if they detect them early enough.

S-500 is worldwide well known, but A-235 is more secret project with only rare information. This is to the reason that Russia will sell S-500 for export, if something new is in the pipe. A-235 is a sophisticated high-tech project, intented to secure the strategic interest and existence of Russia. No A-235 component will be ever sold!

Might be a while before export versions of S-500 are available... not the least because export restrictions on missiles don't allow missiles with flight ranges of more than about 300km to be sold... export Iskander has a range of 280km for instance... S-500 would have a range double that in its Russian version.

Just had a look at the thread on the Nudol A-235 missile and its range of 3,000km does make it very much an equivalent of the GBI... except it works more reliably.

It also mentioned mobile launchers which is rather new, but as I mentioned most of the system is not mobile so they must have another reason for the mobile launchers.

Perhaps there are plans to allow the A-235 to be used together with the S-500 system where the smaller A-235 missiles can move around with the S-500 system using target information from its radars and systems to detect targets and threats and to perhaps work together with that to hit higher operating satellites perhaps?

One of the primary problems of the PAC-3 Patriot... the version for ATBM use, is that it needs satellite uplink time to actually work which makes it enormously expensive.

In comparison the S-400 has all the radars and systems it needs to do its job and can be moved to a location and be ready to work in less than 10 minutes... making it actually practical and mobile.

If you had THAAD and Patriot PAC-3 then you would still need a decent SAM to engage cruise missiles and fighters and bombers and other aerial targets before you got something approaching the performance of S-400 and the PAC-2 and PAC-3 and THAAD systems would each cost more than an S-400 system... if you were allowed to buy them.

GarryB wrote:
Do you have any information about these TEL trucks?

It should be the MZKT chassis (MZKT-79291).

https://topwar.ru/183698-kompleks-nudol-na-fone-drugih-komponentov-pro.html

It is not confirmed! All test so far that I know with missiles were silo based. The project at all is very very secret!

And another source...

https://naviny.online/article/20210411/1618116818-bitva-za-mkzt-moskva-perestala-vykruchivat-ruki-no-eto-lish-smena

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With the ABM treaty now gone, thanks to Uncle Sam...A-235 will be stationed to protect all bigger cities (Moscow, Piter, Wladiwostok...).

...

As far as I know is THAAD and AEGIS not intended for the interception of ICBM. GBI is! GBI is based on the Taurus missile and a kill vehicle. It's a silo based system. Of course THAAD and AEGIS have the capabilities of ICBM interception...or let's write terminal interception of warheads.

The characteristics of THAAD and AEGIS (with all their standard missiles) are inferior to S-500, both in range and altitude. GBI is comparable to A-235 and it's predecessors, like Garry wrote.

Funny that USA split their efforts in missile defense between Navy, Army and Air Force, so that USA has x systems, but none of them working really good. AEGIS is not a navalized THAAD and vice versa!

Funny that USA split their efforts in missile defense between Navy, Army and Air Force, so that USA has x systems, but none of them working really good.

The only air defence systems of the US that I respect are the navy ones... on board their ships and their ships linked together with AEGIS is really the only IADS they ever really developed...

The Army stuff is a joke... Air Force cast off missiles like AMRAAM and Sidewinder and Stinger.

Patriot and THAAD have serious issues and problems and as we have seen in Saudi Arabia.... a well planned attack can completely bypass them and make them look silly.

The USN Standard system is rather more capable and is something worth a bit of respect, because together with AEGIS it is actually a proper IADS even if it is not a nationwide system protecting the US, but a shipwide system protecting groups of US ships.

As far as I know is THAAD and AEGIS not intended for the interception of ICBM. GBI is! GBI is based on the Taurus missile and a kill vehicle. It's a silo based system. Of course THAAD and AEGIS have the capabilities of ICBM interception...or let's write terminal interception of warheads.

THAAD is a theatre ABM system it was never intended to intercept IRBMs because under the INF treaty such things were banned anyway, and the ABM treaty meant anti ICBM or SLBM weapons were banned too so THAAD was designed and intended to engage short range ballistic missiles and it is not super great at doing that.

AEGIS uses Standard SM-2 and SM-6 missiles... they are two stage long missile with decent range that I would probably compare with the S-300V system if you could combine the two into one missile. They can shoot down air targets and ballistic targets and seem reasonably capable.

GBI is comparable to A-235 and it's predecessors, like Garry wrote.

Except A-235 is the latest evolution of a mature operational ABM system.

Considering that Russia now has a ring of OTH radars looking out from its borders for threats from the wave tops to deep up into space, what they are lacking is an ABM missile that is located around the place to defend more than just Moscow... which was essentially a limitation of the ABM treaty.

Now the treaty is gone and considering that unlike previous ABMs located in Moscow that had ranges of 400-500-600km at most, these new missiles reach much further and much higher, so basing them all in the ring around Moscow limits their reach... A-235 means they can be located further afield and more radars scanning the airspace inside Russian territory can be used for ABM management to shoot down a variety of targets... they could put A-235 missiles near the Northern and Pacific Fleets, near St Petersburg, in a multitude of other places where it could be useful to hit threats early.

S-500 is going to take that a step further and make roaming ABM systems a reality... whether it is on armoured trains carrying unlimited range nuclear powered cruise missiles or on ships sailing around the world able to put into port and defend the local area from any heavy ballistic attack... something unheard of previously, though with SM-6 and its relatively wide deployment on US ships something the US has had too, though S-500 seems to be going to be rather more impressive in every regard.

When they mentioned a 7km/s target speed they did say it could engage targets going faster in some situations...


S-400 can engage targets moving at 4.8km/s which means it can probably engage SLBM warheads already anyway.

The new Yenisei radar for the S-500 Prometheus air defense systems has been put into service. 

The latest Yenisei radar, a modern and versatile aerial reconnaissance vehicle capable of tracking even hypersonic targets, has been adopted. This was reported by the weekly newspaper "Zvezda".

One of the key features of the Yenisei, in contrast to the standard radar of the S-400 Triumph complex, is the ability to work continuously for a long time and in automatic mode. Therefore, now the Yenisei radar has also been used as part of the S-400, along with the 96L6 all-altitude detector, in order to increase the efficiency of the complex.

The latest radar is able to detect air objects, both "own" and "foreign", at an altitude of more than 100 kilometers and at a distance of more than 600 kilometers, this also applies to hypersonic missiles. At the same time, the work is not carried out by sector, but by a round-robin review. The jammers will not be able to confuse the Yenisei ,their impact is blocked by remote posts. It takes only five minutes to bring the radar to full combat readiness.

Most of the characteristics of this radar station, which in the future should become the "eyes" of the promising S-500 Prometheus air defense system, still remains classified. Suffice it to say that the only time it appeared in public was in April 2018 during an exercise in the Astrakhan region, and since then there has been no news about the development.

Source: https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/141947/

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Russian_Patriot_ wrote:One of the key features of the Yenisei, in contrast to the standard radar of the S-400 Triumph complex, is the ability to work continuously for a long time and in automatic mode. Therefore, now the Yenisei radar has also been used as part of the S-400, along with the 96L6 all-altitude detector, in order to increase the efficiency of the complex.

Nice! Hoping the existing S-400s radar are replaced by the Yenisei.

It is not just missiles and radars that form S-300 and S-400 batteries, there are also all sorts of other support equipment that is critical to its performance... force multipliers if you will that can jam or distract those trying to deal with said batteries with jammers and decoys and other equipment.

Guys, as you people are aware of that the Indian Air Force team that will operate the S-400 is undergoing training in Russia. I'm reading some reports that suggests that the 77N6-N and the 77N6-NI missiles meant for the S-500 has also been offered to India.

Is there any truth to this report? I was of the opinion that the size of launch tubes vary between S-400 & S-500 so missiles meant for S-500 won't fit in the S-400.

LMFS wrote:I would not trust such reports. And of course Russia will not sell such system or its missiles for many years

Yes possible that someone in India is trying to send a message across to China or Pakistan especially the former now that they are placing S-400 on the border with India.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/chinese-s-400-systems-across-lac-forces-india-to-rethink-air-defence-101624417959950.html

But that aside, purely from a technical point of view - is it possible to fit 77N6-N and the 77N6-NI missiles into the S-400 launch tubes?

The FSMTC said that Russia is ready to supply S-400 to Belarus. 

Russia is ready to consider the issue of supplying S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems and Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile and gun systems to Belarus with a corresponding request from Minsk. This was stated to journalists on Thursday during the MILEX-2021 arms exhibition by First Deputy Director of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation of the Russian Federation Andrey Boytsov.

"We are in close contact with our Belarusian colleagues on all issues in the field of military-technical cooperation, and if an appropriate request is received for the supply of S-400 and Pantsir-S1 air defense systems, such an issue will be worked out as soon as possible" he said.

Earlier, Igor Golub, Commander of the Air Force and Air Defense Forces of the Armed Forces of Belarus, said that pre-contract work is underway to re-equip anti-aircraft missile divisions armed with S-300s with new S-400 and Pantsir-S complexes.

Belarus is also interested in Russian air defense systems and combat aircraft, Boitsov said.

"We can safely say that Belarus is interested in a wide range of our military products, and in general, cooperation between our countries in the field of military-technical cooperation is dynamic. The most popular categories of military products by the Belarusian side are aviation equipment, air defense systems and armored vehicles" he said.

Boytsov also stressed that cooperation between Moscow and Minsk has positive dynamics and real prospects for further development. 

Source: https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/11742979

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/142250/

S-500 air defense system successfully passed missile launch tests

Would the cost of bringing the SA500 on board require them to relook at the costs of maintaining the older SA10/SA12 systems? Could those older systems be resold to an ally?

AirCombatSim wrote:Would the cost of bringing the SA500 on board require them to relook at the costs of maintaining the older SA10/SA12 systems?  Could those older systems be resold to an ally?

The S-300PM's are being upgraded to some compatibility with the S-400 while the S-300PS's will be retired or given to allies. The S-300V's are being upgraded to S-300VM4's.

AirCombatSim wrote:Would the cost of bringing the SA500 on board require them to relook at the costs of maintaining the older SA10/SA12 systems?  Could those older systems be resold to an ally?

Older systems use older stuff that is not really produced anymore.

Upgrading them to S-400 level is just as expensive as buying a new system since pretty much everything needs to be upgraded inside. At the end only the truck could stay the same but that would be an old plateform.

And missiles have a limit date so after some point you either need to upgrade them or remove them and buy new ones.

For smaller systems it's worth modernizing them because it can be cheap but for big systems not really. You would prefere to have new S-400.

Well no it's the opposite since Russia is upgrading its old smaller systems like tunguska or Osa systems and replacing its S-300 with S-400.

They have now some 80 S-400.

Isos wrote:Well no it's the opposite since Russia is upgrading its old smaller systems like tunguska or Osa systems and replacing its S-300 with S-400.

They have now some 80 S-400.

80 TEL's or battalions?