Russia Upgrades Air Defenses

BTW ...sorry for the many spelling and grammar errors in my post. I was typing from my IPhone while walking, and this was a few minutes before midnight (where I am), and thus it appears quite convoluted now that I re-read it. In a nutshell I was saying that the S-300/400 system is quite potent (very potent), and the melding of it with the shorter range SAM system is to provide a layered defense where the Pantsyr-S (and similar) protect the main SAM system from weapons that have already been launched (e.g. JDAMs and JSOWs). In much the same manner that an AEGIS destroyer, with its potent Standard Missiles slaved to the AEGIS radar system, still has Rolling Airframe Missiles, ESSMs and/or Phalanx gun system to provide a point-defence purpose on the ship.

It does not mean the S-400 is weak, but instead actually makes the S-400 an even more dangerous system by improving its survivability even further. The greatest threat to legacy fighters (like the F-18, F-16, F-15, Tornado etc) is not enemy air (not even advanced variants of the Flanker like the SU-35, or even op-air 5th Gen fighters like the PakFa prototype), but rather the proliferation creep of advanced double-digit SAMs like the S-300 and the HQ-9 (a Chinese clone of the 300). Those systems will effectively deny airspace to legacy airframes. The S-400 simply makes it worse for legacy airframes. Now, the way the Tor and other shorter range systems come in, is that they remove a major weakness of the S-3/400 ...that is, standoff weapons or expanded range weapons launched by a stealthy platform. A deep IADS penetrator like the Raptor can launch a JDAM or SDB from a very high altitude at supercruise, giving the weapon a vastly expanded range. The Raptor would be able to penetrate deeper into an advanced enemy IADS than what a F-15 or similar could, thus it is quite possible for a Raptor to launch several Small Diameter Bombs (basically missiles without engines due to their shape and pop-out wings), which can be used to target S-300/400/HQ-9 systems at the periphery, and thus the Raptor force could simply use attrition attacks from the outside going in. However, the Pantsyr-S is not able to intercept these incoming weapons, leaving the S-3/400/HQ-9 launch vehicles and their radars safer.

This makes a bad situation worse. Particularly for nations like Taiwan which have a series of platforms for the Chinese IADS along China's coast, some of which can reach into the Strait.

Anyways, I really enjoy your threads, and you should start a ping list.

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