World's most advanced missile defence system: Here's what India is buying from Russia

First Post ^ | 30 October 2015

[PIF]

Their early versions had .5 kt warheads for intercepting US ICBMs. The US, under Nixon, allowed them in Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty , I believe. We, naturally, got rid of our missile versions under the same treaty. As well as anything else that the Russians and Nixon considered a dangerous nuclear devise ... and so much for going to the stars on nuclear powered rockets ... when America died by Richard Nixon, the man who terminated the USA with prejudice.

[VeniVidiVici]

This same sort of thing happened in the vicinity of the White House (on more than one occasion IIRC)

I don't think you can even begin to compare air-defense assets in the Moscow area to the DC area at the time of Rust's flight into Red Square.

[Iscool]

Obama should buy some for us...

[CurlyDave]

...You sound like the NYT when it discovered that Reagan had “cheated” the USSR with a Star Wars that was largely grandiose expansion on speculation on what could be done in the not near future. NYT was highly indignant that he cheated.

I was just pointing out that the US does exactly the same thing as the Russians.

It is the height of foolishness to sell others the very best advanced weapons a major power can make.

Reagan's defeat of the USSR was masterful. And, I am not as certain that he "cheated" as the NYT. In any event, he won the most dangerous confrontation the world has ever seen with minimal loss of life. The fruits of his victory have been squandered by those who came after him.

[spetznaz]

I don’t buy it. You need some serious advanced technology for this. As little as 5 years ago, the S300 was the most advanced system in the world, and Israel took out Syria’s without breaking a sweat. Adding 100 to the series, doesn’t make it better.

This is an error that is repeated in many threads on SAM systems. That the Israelis took out S-300s in Syria, and did so without a sweat.

The truth?

Israel never took out any S-300 system for the simple fact that none was present. The Syrians had a medley of old SAM systems, with the only new system at play (and the one that Israel took out) being the Tor-M1 (SA-15 Gauntlet) SAM systems. The Tor-M1 is a short range point-defense missile system that Syria used to defend their al-Kibar nuclear facility.

The Tor-M1 is not the S-300, and the threat profile of the two systems is very different. Israel has pressured Russia not to sell the system to Iran and Syria (prior to the Assad regime getting far greater problems to focus on), has tried to use financial and trade incentives with Russia to dissuade the sale, and even threatened to attack any transports carrying those missiles.

The S-300 is not seen as a 'joke' by people who actually have to plan to defeat such systems. Israel actually practices against the Greek S-300 systems to develop workable solutions against an S-300 IADS, and I am certain that they have a good answer to the S-300 ...it will just not be as easy and taking out a Tor-M1.

In a nutshell, the S-300 (and similar systems and variants like the Chinese HQ-9, which is a S-300 copy), as well as follow-ons like the S-400 and the projected S-500, are serious air-defense systems that are taken very seriously by those that actually have to send men to face such systems. For example, the HQ-9 is the system that makes the IADS around Shanghai and Beijing virtually sterile.