September 3, 2003 at 2:01 am
Remeber the days when Moscow was defended by SA-2’s tipped with tact-nukes, and Alaska had nuclear-tipped Nikes??? Anti-formation air-defence right?
I figured that back in those days, it would have been necessary to knock out a whole bunch of nuclear bombers or fighters in a single blow – but the advent of nuclear treaties brought that to an end.
Now surely technology will bring back the anti-formation SAM system, to fill the gap left by the removal of nuclear warheads.
I am talking about a SCUD-class (weight) missile comprising primary and secondary booster stages, and tipped with multiple independently targetting re-entry vehicles – each to kill a target by kinetic energy by “falling” on the airborne target from above at speeds of + Mach 4.
Combined with satellite battle observation, forward air-controllers and AWAC’s support, would it not be possible for a Russian force utilising such S-400 successor weapons to attack a USN CVBG group off the coast of Estonia? I mean, the Russian’s always relied traditionally on massive saturation-assault tactics when it came to taking out carriers and their air wings didn’t they?
The missile would obviously need a range of more than 300km to make it practical in warfare, and could also utilise drogue-chute retarded downward-looking radar units to assist guidance of the MIRV’s to their targets.