LOL- of course the mobile S-300PMU batteries are just going to sit there in the same spot for the several hours it’ll require for cruise missiles to get there …. :rolleyes:

Those are the ones, Hyperwarp.

Hard to say. Depends. Especially with a wall of decoys like AMD-141 TALD and ITALD and a number of other decoys. Combine that with JASSM and Tomahawk which can now loiter and be fed a target later and it will have it’s work cut out for it. The 400 SAM is not a magic bullet, just a very good SAM system and a big threat.

There was an excellent recent article in Air & Space Power Journal that laid out what sort of technology the USAF would need to reliably find and kill current generation mobile SAM systems like S-300 and its relatives but a lot of it was “notional” but feasible. The targeting cycle in OIF certainly didn’t seem to accomdoate the efficient targeting of mobile systems. The decoys and new weapons were a part of it, but there was a lot more.

Found it:

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/spr03/pietrucha.html

As far as I’m aware, SMT-II never happened. 917 is still an SMT- though one of the prototypes does have Zhuk-M, and was instrumental for testing that radar.

No? Google is your friend (hahahaha- no pun intended):

Surprising that they got what the Granit looked like so wrong … (commonly assumed it looked like Bazalt)

Isn’t that article from JED Online matt? Odd that they say no photographs of the Granit have been published- I’ve seen three: one from the wreck of the Kursk, and two other display style photos. The description is wrong- they actually look like big fat versions of Oniks/ Yakhont/ Brahmos.

I am not familiar with this guy, but he sounds like another one we have down under that goes by the name of Dr.Carlo Kopp.

Kopps F/A-22 fetish and Su-30MK fear-mongering aside, you must admit his articles demonstrate real technical/operational depth (personally I find his discussion of F-35 vs a future Su-30MK fascinating)- Felengauer just whines about the Russian defense establishment and calls it ‘analysis’. You’ll never seem him describe a weapons system and its employemnt beyond the most general way- if at all- he hardly ever does it- that article is probably the closest he’s come to it. At best, Felengauer is good for a discussion of political wrangling, and that’s about it.

Fair enough, but the point remains that if the then Soviet fleet had NOT destroyed the enemy in any massive volley of these supersonic weapons the carriers of these weapons would have become extremely vulnerable, as they still could not reload at sea regardless of what perverted logic Mr Felegauer has. I am trying to point out that the Chinese with their own Sovs now can not possibly hope to use them in any other way; that is, as mighty missile hosts. Operating probably as a part of task group, but once the main weapons have been expended, they too will become vulnerable to counter-surface attack.

It depends on where they were fighting- defending the boomer bastions was a major Soviet mission- as such, they would never be too far from home ports- the USN projects power, the Soviet Navy was to try and blunt that power and defend the motherland 🙂 , rather than project it itself. To this day, none of the prospective Russian vessels being built/ in development have a land attack cruise missile in the arsenal, unless you count the SSNs with their S-10 Granat SLCMs (SS-N-21, folks, not SS-N-19), but they’re nuclear. I think that’s for the best. Russia has little interest in say, the Indian Ocean.

one question would be whether the SLBMs can reach their targets from home ports.

They can. Regardless, a portion of the SSBN fleet was always on combat patrol- you cannot eliminate SSBNs as a deterrent. The latest generation of Soviet SSBNs don’t need to leave Russian waters to strike their designated targets, their SLBMs have plenty of range. Soviet SSBNs would stay in their ‘bastions’, defended by the Soviet Navy (including SSNs) from enemy SSNs trying to destroy them.

as for 2,500km cruisemissles, well if they were to have such great range, then they would be sub-sonic weapons, which means that if not launched in massive numbers, they few would be able to make it through the massive screen of USAF fighters. when the goal is to ensure mutual destruction, thats not a very good result.

Why are you speaking in hypotheticals? The range and existence of the Kh-55 is factual. Anyway, you’re exaggerating the density of USAF fighters available to shoot down low-flying cruise missiles, not to mention that none of them have the capabilities of the MiG-31 in that regard.

Actually I mean GOES-342, got the numbers mixed up. Can we get a closer look at the sensor? I think it’s to small to be GOES-342.

Anyway- I thought GOES-520 had the two ‘windows’ lined side by side, like on the latest configuration of the Ka-52, not one on top of th eother, like the Mi-28N?

Where’d you get those pictures, by the way?

UOMZ website:

http://www.uomz.ru/eng/production/goes520.htm

So the land-attack Alfa program is ended. Fair enough, thanks for that Blackcat.