Chinese machine tooling is an absolute joke. They lack the key component of machine tooling and that is industrial strength materials. You would be very disappointed if you spent your money on the Chinese tools because they do not handle the wear and tear. A direct result of these inferior construction materials is constant recalibration and repair compared to what you buy in the developed world. Russia is the only country outside the West that seems to understand the importance of material strength.

Where are you getting the designator S-4000 from? That seems like an obvious typo to me, S-400 has always been associated with the 40N6 in everything I’ve seen.

From what a friend said its basically 100’s for the system, 1000’s for the interims. The 1000’s series just referred to the various stages within implementing the overall system. I’ve only seen the 4000 number used to refer to 40n6.

The 9M96 and 9M96D were shorter-range weapons designed for the S-400 but were also constantly advertised as an option for the S-300PMU-2 system as well. The S-400 currently relies on the 48N6DM weapon as evidenced by the lack of anything remotely resembling the 9M96 launch tubes at the Electrostal site.

48N6 is just the S-300PM series. The 9m96e-2 is not in sufficient numbers to replace the S-300PM-2 yet. But it realistically will replace most of the remaining S-300 models given its extreme portability and better design. From a logistics point of view the PM-2 and PM-3 systems are going to be too expensive in comparison by the time the S-400 system matures. Even though the 48N6DM has longer legs than the 9m96e family, it too will probably prove relatively to be too expensive to haul around in the field. Then again they may be utilizing 48N6DM for a defense against modern standoff bombs; if you cannot threaten the launching aircraft then you are doomed to lose the war of attrition.

The new ABM-capable system will be the S-500. The 40N6 is designed to hit ISR aircraft operating well behind the FEBA.

The 40N6 was designed to move itself along at 100k feet altitude out to the target. Do you consider 100k of altitude exo-atmospheric? I was thinking more along the lines of 25 or 50 miles, but this seems to be undefined at this moment. (NASA considered 95,000 feet in one of its test programs as exo-atmospheric.) Its not really well suited for exo-atmospheric with just a pair of stages, but by every other indication it should play an endo-atmospheric intercept role. It will be interesting to see how the 40n6 turns out capability-wise if it is a true abm.

Sens, I think your numbers on the Dvina and Volkhov are about 100 m/s too high. And only the Desna and Volkhov had the kinetic energy to get to the SR-71’s cruise altitude. The S-75 system wasn’t designed for direct hits, they were “near miss” weapons. You’d be trying to get the SR-71 with concussion because your fragments aren’t going to reach the target. You’re better off at that point to use direct command fusing and manually aiming the weapon sort of like they did with Nike-Herc, which leaves the success of your system subject to eccm flaws.

The MiG-25 and -31 are much more plausible intercept platforms. They both possessed weapons that had potential to get a near hit at least. But even then so many factors leave the success of said attempt open for debate as neither had the right weapons for the job until the Cold War was basically over with.

Less side RCS, but a notable increase in fore/aft RCS. I think they are, in fact 6 seperate bays. Not ideal, in my mind, but I suspect the large number of small doors has a smaller effect on RCS than the big US style doors. It does limit the overall size of the weapons that can be deployed, however.
Matt

I see no advantage in more doors. Just more things to go wrong.

Wait, we agreed to pay for it if they paid for other stuff. Canceling the F136 would of been our renege.

Judging by the current F136 fiasco my money would lean towards thinking the USAF did the two-types per plane no more than it was forced at gunpoint to. The DoD wants nothing to do with the F136. The pork trough is ordering different though.

Don’t mistake the wants of the USAF with those of the DoD. Last I heard the DoD was a tainted mess.

The training exercise story is very plausible. The missile had much better legs than it is stated to have because it is basically a free flight ballistic missile and its performance is a value of its trajectory. They only had one version of the s-200 series that was semi-active. Otherwise once they lost command link they were autonomous.

nickel is cheaper and can subsitute chrome up to certain percentages so stainless chrome-nickel stainless steel was used (with 0,5% vanadium.).

Adding nickel doesn’t displace the chromium. You add nickel to create a crystalline matrix that both stiffens the material and removes its magnetic characteristics. At the expense of stiffening the material you lose the ability to resist fatigue. Flexible material is usually less prone to fatigue for this reason. It is not always the case, obviously, and a materials characteristics do change somewhat as the material gets excited by heat. If you are going to use high nickel content in your stainless on an airplane then you are probably not using it for the framework.

Considering how absolutely low processing power the Patriot has I seriously doubt the S-400 needed anything super duper to get its job done. A graphics card from 1990 probably has as much processing power as your best air-intercept missile. Software engineering is far more difficult to perform than hardware. That and hardening the communications link from ground to missile. Those are the key technologies one protects.

And, star49, the S-300PMU-2 is a missile unlike S-400, which is a concept of mating missiles to fire control. The missiles of the “System 400”, 9M96E1 and 9M96E3, are smaller than their predecessors just like the Patriot PAC-3 was much smaller. The 9M96E1 and 9M96E2 could both be back fitted to existing tel’s and command centers with an upgrade at the command center. The S-400 command center is built on existing technologies of the S-300. The S-300 was first a fixed defense missile to replace the S-200, but its success progressed into a mobile system designed to dominate all levels of the atmosphere.

The S-4000 is the progressive step for mating a new giant SAM to the the S-400 called the 40N6. They are basically making a mobile ABM element in their air defenses by adding the 40N6. To do so requires mobile radars on such a scale as nobody has tried before; its not just one radar but the beginning of a growing network. The S-4000 is a massive defensive umbrella meant to physically move (in steps) from within the boundaries of Russia to whatever theater they wish to dominate. If it works it might just start up a new global arms race like we had in the Cold War, only this time on a much more dangerous level.

And I seriously doubt the J-11 is going to match what front-line fighters in either NATO or Warpac from the early 90’s could do. There is no way the Chinese made that quick of leap of faith inside of a decade, reverse engineering or otherwise. And if China ever tried to use the J-11 to fight Russia they’d fight that massive defense umbrella suddenly moving over their heads. The J-11 technologies simply cannot match the Russian SAM technology.