You haven’t been tracking the repetitious empty promises on the S-400. You do realize that Gen. Aleksei Moskovskii, head of armaments in the Defense Ministry in 2003, himself wanted to kill the S-400 as a boondoggle? He warned that if Fakel didn’t shape up and develop the perpetually aborted 40N6, Russia was going to wind up with nothing but a glamorized Favorit.

This very forum carried a reprint of a 17 September 2004 Jane’s piece stating:

Trials had to begin using the 48N6 long-range missile used by the S-300P (SA-10 ‘Grumble’).

The 40km-range 9M96 (export designation 9M96E) and 120km-range 9M96/2 (export designation 9M96E2), and the ground-based radar, fire-control and launch systems are now ready, but development of the 400km-range 40N6 has been delayed by various problems, including lack of funding

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=466937&postcount=41

You accuse me of being reflexively anti-Russian, whereas I have been following the trail of broken promises and deadlines. I am fully aware that the radar and the S-300-derived missiles are worked out. However, the long-range missile, which is what distinguishes the S-400 from the S-300 workhorse, remains unattained, unless we see something shocking at MAKS-2005.

Instead of me being reflexively anti-Russian, I would suggest that you are a reflexive apologist for Russian arms, as are so many posters of Indian, Chinese, or Russian extraction.

That’s a picture from MAKS-99 air show. Let’s wait one week and see what will be shown at MAKS this year.

Whatever they show, it’s not going to be the S-400. For YEARS they have been proclaiming they’d perfect the long-range missile. Without the long-range missile that Fakel has wasted years and billions trying to build, there is no S-400. There is only a bunch of S-300 parts that the Russians keep testing over and over again while pulling the wool over their foreign buyers’ eyes. Look how they sold the Pantsir in advance to the UAE, taking money before there was a missile. Now there’s STILL no Pantsir missile.

In 2003 they had press releases promising a MAKS demonstration of the S-400. Two years later, they have dusted off the same press release language, only updating the year of the MAKS.

Gentlemen, there is no long-range missile (the 40N6, which for years didn’t even have a name, because it was so far from completion). In a couple days, there’ll be the usual bunch of lame excuses about ‘wait till next year.’

That said, can anybody explain what kind of technical problems they have in perfecting this fantasy missile?

there’s a difference between showing a mockup and having an existent missile. Not only have the shameless Russians failed to export any S-400s, they have yet to deploy in their own country. They don’t have a long-range missile yet, for crying out loud. All they’ve been doing is testing S-300 parts over and over again.

I have to wonder just what the difficulty of completing the long-range missile is.