Inflatables are great for fooling EO systems that don’t have stupid high resolution, but an IR or EW sensor can still figure them out in most cases.

The S-300 system uses track via missile (with a radar seeker in the missile). It should be just as good as active radar homing.

Wrong. It uses seeker-aided ground guidance (SAGG). TVM is a simplified version. SAGG uses more data to get a better target picture giving you more accuracy. They are very similar, which is why you often see the S-300P referred to as TVM guided.

Would like hear SOC views on this.

What you said is fundamentally correct. The real question would be whether or not the system architecture of the S-400 can accept an input from the Nebo radar to fire a missile.

If you want an overview of all of the systems and specifications for the S-300P and S-400 variants, check out the bit I wrote up here:

http://geimint.blogspot.com/2008/07/s-300p-detailed-analysis.html

Slightly outdated as we know that there are now two S-400 batteries in service, but it still works.

As far as numbers of batteries in service, here’s what I’ve located in Google Earth in Russia:

S-300PT: 6
S-300PS: 27
S-300PM: 22
64N6 radar positions: 25
S-300P series garrisons: 16
Empty S-300P series sites: 53

I’m not going to pretend that those figures represent the total number of systems available, as there is a lot of territory in Russia where the imagery is not in high enough resolution to find anything. Look at Saratov. Near Engels AB there is an S-300P series garrison and a 64N6 radar complex, but the actual batteries haven’t been located yet. A lot of the outer ring around Moscow isn’t in good quality yet either, and there are likely more of them there as well. But those sites will give you a good idea about where they are deployed for the most part. You can download the SAM Site Overview file containing all of those placemark files at my site as well.

Done!

Thanks Otaku for posting Trista and Chitrista photos next to eah other.

After having a good look, I realize that the containers for the missiles are different. Can’t comment on relative sizes, but definitly different containers, indicating (but not proving) that the missiles for the S-300 and S-400 are different beasts.

They are different. The containers for the 5V55 and 48N6 missiles have been noted as different for a long time. The main difference is simply the number of braces running down the length of the canister. They are all the same size, the optical effect you’re noting is because the equipment housing on the S-400 TEL ahead of the missile canisters is smaller/narrower than that seen ahead of the canisters on the upper TEL. The upper TEL may be an S-300PM-1 or PM-2 TEL as well, not a PS (PMU is wrong, that’d be an export model of the PS). The reason being is that the TEL pictured has a different datalink fairing than seen on the PS TELs, and lacks either the Master or Slave component. That was tossed out when they revamped the MAZ-543 TEL for the PM variants.

As for the missiles, S-300P series systems are backwards compatible and can fire the older missiles. Also, the S-400 does use the 48N6DM, a 250km range 48N6 variant. The S-300PM uses the 48N6 series as well, just not the newest DM. So the missiles are different but do belong to the same basic family.

ROC SAMs? What?

http://geimint.blogspot.com/2009/05/taiwans-sam-network.html

😀

Actually i agree that SSBNs make very little sense considering your ICBMS can be concealed protected and hidden very effectively.

No, they can’t. Even “hidden” Chinese DF-5A silos can be located with relative ease. China at least appears to be doing the nuke thing sensibly and relying a lot on underground facilities.

Which is irrelevant because strategic weapons usually launch on warning anyway.

SSBNs make perfect sense. They can perform as depressed angle or short TOF launchers to allow minimum warning time to an adversary, or they can serve as your second wave. They’re also stupid hard to locate at sea, making them the real MAD element you have to worry about.