The above is inaccurate. As per wikipedia, a Buk battalion consists of 6 TELARs. But a battery consists of 2 TELARs only. So, the total number of batteries in a batallion is unclear.

In case of Akash, a batallion can consist of 4 batteries, and each battery consists of 4 TELAR equivalents. So, the total TELARs in a batallion is 16.

Besides, Akash has been perfected upto as late as 2006, whereas Buk has had the same configuration since mid-1990s. The range of Akash is 27 kms, and max. altitude is 15 kms.

Wikipedia? Seriously? Russian (i.e. the people who built it, not the people who have never seen it) export information describes the Buk system as possessing six TELARs controlled by an engagement radar and associated components. A brigade control unit can control up to four of those systems. If you want to place two TELARs per battery, or treat the system as a whole as a single battery, its up to the user, although Jane’s Land-based Air Defence claims that the battery is composed of the SNOW DRIFT radar and the 6 TELARs.

Buk-M1-2 system with the 9M317 missile has a range capability of between 3 and 42 kilometers, and an altitude capability of between 0.015 and 25 kilometers. Still failing to see how Akash is superior. It might fit India’s needs or budgetary restrictions or whatever better, but in terms of capabilities the Akash is not superior to the Buk-M1, Buk-M1-2, Buk-M2, or Buk-M3.

“India didn’t buy it so Akash has to be superior” is not a valid argument. Nations don’t necessarily buy the most expensive or most sophisticated weapon systems, they buy what they need, what they can afford, and what fits their requirements.

Buk has a surveillance radar, a detection radar called Snow leopard (which operates at battery level), and a Target Acquisition Radar (TAR), which is on each TEL. The Akash has a Target Acquisition Radar for each battery, and NOT for each TEL. Each TEL of Buk as well as Akash have 4 missiles ready to fire.

So, initially it may appear that a Battery of Buk can engage more targets than a battery of Akash. But herein lies the difference :- A Buk battery consists of only 2 TELs, whereas an Akash battery consists of 4 TELs. In Buk, each TEL specific TAR guides 3 missiles to each target. So, each battery can engage only 2 targets at a time. But in Akash, the battery specific TAR can guide 2 missiles from each TEL to a target. This means 4 targets can be engaged simultaneously by each battery.

Thus, Akash is a superior system at the battery level than the Buk. The Indian Army has finally made a “sane” choice by ordering the Akash, instead of importing yet another Russian or Israeli SAM.

Buk batteries can be composed of up to six TELARs. That’s six targets per battery, and I’m pretty sure its only two missiles per target, which is usually basic Russian firing doctrine regardless of the system.

Based on your logic, Buk is superior at battery level. For a more logical comparison, have any hard figures been released about Akash’s range and altitude capability?

I think the 1.44 was the same way-built at MiG’s workshop, then sent ot Zhukovskiy for flight testing. Although it makes no sense to do it this way with the T-50; what’s wrong with a maiden flight out of the way at KnAAPO? If it were to crash due to, say, FCS problems or something, it’d be easier to move on without all of the attention. On the other hand pretty much all of the combat aircraft prototypes fly out of Zhukovskiy, so it does make sense in that regard.

The S-300VM will be superseded by the now in development S-500 system.

The S-500 is not an S-300V follow-on system. It’s a new generation system designed to work with the S-400, acting as an ABM and ASAT system while the S-400 deals with airborne threats.

New bytes of information on the A-135.

Old data. The GORGON has been retired and the GAZELLE no longer uses a nuclear warhead.

S-500 is a developmental system. While it might build off of the S-300VM, it will not be a simple upgrade. This will be a new beast tailored for missile defense and ASAT work, meaning it will in fact be basically a mobile ABM system.

One broke up at an airshow.
I beleive a second also crashed and somepoint, ending its commercial career.
What is widely know is:

It didn’t fly in comercial service for long.
It didn’t fly in postal service for long either.
Has been grounded for many, many years.

Does this sound like a well engineered and successfull plane to you?

77102 crashed at Paris, but this is because the pilot, for whatever reason you believe (and there are a lot of theories) overstressed the airframe pulling out of a dive.

77111 crashed during a test flight because of a faulty fuel line which caused a fire. The defective fuel line caused a leak, and when the pilot started the APU in-flight as part of the trials for the day, a fire started. This was the first Tu-144D, the developed model with non-afterburning RD-36-51A engines giving better range.

Postal service was intended as a route proving capability and an extension of the long-distance flight trials. The Tu-144 was therefore earning revenue before Concorde, by the way.

The flights from Moscow to Kazakhstan were ended after about a year or so because Aeroflot wasn’t keen on waiting for the D model, and the international oil crisis was beginning to impact their operations as well at that point. A good portion of their plans for the jet were to fly reciprocal routes internationally through Europe and the Far East. As other airlines backed out of the SST business, a lot of those options dried up, and Aeroflot was left holding the bag. Plus, there was an anti-SST lobby within the USSR as well. They used the crash of the D model as an excuse to deride the program as unsafe, which was little more than propaganda.

There is nothing to suggest that the aircraft design itself was a technical failure, other than the fact that the Tu-144 series model didn’t have quite the range envisioned, but the D model would have solved that with room to spare. The Paris crash was a result of circumstances that would have seen any other civil-rated airframe break apart just as easily, not a design flaw of a supersonic transport. Now, Aeroflot could’ve kept the jet in service for its useable lifetime to satisfy the curiosity of naysayers around the globe like yourself, but why should they have done that? It was expensive, it only really made sense for very long distance routes, and its international options disappeared as fast as potential Concorde sales.

The Tu-144 did have faults, but find me a perfect aircraft. Or at least find any evidence to suggest that the jet was not well engineered or was not successful in carrying out the tasks it was given to perform. Economics finally killed it in the USSR, not a lack of ability.

You’ll need a lot more than two. One S-300PM battery can engage six targets at once, so you’ll need at least seven missiles to saturate it. That is assuming that missile 7 hits the site before any of missiles 1-6 are shot down, allowing missile 7 to be engaged.

SA-10/-12/-20 are all tough nuts to crack due to the output power of Big Bird target acquisition radar and Flap Lid/Tombstone/Gravestone target tracking radars.

Except that none of those radars are used by the S-300V (SA-12)…it uses BILL BOARD for TA, GRILL PAN for TT, and HIGH SCREEN for TBM sector scanning.