SOCHere are some of my favorite Phantom II photos that I have taken at various locations around the United States.
SOCRussia has had ABM capabilities for over 40 years:
You think I don’t know that?
http://geimint.blogspot.com/2007/06/russian-strategic-defense-part-2-abm.html
I was commenting specifically on the S-400 and S-500. Between those two systems, the S-500 is the one which is being discussed as an ATBM/ABM/ASAT system with exoatmospheric intercept capability.
No need to quote Russian defense history to me.
1. “Over the past decade, Russia has deployed thousands of S-300V and Antey-2500 missiles around its key military and industrial complexes. In addition, it has exported these systems throughout Asia, Europe, and the Middle East as a means of financing its ailing economy in the wake of the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse. According to Aviation Week & Space Technology, “in the worldwide competition to sell ballistic missile defense systems, the Russian Antey Corp.’s S-300V is a main contender.”(8) The advantage for buyers of Russian surface-to-air missiles is that, unlike buying from the U.S., there are no political strings attached and, more often than not, the weapons are significantly cheaper than their U.S. counterparts”
http://www.missilethreat.com/missiledefensesystems/id.51/system_detail.asp
1. S-300Vs are assigned to four or five garrisons, with one in Armenia. They weren’t deployed all over the nation, that wasn’t their purpose. They were designed as tactical SAM systems providing umbrella air defense against anything from a low-RCS target to a Pershing-II class TBM.
2. The system has been offered, but never exported, as that website claims.
3. No Antey-2500 will ever see service in Russia. That is an export variant of the improved S-300VM. People really need to get their designators straight (not you personally, but the websites people quote all the time).
SOCMATV isn’t necesarily such a big deal with high off-boresight AAMs and HMS systems.
SOCSince we’re on the topic of the Su-47 and rotary launchers…
So, I’m guessing that Sukhoi has considered rotary launchers before; was the Su-47 intended to have rotary launchers or is this just a fan/book drawing?
EDIT: I’m not familiar with rotary launchers; what advantages would they have to standard internal weapons bays like the F-22? Seems like a lot of space would be taken up by the rotary launcher itself; space that could be used to hold more missiles/bombs.
That’s just a speculative drawing. I’m not sure they’ve sized the R-33s right, for one!
SOCS-500 has to be exoatmospheric if they want to hit a satellite with it. That also implies a GBI type of system. We’ll have to wait a bit to get more information as it develops.
SOCThe 40N6 may have ATBM capability like the 48N6 series, but the new ABM/ASAT type weapon will be found in the S-500. Think of the S-500 as an S-300V on steroids designed for integration into the national IADS rather than tactical deployment.
SOCI’m not sure the S-500 even exists at this point beyond the drawing board.
It’s being developed but it hasn’t yet progressed to the hardware stage.
The S-4000 is the interim modification of the s-400 missile defense utilizing the 40N6 missile. (Every subsequent system is designed around using new fire control and command bunkers with older missiles until the newer missiles come online.) For a missile that can be directed 400 km down range they wanted a unified search and tracking system of 600km tied into their missile command center, otherwise what was the point of 40N6? This radar capability just recently came online around Moscow and its only half a decade later than originally envisioned. The Russians aren’t really doing all that bad for the amount of money perennially in their budget.
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.
So although the s-400 could use S-300PMU-1 and S-300PMU-2 – as well as the 9a82, 9a83, 9a84, and 9a93 – it was this time made to use the newer missile (9m96) with the older s-300 system. So in that respect it wasn’t just backwards compatible with the missiles but the newer missiles could be back fitted to a good chunk of the older tel’s and command centers.
The S-400 doesn’t use the S-300V’s weapons. That assumption came from a misinterpretation of the Samoderzhets research program.
The missiles of the “System 400”, 9M96E1 and 9M96E3, are smaller than their predecessors just like the Patriot PAC-3 was much smaller.
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.
And, star49, the S-300PMU-2 is a missile unlike S-400, which is a concept of mating missiles to fire control.
S-300PMU-2 was an upgrade of the S-300PMU-1. It employs not only the 9M96 series but the 48N6D/48N6E2 with increased range to 200 kilometers.
They are basically making a mobile ABM element in their air defenses by adding the 40N6.
The new ABM-capable system will be the S-500. The 40N6 is designed to hit ISR aircraft operating well behind the FEBA.
SOCExcept neither the Foxbat nor the Foxhound are chasers when it comes to the SR-71. There is nothing for the SR-71 to see at the border they haven’t already seen. An SR-71 that violates Soviet airspace will want a nice deep look into the Soviet territory… not another flight along the edges.
They continuously monitored the border areas for obvious reasons, to watch for troop buildups or new deployments. You don’t take a picture and then assume that the area will not change over time.
It never flew over the WP because they were afraid it would be shot down too. Why else would they impose a rule on themselves that prevented them from flying into Soviet airspace on recon missions. It can only be for the purpose of self preservation.
That restriction was in place long before even the A-12 flew (around June of 1960). At the time there was no weapon that was going to threaten the Blackbird.
SOCJust thought I’d point out that the reason that the underside shots taken early on do not show serrated or sawtooth doors is because if you look closely, there has been an additional fairing added to the underside of the Berkut.
SOCMore amusing pages from the document sferrin posted below.
And please, quit it with all of the “it never overflew the WP because they were afraid” crap. Once Powers was shot down, manned overflights of the WP were pretty much done for. The U-2 quit (duh), and the Blackbird never got the chance to do what it was designed to do, replace the U-2 over the WP. The Blackbirds did fly within lethal range of MiG-25 and MiG-31 units (if they didn’t, then Russian pilots are lying when they claim that MiG-25s got “ready to fire” indicators and that they saw Blackbirds from the cockpit of a MiG-31). They also flew within range of WP SA-5 sites. That was often done on purpose to get the sites to fire up the radars for the ELINT gear to record. National boundaries or airspace boundaries were not violated, though. At the time nobody wanted to risk an aircraft going down for whatever reason, be it mechanical failure or shootdown, because that’d open a can of worms nobody wanted to deal with after FGP. Plus, new sensors like SLAR made it possible for the Blackbird to fly border routes and still gather useful information. And the advent of newer satellites made it possible to get the overhead imagery from targets of interest deep inside the WP without risking an illegal manned overflight.
SOCYou missed the point entirely, much the same way that the Turkey crews missed the Iraqi jets.
Sorry, couldn’t resist 😀
SOCWhy try to protect RAM formulas when it can be bought from companies in nearly a dozen different countries around the world? (US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia)
Oh man, where do I start. The formula that you use to make the RAM coating is only a tiny piece of the puzzle which makes RAM effective. Let’s say that you found out that RAM was made out of charcoal and llama poop. Mixing up your own batch of RAM and coating a jet with it is going to have a significant effect on your jet’s weight, but not really a major effect on the RCS. You need to know EXACTLY how it is applied to make it effective. Literally. In fact, I’d wager that a schematic depicting the cross-section of a RAM coating on the F-35 would tell you a lot more than the formula for said F-35 RAM.
US Jews vote Democrat 90% of the time, so politicians like Obambi and Hitlery pay attention to them.
My point was that the United States owes nothing to the state of Israel. You seemed to be suggesting that the USA had an obligation to aid Israel for some reason. There is no reason that we should feel that we have to give them something (leaving asinine domestic US politics out of it, of course). Nor should any other nation, for that matter. You all can take that statement and run with it as you see fit…
SOCThe Mig-25 has the record for the highest altitude… about 30km. The Mig-31 can’t fly that high, but then neither can the SR-71.
And neither can a service-configured MiG-25, for that matter!
The Mig-25 upgraded after Belenkos defection would be able to intercept the SR-71 reliably. Its avionics and missiles were both upgraded at that time… it was a fleet wide upgrade.
The Mig-31 should therefore also be able to intercept the SR-71 as it has even better missiles.
Not necessarily. The MiG-31 was optimised for the intercept of low-altitude, low-RCS targets like cruise missiles. Beyond that, newer isn’t always better. Otherwise, the F-14 would have actually hit things with the AIM-54 in DESERT STORM.
the SR-71 wouldn’t know what hit them… it has no air intercept radar…
You are assuming that the insane ELINT kit on the Blackbird was not able to detect any GCI signals, any GCI-MiG-25P transmissions, etc…
SOCA mistake only a fanboy could make :rolleyes:
Well it’s not THAT far off, actually…the F110 in the F-15K is based on the F101’s core.
😀
SOCBut Jesse the genius thinks that the Russians will situate their SAMS a long way from all the things an F-22 will want to fly to to kill.
Please, look at my GE SAM file and you’ll see that the Russians have SAM sites EVERYWHERE. Not all of them are currently active, but empty S-300P series sites can be found all over the place just waiting for batteries to be deployed. That being said, there are a lot of spaces which are militarily interesting that lack a lot of air defense assets in the area. Probably because the Russians rightly assume that if anything gets that far it deserves the right to blow stuff up, I’d guess. It’s getting that far that is damn near out of the question.
Hahaha… come on! A subsonic plane that can only fly at night? It would have to avoid any East German Mig-29s with their IRST.
They flew at night to keep them from being spotted visually. And the F-117 had a very low IR signature, due to both the subsonic speeds and the exhaust design. The only things that would have been large threats to the jet would have been S-300Ps and S-300Vs, but there weren’t that many of them outside of the USSR proper during the Cold War. They could easily have been sent to the front if a war came about, but if I’m the Soviet Defense Minister in, say, 1987, I keep them inside of the USSR to deter deep strikes against the supply lines and probably more importantly my BACKFIRE units, which would likely have raised major hell in the North Atlantic. Besides, I’ve got enough tanks to pretty much drive to the beaches of Portugal, so why risk my most effective SAMs when they aren’t needed and are better served defending against NATO and US aircraft which are going to start escalating things once their owners start becoming thoroughly irate at the fact that I keep pouring tanks into Germany and there isn’t a thing they can do to stop me short of either going nuclear or trying to take out Moscow :diablo:
It is sad that the US no longer knows what a real air defence network really is.
No, the problem is when morons spout off about the overwhelming nature of air defenses in places like 1990 Iraq and the FRY. Then people assume that decimating those places in pitifully short order means something across the board, which it doesn’t. Making Iraq and the FRY’s air defenses look like they were manned by overwhelming idiots and resembling swiss cheese has absolutely nothing to do with facing an actual modern air defense network. A bunch of SA-2s and AAA around Baghdad is a huge joke to an air planner. The issue becomes when uneducated commentators declare that this is a nasty place, and that getting through there with relative impunity means that the rest of the world is open sky. Iraq did have a national IADS, but it was a poorly equipped IADS. Trust me, the USAF is aware of what makes an IADS and also what makes an IADS a genuine threat. Those would be Russian-made SAM systems of the double-digit variety.
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