For more than a month has passed since the sixth of April, when the President of the United States Donald trump gave the order to launch a missile attack on Syrian air base shirt in connection with the accusations against Damascus, which allegedly used chemical weapons in the fight against the Islamists. However, in the “great” political and military operations of the American President from the beginning, to put it mildly, not everything went according to plan. It is well known that of the 59 “Tomahawk” fired from warships in the Mediterranean sea, at least 34 not only achieved the goals but did not reach Syrian territory. What is the fate of more than half of the expensive missiles is likely the Pentagon will not tell never. However, jokes about trump and American forces in blogs and social networks suggest that the “Tomahawk” is back in the White house like a boomerang.
Many believe that Russia could apply the s-400 to protect against American cruise missiles, but that was not necessary. In the wars of the 21st century is increasingly valued high-tech equipment, which is “no use of force” to neutralize enemy vehicles. However, to reflect a large-scale missile strike, which would mean the beginning of an international conflict, Moscow is completing the development of a new system s-500, based not only on the air defense (PVO) or anti-ballistic missile (ABM), and anti-space defense (PKO). The development of this technology will make possible the suppression of low-orbit satellites…
What bothered us experts?
Instead of praising the destruction of several old aircraft on the Syrian air base that within 48 hours, again went to take off, trump has redirected her anger with Bashar al-Assad on another “powerful enemy” — North Korea. But on the Pacific ocean, unlike the Mediterranean, instead of the us cruise missiles there was a threat of North Korean nuclear missiles. Under this pretext, the US President ordered to deliver to the 38th parallel the modern American missile defense system THAAD, which supposedly should protect South Korean military bases (but not the capital city of Seoul) from a nuclear attack, Kim Jong-UN. In fact, it turned out that another element of us missile defense, along with powerful radar, was installed on the border of Russia and China.
But let’s go back to the beginning of this article: what destroyed the Tomahawks trump? This issue has disturbed American military experts especially in light of talk about the fact that some missiles just fell to the ground with no visible signs of exposure to air defense systems. Thus was born the assumption that the majority of launched cruise missiles, an invisible force turned off the tools of targeting and just landed the missiles. Naturally, talking about the Russian system of electronic warfare (EW). Moscow, for decades, have developed this kind of special weapons that best represents the thinking of the Russian engineers, who tend to be basic and cost-effective solutions, unparalleled in the world.
The essence of these technologies in General is still a mystery, but over the years enough has been written about multifunctional aviation complex electronic countermeasures (CRAP) “Khibiny” that can “blind” weapons systems to NATO, including satellites within a radius of 300 kilometers. Most likely, the Russians twice used this system on the su-24 against the American destroyer “Donald cook”, suppressing its missile defense system “aegis”, the pride of the American military-industrial complex. To overcome interference that creates complex “Khibiny”, NATO needs to make great efforts to ensure that their system of communication functioned, in this context, in particular, to resort to repeated duplication of signal and other special measures. It is clear that in conditions of war this can pose a huge problem.
In addition, there is the “Khibiny”, it is known that after the incident with the Russian “Dry”, shot down by the Turks, the Russians have moved on a Syrian airbase Hamim two aircraft Il-20 that the clock flies over a vast territory with a special mission electronic espionage and electronic warfare. In Syria was seen as a mobile complex “Krasuha-4”, which, thanks to the broadband station causes interference in the work of intelligence agents of NATO, including the transfer of data to the satellites, the type of Lacrosse and Onyx, as well as AWACS and Sentinel. According to some reports, Syria placed and best-in-class complex “Borisoglebsk-2” is intended for jamming of mobile satellite communications and navigation equipment, as well as to establish the exact position of the radio source within a radius of 60 kilometers.
And still, most likely, against the American “Tomahawks” have used the latest complex “Lever-AV”, which is a station for creating active interference. This system can be installed on Mi-8 helicopters, and armored vehicles and small ships. “Lever-AV” has its own database about the various military objects, more control systems, and can complement this database, analyze the weapons of the enemy and automatically select the mode of radio emission for the neutralization purpose. This way of building could lead the Tomahawks that were launched from American ships against targets in Syria.
“Green grapes” in the Western version
But against all types of missiles required and “hard power”, which fit perfectly and complemented by a constantly improving systems and electronic warfare against EW. After years of testing, Russia officially announced the appearance in a short time the most powerful weapon — anti-aircraft missile system s-500. Working the concern “Almaz-Antey”, specializing in missile weapons large and super-large range. The commander of aerospace forces (VKS RF), Colonel-General Viktor Bondarev said that his troops will soon receive these complexes. “The newest system s-500 is being developed rapidly, and soon it will go into service in the defense forces,” — said Bondarev. For serial production systems s-400 and s-500 in Nizhny Novgorod was built the new plant, which has invested more than $ 750 million. That s-500 is ready, evidenced by the official start of training professionals to work with this complex on the basis of Military Academy of aerospace defense them. G. K. Zhukov.
The development of mobile system s-500 “Prometheus” began in 2004, design work in three years, and in 2009 was tested long range missiles. The feature of the s-500 in comparison with their predecessors and foreign competitors in that it consists of two systems, and each has its own objective, special rockets and hardware. One segment is responsible for the interception of ballistic targets (PRO), and the second — aerodynamic (AD). This is the difference between s-500 from the us THAAD system, which has only one type of missiles, while s-500 has several. In addition, the probability of destruction of ballistic missiles THAAD is only 10-15%, that is, problems arise when dealing with aerodynamic low-flying targets.
Although in the case of s-500 all these problems are solved much more effectively, Western experts continue to Express in their publications skepticism about the real and the declared capabilities of the new complex. Though they admit that “on paper” the s-500 looks great, but note that you need to wait and see what the practice will show. Of course, it cannot be denied that partly they may be right, but in General we are dealing with the reaction of American experts on the principle of “green grapes”.
In Moscow declare that for the decision of tasks of air defense and missile defense system, the s-500 missiles are different, and there are two different radar (SAR) with active phased antenna array. This technology, the Russians in recent years have been completely mastered. For “Prometheus” and developed three new types of missiles, the most powerful of which (40Н6М) is designed to engage aerodynamic targets, primarily aircraft and cruise missiles and has a range of 600 kilometers, which is three times more than the American THAAD. The maximum altitude reported today up to 100 kilometers.
About the other two missiles (77Н6-N and 77Н6-H1) there are not so many data, but we know that they are designed to defeat ballistic missiles, medium-range and Intercontinental ballistic missiles in the final phase of the flight. However 77Н6-N and 77Н6-H1 can hit and the warhead, independently controlled after separation from the body, including low visibility, effective dissipation area not exceeding 0.1 square meter. The most important point is that s-500 can intercept even the targets that are moving at speeds of up to seven thousand meters per second, more than 25 thousand kilometers per hour.
Missiles used in “Prometheus”, can achieve half that speed, i.e. 3.6 thousand meters per second, which is three times higher than that of THAAD. Missiles of this system is flying at a speed less than a thousand meters per second. With all of these figures creates the impression that Russia wants to produce complexes that could disarm the most modern hypersonic cruise missiles, including those which she now designs. And which other countries, including the United States, in the foreseeable future — as well as missile defense systems to counter them. It follows that these projects will require a lot of time and even more money to implement them fully. Talking about technologies of the future, and so far no country in the world there is no sufficient intellectual and material basis for mass equipment of the army with similar weapons. However, in recent years Russia has made some significant steps in this direction, ahead of the Americans in some segments by more than ten years. Apparently, it is not just the arms race, and the struggle for total technological dominance, which the world has never seen.
An important difference
Many of the details in connection with the “Prometheus” remain unknown. From open sources it is clear that the complex detects and calculates the trajectory of ballistic missiles at a distance of two thousand kilometers, and warheads with ESR less than 0.1 square meter after separation — a distance of 1300 kilometers. The detection range of aerodynamic targets, aircraft and cruise missiles (subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic) is 800 kilometers. Data about the maximum number of simultaneously accompanied and fired purposes, however, one way or another, this number is greater than s-400. That is, at the same time the complex may be accompanied by more than 20 goals and fire 10 more. These figures must be multiplied by 8: so many battle machines combined into a single system managed from a single command post.
An important difference With 500- application communication systems sixth generation, which exclude the probability of intercept and not sensitive to external interference. “Prometheus” has its own electronic warfare system, located on a huge mobile platforms to effectively neutralize anti-radar missiles. However, the rocket complex With-500 is equipped with equipment of electronic warfare suppression of targeted goals. This kind of philosophy, which is guided by Russian engineers, recalls a long line of dolls: the one who wants to attack and break defense, show that for every action there is a reaction. In favor of this interpretation and the clear intention to make the C-500 is the largest external “matryoshka”, which is located inside the small and weaker systems: s-400, s-300, “Armour-S” and others, such as the EW equipment and BPRB. All together, with the support of aircraft of the fifth generation and a range of new cruise and Intercontinental missiles, they are able to break through the American missile defense system and to ward off potential opponent from even the thought of a possible sudden attack.
The greatness and tragedy of the Russian people, who has to constantly keep in mind the idea that in case of military or any other conflict he will have to confront the world. The fact that it’s not paranoia became particularly evident in the 90-ies, when Moscow began to disarm unilaterally and withdraw troops to appease Western “friends” and to demonstrate their peaceful intentions. But instead to assess these actions and to disarm also, as promised, the Western “friends” continued to encircle Russia and at the same time geographically and economically to limit it. Russia suffered more than a decade, but then the policy of threats, blackmail, humiliation and disrespect Russia’s interests naturally contributed to the rise in the Kremlin of Vladimir Putin. And with it, the C-500…
