ON THE GALOPING TENDENCY OF EXCEEDING THE OPERATIONAL-STRATEGIC SITUATION ON THE WESTERN APPROACHES TO RUSSIA
Through a thick veil of alarming and sometimes tragic events that have befallen our people since February 2018, the scenario of that final round, the foundation of which has been prepared by our overseas and Western European "partners" since April 4, 1946, when she saved the world from fascism, is beginning to be seen more and more clearly The superpower was immediately opposed by the largest military-political bloc in modern military history - the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which reformatted the post-war world in the field of pre-escalation tension and absurdity that we have been observing for 72 years. To date, the European Command of the US Armed Forces, as well as the Strategic Command of Operations of the Joint Armed Forces of NATO (the structure of the latter includes most of the General Staff of the armies of the Western European countries of the alliance) have practically completed the formation of shock "fists" in several operational directions at once, including the Black Sea, Baltic and Karelian. The main air components for conducting a strategic aerospace offensive operation against military-industrial facilities and air defense systems of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the Southern and Western military districts today are:
- 52nd US Air Force Tactical Fighter Wing; has experience in operational transfer from the German Spangdal airbase to the Polish Aviation Base Redzikovo and is represented by a squadron of 25 F-16C / D Block 50, as well as 2 AN / TPS-75 Tipsi early warning radars for more efficient performance of tasks to conquer air superiority and control of tactical air conditions; also specializes in the tasks of suppressing air defense and destroying strategically important ground targets of the enemy using anti-radar missiles AGM-88E AARGM and AGM-158B JASSM-ER, respectively;
- 48th US Air Force Tactical Fighter Wing in Lukenhaes, represented by two squadrons of modernized tactical fighters F-15E "Strike Eagle", which recently received the ability to use all the same long-range air-to-ground missiles JASSM-ER and have long been adapted to the use of tactical missiles AGM-84H SLAM-ER, equipped with an advanced anti-jamming IKGSN, using the correlation method of targeting ATA ("Atomatic Tagerting Acquisition"), characterized by increased noise immunity, which forces the maximum saturation of tank and motorized rifle units with military self-propelled air defense systems of a new generation and active protection complexes, because the "equipment" SLAM-ER provides for the use of adjoining combat elements BAT;
- 2nd tactical wing of the Polish Air Force, consisting of 36 advanced multipurpose fighters F-16C Block 52+ and 12 two-seater vehicles of a similar version of the F-16D Block 52+, deployed simultaneously at 2 air bases (Poznan and Lask); in the first half of the 1920s, these vehicles will receive 70 AGM-158B extended-range cruise missiles through Foreign Military Sales (FMS) from the US Defense Cooperation Agency (DSCA); In January 2017, the first JASSM variants with a range of 370 km entered service with the 31st tactical air base in Poznan.
The aforementioned elements of the NATO Joint Air Force are not the only components in the considered massive missile strike on our military, energy and industrial infrastructures. It is also considering the use of American destroyers URO class "Arleigh Burke", "loaded" with ammunition RGM-109E "Tomahawk Block IV", as well as strike modifications of nuclear submarines "Ohio" - SSGN, equipped with ammunition from 154 strategic cruise missiles "Tomahawk" each. And this is only a small part of those air attack weapons that the NATO Allied Forces can use in the event of an escalation of a regional conflict with Russia, because there is also the German Air Force, which is armed with Typhoon multipurpose fighters equipped with high-precision cruise missiles KEPD 350 TAURUS. The upcoming attempt at aggression by the North Atlantic Alliance is also seen in the "pumping" of the Eastern European conventional theater of operations with ground-based missile defense systems to parry a retaliatory strike with Kh-101 and 3M14K / T missiles from the Russian Navy and Aerospace Forces.
The most unpleasant moment here is that, for example, the Romanian Ministry of Defense signed a 9 billion contract with US companies Raytheon and Lockheed Martin 3 for the purchase of 7 Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile systems and 168 MIM interceptor missiles. 104F as ammunition. These anti-aircraft guided missiles are equipped with an active millimeter Ka-range radar homing head, in connection with which the Kh-101 cruise missiles that have broken through into the airspace of NATO countries can be intercepted even outside the radio horizon; after all, target designation is received not only from the battery command and control center, but also from third-party airborne AWACS equipment via the Link-16 radio channel. In the 9M82MV long-range anti-aircraft missiles (S-300V4 complex), the implementation of work on over-the-horizon targets with third-party target designation is theoretically possible, in practice it has not been confirmed, which can be said about the 9M96E / E2 missiles of the S-400 complex.
HOW HEL HAAVIR ON THE SYRIAN air defense "HEADED" …
If in the European theater of military operations our defensive potential is only "probed" during the frequent reconnaissance flights of the Global Hawks and the strategic RER RC-135V / W "Rivet Joint" aircraft, giving the VKS command time to take countermeasures, then in the Middle East theater of operations The aerospace forces of Russia and friendly units of the Syrian army are tested for their effectiveness in crisis situations "in full," and not with the help of intelligence tools, but by aggressive forceful methods. One of such incidents can be considered the recent massive missile and aviation strike of the Israeli Air Force (Hel Haavir) on strategically important objects of the Syrian Arab Army (including the T4 airbase, where the Iranian air wing of UAVs is deployed, which at one time took part in the optical-electronic reconnaissance of the formations IS), subdivisions of the Hezbollah movement, as well as the objects of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
This is far from the first air strike operation of the Israeli tactical fighters F-16I "Sufa" and F-15I "Ra`am" against the government forces of Syria and the IRGC units deployed to fight the pseudo-caliphate, because in the summer of 2016, during the International Herzliya Conference, The head of Israel's military intelligence, Major General Herzi Halevi, pointed to the indisputable advantages for Tel Aviv from the actions of ISIS in Syria, while any of the most combat-ready Iranian and pro-Iranian forces (the IRGC and Hezbollah) only accelerated the fall of the ISIS enclaves. Despite the fact that there were no massive missile attacks on Israeli territory with Fatech-110 and Fatech-313 missiles from the IRGC in Syria, Tel Aviv was the first to resort to and is resorting to the tactics of provocative strikes, and this time seriously miscalculated.
In response to the alleged violation of Israel's northern air border by an Iranian UAV, which was shot down by the Apache Hel Haavir attack helicopter on February 10, two flights of F-16I Sufa multi-role fighters (8 aircraft) entered the missile launch line at targets in Syria. standard clever tactics (using the airspace over the mountain ranges of the Anti-Lebanon), while brazenly invading Syrian airspace near Damascus and Palmyra. Obviously, the calculation was made on the fact that the channel of divisional radar tracking and guidance systems Buk-M1 / 2E, S-125 Pechora-2M, S-200 and Pantsir-S1 will be critically overloaded by several dozen launched from suspension F-16I high-precision weapons, and the process of "tying target trails - capture" in the literal sense of the word "lie" against the background of the operation of the electronic warfare systems installed on the "Sufah". As a result, the Israeli pilots expected a complete demoralization of the Syrian air defense missile systems, expecting that on the radar indicators of the 9S35M1 / 2, SNR-125M, 5N62V, as well as the 1PC2-1E "Helmet", instead of target markers, only anti-overlays and glare from those set by electronic warfare would be visible jamming fighters. But later it turned out that they were very wrong!
Apparently, feeling themselves masters of the situation in the Syrian sky, the pilots of the Israeli F-16I "Sufa" decided not to adhere to the main rule of air operations of the XXI century over territories with developed anti-aircraft / anti-missile zones A2 / AD - low-altitude flights in the mode of following the terrain. It is possible that this decision was made in connection with fears of falling into the range of the Syrian anti-aircraft artillery and MANPADS (I remembered the lesson on November 20, 1983, when Kfir C.2 was intercepted by means of an anti-aircraft artillery complex). This time, the Israelis completely entrusted their fate to the on-board complex REP and individual protection SPJ-40 "Elisra", the modern all-round radiation warning station (SPS) SPS-3000, as well as the complex for detecting attacking IR-range missiles PAWS-2, which should detect the launch of most types of missiles by radiation from flares of burning solid propellant or liquid charges. Naturally, the range of direction finding of a launched rocket by means of PAWS-2 (photo below) depends mainly on the thrust and radiation of its engine.
According to numerous Syrian and Israeli sources, one of the vehicles was intercepted after the completion of the first massive missile and air strike (MRAU). The impact of a powerful high-explosive fragmentation warhead was in the rear hemisphere of the F-16I (on a catch-up course), at the time of leaving the Syrian airspace (over the Golan). And, relying on numerous photographs of eyewitnesses, which captured the "burnt out" booster stages of 5V27 anti-aircraft guided missiles and the wreckage of the 3M9 missile defense system, the destruction of the fighter was carried out either by the upgraded S-125 Pechora-2 anti-aircraft missile system, or by the Cube complex ("Square").
The use of the S-200V is also confirmed, since the central segment of the 5V28 anti-aircraft missile was also found on the ground, but the Sufa was shot down by one of the above complexes, since it was able to overcome more than 100 km, taking into account a single-engine power plant with much less survivability than twin-engine in the F-15I. The 5V28 anti-aircraft missile is equipped with a powerful 217-kilogram high-explosive fragmentation warhead with a 120-degree spread angle of 37,000 striking elements, which would completely riddled the nacelle and the entire F-16I "Sufa" glider, turning it into a pile of metal, but the vehicle survived and was able to deliver pilots all the way to the area of kibbutz Harduf. It is obvious that either a 72-kilogram warhead of the 5V27 interceptor missile (Pechora-2 complex) or a 57-kilogram warhead 3N12 of the 3M9 anti-aircraft missile (the Cube military complex) exploded next to the fighter.
An even more interesting detail of what happened in the sky over the western part of the province of Damascus is that the Israeli F-16I was intercepted not at the extreme boundary of the Pechora or Cuba range of 15-23 km, but at a distance of 8 to 12 km. because on the catch-up course (taking into account that the missiles are not so high-speed: 2M for 3M9 and 2, 3M for 5V27) only such a range could be achieved. Consequently, favorable conditions developed for the PAWS-2 onboard complex for detecting attacking missiles: the torch of a launching anti-aircraft missile could be detected literally instantly, but the effectiveness of IR sensors left much to be desired. The SPS-3000 irradiation warning station, which either failed to notify the F-16I crew of the capture of their fighter by means of the Pechora or Cuba illumination radar, was also completely incapacitated, or the missile was guided according to the data of the optical-electronic sighting device in passive mode. preventing the SPS-3000 from locating the fact of the complex's firing.
As you can see, there are complex technological problems of the airborne defense complex (BKO) of the F-16I "Sufa" fighters, which led to the failure of the crew to perform an early anti-missile maneuver. Representatives of the Israeli means tried to neatly bypass the sharp corners in this situation, saying that it was the wrong configuration of the use of onboard electronic warfare equipment during the first airstrike to blame. But how could the most technologically advanced and experienced air force in the region allow this? After all, the development of tactics for breaking through air defense means in Hel Haavir has been going on since the time of the operation to destroy the Iraqi nuclear reactor "Osirak"; Moreover, before the recent operation in Hel Haavir, they were well aware of the structure and technological qualities of the updated air defense of Syria. But that's not the most interesting part.
During the first massive missile and air strike on military targets in the Syrian Arab Republic, the F-16I "Sufa" Hel Haavir units used at least 26 tactical air-to-ground missiles with an effective reflective surface within 0.05 m2. And, despite the fact that the Elisra SPJ-40 electronic countermeasures on board the F-16I were probably activated, the Syrian air and missile defense systems were able to destroy 19 of them. Here, all the merits can be safely attributed to the Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile and artillery systems, which cover the “dead zones” of the Pechora and Kvadratov. These complexes, equipped not only with X-band guidance radars 1PC2-1E "Helmet", but also with autonomous optoelectronic modules 10ES1-E infrared and television sighting ranges, allow to destroy high-precision enemy weapons with EPR up to 0.01-0.02 kV … even in the most complex jamming installation (when using electronic warfare aircraft EA-18G "Growler", etc.). It is not difficult to guess what the F-16I tactical fighters will face in a collision with the more formidable S-300V4 air defense systems.
