Back in 2014-2015, during the final phase of establishing the sovereignty of the Russian Federation over Crimea, a full-fledged mixed grouping of forces was quickly deployed to the peninsula, the "backbone" of which were: airborne units, fighter squadrons, consolidated into the 38th fighter aviation regiment, represented by such vehicles such as the Su-27P, Su-27SM3, Su-30M2 and Su-27UB, as well as anti-aircraft missile brigades based on the long-range air defense missile systems of the S-300PS and S-300PM1 complexes. These weapons ensured complete safety against the backdrop of a possible missile and air strike of the Armed Forces of Ukraine by means of the surviving Su-24M fighter-bombers, Su-25 attack aircraft, as well as the 9K79-1 Tochka-U and 9K72 Elbrus operational-tactical missile systems. The risk of the use of these weapons by the new illegitimate and inadequate Ukrainian leadership was very high even then. To counteract the possible aggression of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the land theater of operations, an impressive grouping of the Russian Army, equipped with 9K123 Chrysanthemum-S self-propelled anti-tank missile systems, was transferred to the northern regions of the Republic of Crimea.
These complexes, regardless of the meteorological situation (in Crimea, it can be very unfavorable) make it possible to fire at enemy armored vehicles at a distance of up to 6000 m in rain, fog, and snow, which is achieved through the use of an additional anti-tank guided missile 9M123 -2 equipped with a radio command control module. Armored units of the Ukrainian military formations in this case did not have and have absolutely no chance of a "breakthrough" in the area of Armyansk or Predmostnoye.
Today we will try to consider in more detail the capabilities of the air / anti-missile defense systems that have installed over the Republic of Crimea a fairly powerful aerospace "dome" of restricting and denying access and maneuver A2 / AD for high-precision weapons of the enemy. The "hot" summer of 2014 abounded as much as possible with various information regarding the S-300PS and S-300PM1 anti-aircraft missile battalions being transferred to the Crimea. Some sources talked about 5 or more complexes (batteries), others - about 20-30 divisions! Given the large number of missile-hazardous air directions for Crimea (all except the eastern one), the latter can be considered more adequate figures. In 2016, the range of air defense-missile defense systems of the Russian Aerospace Forces in Crimea began to expand. So, in August 2016, the first two S-400 Triumph ultra-long-range anti-aircraft missile battalions entered service with the 18th anti-aircraft missile regiment of the 31st Air Defense Division (Feodosia). From that moment on, the anti-aircraft lines of the Crimea were 250 km from the coast. Why not 400 km? We remind you that the 40N6 ultra-long-range interceptor missile has not been accepted into the Triumphs set at the moment, and the modernized 48N6DM missile has a range of only 250 km.
The next (unofficial) stage of updating the air defense-missile defense group was the arrival in the Republic of Crimea of the more highly specialized and "tenacious" military anti-aircraft missile system S-300V4. Information about this was published on November 29, 2016, on the Kerch web resource kerch.com.ru. On the attached amateur video material, you can pay attention to the presence of one of the main elements of the modernized "Antey" - the 9S19M2 "Ginger" program review radar, designed to detect and track complex aerodynamic and ballistic objects with a minimum RCS of the order of 0.02 m2, as well as a quad launcher 9A83 for "light" medium-range missiles 9M83M with an integrated X-band target illumination radar, located on a movable mast about 15 m high. Most likely, the C-300V4 battery was transferred from the 77th a separate anti-aircraft missile brigade of the Southern Military District, deployed in the city of Korenovsk (Krasnodar Territory). The arrival of Antey was not spontaneous, but was directly related to the firing practice of the Ukrainian S-300PS air defense systems in the Kherson region, because the 5V55R anti-aircraft missiles could pose a direct threat to military facilities and the population of the Republic of Crimea.
The deployment in Crimea of the S-300V4 battery, in addition to the S-400 Triumph and S-300PM1 already available near Feodosia and Sevastopol, is one of the most important stages in the formation of a fundamentally more advanced layered anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense system on the southwestern air approaches to the Southern Military District. the district. Only this anti-aircraft missile system, which is in service with the Ground and Aerospace Forces of Russia, for the first time received the 9M82MV ultra-long-range high-speed anti-aircraft guided missile, which has a maximum flight speed of 9750 km / h, an interception height of about 50-60 km and a range of 350 km, which is currently unrealizable by means of the S-400 "Triumph". Moreover, unlike the semi-active radar missiles 48N6DM (the S-400 ammunition did not include 9M96E2 missiles with active radar homing heads), the 9M82MV interceptors received ARGSN, which made it possible to destroy highly maneuverable and "complex" air objects "diving" beyond the "screen" of the terrain or radio horizon, going beyond the view of the 9S15M2 Obzor-3 RLO, the Ginger software radar, as well as the RPN located on the S-300V4 launchers.
Such a guidance principle ideally corresponds to the rather difficult relief of the southern coast of Crimea, where a large number of hills, mountain ranges and massifs are a critical problem for the semi-active radar guidance system currently used in the S-400 Triumph air defense system. Nevertheless, one more extremely unpleasant moment can be traced here: due to the large dimensions of the 9M82MV interceptor missiles, their number on each 2A82 launcher is limited to 2 units. Consequently, in the composition of one battery and one battalion there are only 4 and 16 9M82MV anti-aircraft missiles, respectively. Whether this amount is enough or not, it is not for us to decide, but for the specialists from the command of the Aerospace Forces and the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. But we can definitely say that to repel a massive missile strike using a couple of hundred strategic UGM / RGM-109E "Tomahawk Block IV", AGM-86 ALCM and long-range tactical missiles AGM-158B, this will not be enough. And this is just one full salvo of the Arleigh Burke-class URO destroyer and the Ohio-class strategic missile submarine attack modification (SSGN), 22 silo launchers of which have been adapted to use 154 Tomahawks instead of Trident-2D5 SLBMs.
Certainly, a large percentage of the enemy's low-flying strategic missiles will be intercepted by the S-300 PM-1 / S-400 complexes even before they cross the line of the southern coast of Crimea. But given that the shelling will begin only from a distance of 38 - 55 km (based on the height of the 40V6MD universal tower and the height of the deployed battalion above sea level), it will be unrealistic to intercept all the Axes with three or four Chetyrehsotka divisions without 9M96E2 missiles, especially when their entry RGMs into the mountainous terrain of the Crimea. Relying on an excessive share of jingoistic patriotism, one can assert as much as one wants that this opinion has been sucked out of the thumb by the author's sick fantasy. Meanwhile, the real situation with the attack on the Shayrat airbase is an ironclad confirmation of all of the above. And this is only 200 "Axes" as an example, while a full-fledged strike by the NATO Navy can be accompanied by the launch of 300 or more cruise and anti-radar missiles.
By the way, it would be logical to note here the close connection between measures to increase the defense capability of the Russian forces in Crimea and the agreement with Cairo on the provision of Egyptian air bases for the deployment of military aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces. In the course of a probable regional conflict between the North Atlantic Alliance and the Russian Federation, the tactical and anti-submarine aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Navy, based on Egyptian military airfields, will become a powerful air "barrier" to contain the submarine and surface attack weapons of the US Navy in the central part of the Mediterranean Sea. From these borders, not a single modification of the Tomahawk strategic cruise missile is capable of reaching the strategically important facilities of the metallurgical and military-industrial complex of Russia, located in the Urals and in the middle zone of the European part of Russia. In other words, the southern air direction will be deleted from the most missile-hazardous, and this is another "fat" plus in favor of maintaining the combat stability of anti-aircraft missile regiments and air defense systems of the Ground Forces deployed in the southern and western military districts of Russia. As for the territory of Crimea, it continues to be within the range of Tomahawks launched from the central part of the Mediterranean, and therefore the only way out is to modernize the anti-aircraft missile regiments deployed to Crimea.
The introduction of the S-350 (50R6A) Vityaz long-range anti-aircraft missile system into service with the Aerospace Forces will radically solve the problem. Thanks to the use of exclusively missiles with ARGSN 9M96E2 (9M96DM), the issue of quickly disrupting the "capture" of the target at the time it leaves the radar coverage area will be finally resolved. Moreover, the let-and-forget regime implemented in missiles, operating on Tomahawks within 10-15 km, will make it possible to simultaneously intercept not 8 officially declared targets, but up to 16, because the multi-functional X-band 50N6A radar can aim at each of 8 targets with 2 missiles (after each subsequent destruction of the target, a new target channel will be released, distributed between 16 airborne 9M96DM using the computing facilities of PBU 50K6).
Several times the large target channel of the S-350 Vityaz complex, with additional support from the Pantsir-S1 and Tor-M1 / 2KM self-propelled anti-aircraft missile systems, will solve another important problem - the threat from AGM anti-radar missiles -88 AARGM or, even worse, the British "smart" ALARM radar, capable of attacking multifunctional radars with a dive angle of 90 degrees (from the so-called "dead zone" craters, where the low elevation radar viewing area and semi-active radar homing can lead to the destruction division, applies to both "Torov" and S-300PS). Although the British announced the decommissioning of the ALARM rocket back in 2014, it is hard to believe in this, since the joint brainchild of the American company Texas Instruments and the British division of Matra BAe Dynamics stands out strikingly against the background of others (unfortunately, domestic) anti-radar missiles with their small size (EPR about 0.05 m2), as well as the mass of modes for additional search for radio-emitting objects during a three-minute parachute descent over the battlefield. Let's not forget that more multi-channel and productive air defense systems are urgently needed for anti-aircraft missile regiments in the Republic of Crimea due to the threat emanating from the northern air direction.
Dozens of multiple launch rocket systems 9K51 "Grad", 9K57 "Uragan" and 9K58 "Smerch" Ukrainian military formations are not planning to withdraw from the Russian-Ukrainian border in the Kherson region at all. From day to day, Trump may sign a document on the transfer to Kiev of the 47 millionth package with a "handout" in the form of lethal weapons, and this will fundamentally change the balance of power in the Donbass theater of operations. It is also unknown what new "monster" after the fall of the current Kiev elite can crawl out of the lobbies of shadow nationalist and other structures supervised directly from the Pentagon, or with the help of intermediaries. At a minimum, the next wave of escalation will rush only into the Donbass theater of operations, and at the most, it will also affect the Republic of Crimea. It is obvious that not a single unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (from BM MLRS to infantry fighting vehicles and MBT) will be able to cross the Perekop Isthmus and will be destroyed in advance by the calculations of the self-propelled ATGM "Chrysanthemum-S", the calculations of the complexes "Kornet-E", as well as with the help of Ka-52 attack helicopters and Su-34 front-line fighter-bombers. Consequently, the Ukrainian Grads deployed in the south of the Kherson region can pose a threat exclusively to small settlements located just 10 km from Sivash and Perekop Bay (Armyansk, Suvorovo, Nadezhdino, Medvedevka, etc.). It will not be so difficult to evacuate the small population from these areas to the safe central cities of Crimea.
With Hurricanes, the situation will be much more serious. High-explosive and cluster unguided rockets of types 9M27F and 9M27K2 have a range of 35 km and can “reach” the most densely populated city in the northern part of Crimea - Dzhankoy. An impenetrable anti-missile line in this case can be provided by a battery of Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile and artillery systems, which demonstrated the ability to intercept the Grada NURS, as well as the Vityaz S-350. And most importantly, a small ammunition load of 16 220-mm unguided rockets on each BM-37 vehicle excludes the possibility of penetration of even single enemy missiles into the “anti-missile umbrella”. But today there is no "Vityaz" in the troops, and therefore only "Pantsir", "Torah" and "Buk-M3" can be used as missile defense systems, since the consumption of expensive ammunition sets of the S-300V4 and S-400 Triumph complexes on cheap and numerous unguided rockets - an economically inexpedient action. Also, let's not forget that the junta still has a decent amount of Smerch MLRS, Tochka-U OTRK and a number of modern Alder complexes that cover the entire territory of Crimea. If all the Crimean air defense missile systems S-300PM1 / 400 are enough for Tochka-U, then the grouping should definitely be increased to protect it from Smerchi.
I would like to note one more important detail, which is the main indicator of the productivity and survivability of modern mixed air defense / missile defense groups deployed both in the territory of the Republic of Crimea and in other regions of the Russian Federation. We are talking about a network-centric linkage between anti-aircraft guided missiles with active RGSN and third-party target designation means, the list of which includes: long-range radar patrol and guidance aircraft A-50U, tactical fighters equipped with powerful airborne radars with PFAR / AFAR, as well as ground and ship surveillance / multifunctional radar systems. At the moment, between the units of the Anti-Aircraft Missile Forces of the Aerospace Forces, the Air Defense of the Ground Forces of Russia, as well as the aviation component of the air defense, there is an almost full-fledged systemic linkage, achieved through the development and implementation of automated control systems for the Polyana-D4M1 mixed anti-aircraft missile brigade, 73N6ME Baikal-1ME ", As well as unified battery command posts 9S737 / M" Ranzhir / -M ".
In particular, during the enemy's probable strategic aerospace offensive operation, involving several massive missile strikes from submarine, surface and air carriers, Polyana, Baikals and Rangers are able to optimally and tactically correctly distribute the most priority and dangerous air - space objects between separate batteries, divisions and regiments of anti-aircraft missile systems of the S-300P / 400, S-300V / 4, Buk-M1 / 2/3, Tor-M1 / 2, Pantsir-S1 families, "Tungusska-M1", "Igla / Verba", which are in service with the mixed air defense-missile defense group. Synchronization of the above complexes and their versions with the ACS "Polyana" or "Baikal" into a single network-centric network will significantly save their ammunition due to the complete exclusion of shelling one target at the same time by several anti-aircraft missile divisions.
In other words, thanks to the constant maintenance of telecode tactical communication via coded radio channels, a complete departure from the so-called "farm" principle of building anti-aircraft missile brigades has been achieved. Even one machine of the Baikal-1ME ACS boasts a huge number of tracked target tracks (up to 500 units), as well as their distribution simultaneously between 24 anti-aircraft missile systems of the S-300V4 / 400, Buk-M2 / 3 type, and later, the S-350 "Vityaz". In fact, one "Baikal" is enough to organize a network-centric air defense in a whole strategic air direction with a width of more than 5000 km, because the instrumental range of this ACS is 3200 km. Moreover, the "Concern VKO" Almaz-Antey "initially prepared the computing facilities of the system for operation on hypersonic aerospace targets operating not only on the endoatmospheric, but also on the exoatmospheric flight segment (the maximum height of the processed targets is 1200 km, the speed is 18435 km / h). The system fits perfectly into the spectrum of means of countering aerospace threats of the 21st century, including the American-touted "Rapid Global Strike".
The problem today is observed in the complete absence of a full-fledged two-way communication system between missiles and air-to-air interceptor missiles equipped with ARGSN, and other sources of target designation. For example, there is absolutely no information about over-the-horizon guidance on targets of guided air combat missiles R-37, R-77 or experienced anti-aircraft 9M96E2 and 9M82MV using, for example, AWACS A-50U aircraft or ground radars equipped with the appropriate types of data exchange terminals. During field tests, target designation is used exclusively from battery-operated radar systems (RPN 92N6E or MSNR 9S32M in the case of the S-400 and S-300V4) or onboard radars "Zaslon-AM", "Bars" in the case of the MiG-31BM and Su-30SM respectively. Consequently, the possibility of "picking up" the backup two-way channel of data exchange with other friendly units in relation to our missiles has not been confirmed.
Therefore, damage to the antenna array or hardware base on the carrier can lead to the departure of the interceptor missile "into milk" and the failure of the process of destroying the enemy. And only in the case of air combat missiles RVV-AE or RVV-SD ("Product 170-1"), equipped with active-passive radar seeker 9B-1103M-200PS, such an outcome is possible in which the RVV-AE / SD will carry out additional guidance on any active radar of an enemy fighter; but not all of our surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles also have a passive guidance mode on a radio-emitting object. Another such missile can be considered the R-27P with a passive radar seeker 9B-1102, but it is not a fact that the target's on-board radar will operate in radiation mode; and the lack of an active mode of the 9B-1102 seeker makes the R-27P less "nimble" due to the lack of specified target coordinates (especially if the target uses diversion and other types of interference). So, the maximum overload of the destroyed target is for the R-27P no more than 5, 5 - 6 units.
In the Air Force and the Navy of our overseas "friends", as well as European NATO member states, these issues are more and more thought out and grasped, despite even more mediocre speed parameters of anti-aircraft guided missiles and air combat missiles. Let's take as an example a promising long-range direct-flow missile missile system "Meteor", developed by the Western European corporation MBDA ("Matra BAE Dynamics Alenia"). In addition to a powerful multi-mode integral rocket-ramjet engine with a thrust control system by means of a movable valve in the nozzle of the gas generator, the Meteor rocket is also equipped with an advanced guidance system with ARGSN, INS and a radio correction channel receiver from several sources at once. Such sources are all ground, surface and air units equipped with terminals of the Link-16 tactical network (from AWACS aircraft to missile cruisers of the Ticonderoga class and British Type 45 air defense systems).
In a simpler view: if an F-35B is shot down, which launched 4 Meteor missiles at various targets at a distance of more than 120 km, the missiles will not go into the milk, but will receive target designation from AWACS, ship radars or command and control points of ground-based air defense systems, “the hunt”will continue. The latest versions of the AMRAAM missiles (including the AIM-120D), as well as the ship-based ultra-long-range missiles RIM-174 ERAM (SM-6), unified with the Mk 41 VLS universal VPUs, also have similar capabilities. Back in early autumn 2014, Western sources, citing a press release from Raytheon, reported on a successful network-centric full-scale test of two RIM-174 ERAM missiles, during which the joint operation of combat information and control systems synchronized via the JTIDS radio channel was demonstrated. Aegis ", deployed on the missile cruiser URO CG-62 USS" Chancellorsville "and EM DDG-102 USS" Sampson ". Launched from the first SM-6 anti-missile missiles, "took" the radio correction channel from the destroyer "Sampson"; it was his AN / SPY-1D radar that guided them at low-altitude small targets.
As you can see, in order to build an ideal and high-performance missile defense system both in the Crimea and in other regions of our state, the aerospace forces need not only the transition of air defense systems to active radar homing due to the introduction of the Triumph ammunition load of compact 9M96DM missiles, but also modernization all active and developed interceptor missiles as modules for two-way information exchange with other pieces of equipment conducting radio-technical and optical reconnaissance in the theater of operations.
