At one time, the newly emerging aviation made so much noise that some hotheads even suggested simplifying all other types of troops as unnecessary. However, time has shown that these thoughts were wrong. Following aviation, air defense systems appeared and began to develop, which ultimately became one of the main means of warfare and deterrence. The brightest period in the aircraft and air defense race began in the fifties of the last century. Then anti-aircraft guided missiles (SAMs) appeared, which, even at an early stage of their development, were quite capable of delivering a lot of trouble to enemy aviation.
It is well known that strategic nuclear weapons during the first years of their existence were planned to be delivered to the target using aircraft of the appropriate range and carrying capacity. However, the rapid development of anti-aircraft missiles and fighter aircraft soon required the superpowers to focus on strategic missiles. Due to the ballistic flight path, they would be much more effective, and in addition, the destruction of such a delivery vehicle in the 60s or 70s was an overwhelming task. Nevertheless, not all combat missions can be solved using long-range ballistic missiles. This led to the emergence of medium and short-range ballistic missiles. With an appropriate guidance system, they made it possible, without much risk for the launcher and its calculation, to attack targets located at tactical or operational depth.
As for aircraft, for obvious reasons, over time, the main direction of their development has become front-line aviation. In light of the goals that it was designed to fulfill, almost any innovation turned out to be useful. In particular, the widespread use of high-precision weapons made it possible to significantly increase the effectiveness of air strikes and reduce aviation losses. Thus, during Desert Storm, guided weapons were used by the US Air Force in less than 10% of sorties, and in the Yugoslav War, almost all missiles and bombs used were “smart”. It is difficult to overestimate the effect of this - in the Persian Gulf, the Americans missed two dozen planes, and the losses in Yugoslavia can be counted on the fingers of one hand. However, guided high-precision weapons are more expensive than conventional weapons, which, nevertheless, are compensated for by the high price of the aircraft itself.
However, let's return to air defense systems. The main feature of high-precision aircraft weapons lies in the fact that they can be used from a long distance. Thanks to this, the entry of the aircraft into the enemy's air defense zone becomes unnecessary, which reduces the risk of its loss. Thus, to effectively counter the armed forces focusing on accurate air strikes, an air defense system is required that can shoot down targets at ranges exceeding the launch range of an enemy guided missile. However, not all countries use such a war technique. Many states have chosen to make precision strikes at tactical and operational depths the responsibility of medium and short-range ballistic missiles. Accordingly, to combat such a threat, the air defense system must also be able to shoot down ballistic targets. Thus, the "ideal" anti-aircraft missile system must work for all types of targets that may arise over the battlefield.
It should be noted that for Russia the availability of such equipment is especially important, because attacks of a potential enemy using aviation or medium-range missiles are possible from almost all directions. The main reason is the specificity of the Soviet-American Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles. Only the missiles of this class already possessed by the USSR and the United States were destroyed, which did not prevent some countries that did not sign the treaty from continuing to create them. And with some of these countries, as luck would have it, Russia has a common border - Iran, China and the DPRK. The relations of our country with these states cannot be called strained, but it is also not worth relaxing, having such “surprises” at hand. Therefore, it turns out that the territory of Russia should be covered by air defense systems capable of acting on both aerodynamic and ballistic targets.
The main snag in the creation of such air defense systems lies in the various parameters of the target's flight. The aerodynamic target has a relatively low speed, and its trajectory almost always lies in the horizontal plane. In turn, the warhead of a ballistic missile always falls on the target at supersonic speed, and the angle of this fall is in the range from 30 ° to 80 °. Accordingly, the speed of the warhead is constantly increasing, which significantly reduces the time for response actions. Finally, the missile warhead is small and has an equally small effective reflective surface, which also makes it difficult to detect. And this is not counting the possibility of separating the warhead, the use of air defense / missile defense breakthroughs, and so on. All together, this is the main reason that only developed countries can create a combined air and missile defense system, and even such work takes up a lot of their time.
So, the United States took almost 13 years to create the Patriot air defense system. All this time, American developers were engaged in simplifying the rocket electronics as much as possible and ensuring the effectiveness of work on modern and promising targets. However, all efforts to universalize the anti-aircraft missile system did not yield the expected result. As a result, it turned out that the Patriot is capable of shooting down only every third Scud missile. In addition, not a single interception occurred at a distance of more than 13-15 kilometers from the launcher. And this is taking into account the fact that the downed missile was much older than the downed one. Subsequently, the Americans carried out several upgrades of the Patriot air defense system, but they did not succeed in achieving a significant increase in the effectiveness of the destruction of ballistic targets. In particular, and therefore, interceptor missiles for the US strategic missile defense were not made on the basis of the available technology.
SAM S-400 "Triumph"
The Soviet Union also paid attention to universalization, but did not do it in the same way as the Americans did. After conducting the initial research on the S-300 air defense system, it was decided to make the "P" and "V" lines as an air defense means, and add the defeat of ballistic targets only if there is an appropriate opportunity. These possibilities, as the future showed, were not so many. The composition of the equipment of the complexes changed, new missiles were added, but it was not possible to achieve significant improvement in the field of destruction of ballistic targets. Sometimes one hears that the recently created S-400 air defense system, contrary to the statements of the developers, cannot be used for tactical missile defense because it has its "pedigree" from the S-300P complex. And he, as already mentioned, normally works exclusively for aerodynamic purposes. In the same way, the S-500 complex, which is now being developed, is criticized in advance. Given the secrecy of information on these two systems, such statements can be considered premature, or even untrue. Nevertheless, it is not so easy to "cross" air defense and tactical missile defense, and there are fewer details about the work of the Almaz-Antey concern than we would like.
There is also an opinion that the S-300V line should be taken as the basis for new complexes. In favor of this opinion, the features of its creation are given - in its armament there are 9M82 missiles, initially adapted for attacks on ballistic targets. However, the missiles, for which the 9M82 was created, have long been removed from service, and the ability of an interceptor missile to hit more modern means of attack is questionable. Nevertheless, the S-300V continues to serve as the best basis for promising anti-aircraft missile systems. You can agree or disagree with this opinion. But only as long as the dispute goes on as normal. But sometimes some people who have a certain relation to the creation of domestic air defense and missile defense make very dubious statements. For example, that "managers from the Ministry of Defense" simply do not understand the difference between the S-300P and the S-300V, which is why they are ruining the promising branch of the development of air defense systems. Finally, a few weeks ago, a well-known journalist on the air of a well-known radio station accused the S-400 of not being informed. The logic of the accusation was "beyond praise": now, they say, long-range missiles are being tested, and only regular ones are in service. Therefore, the complex is bad, as well as the state of affairs in the Almaz-Antey concern. However, there was no extrapolation of this conclusion to the entire domestic defense industry.
S-300VM "Antey-2500" (GRAU index - 9K81M, according to the classification of the US Defense Ministry and NATO - SA-23 Gladiator)
And yet it is worth paying attention to the later models of the air defense missile system from the line with the letter "B", for example, on the S-300VM. This complex is sometimes also referred to as "Antey-2500". The word "Antey" denotes the lead developer, and the number 2500 is the maximum speed of a ballistic missile that the S-300VM can shoot down. The main advantage of the "Antey-2500", to which the supporters of the priority of the S-300V line appeal, lies in its detection and target designation system. The S-300VM avionics include two radars: one for all-round view and one for programmed view. The first monitors the entire surrounding space and is primarily designed to detect aerodynamic targets, and the second "inspects" a sector at 90 ° horizontally (elevation angle up to 50 °) and detects ballistic targets. The S-300VM air defense missile system radar can simultaneously track up to 16 targets. It is noteworthy that to date, no country has such systems in its troops. In particular, this is precisely why at one time the United States had to fight enemy missiles according to a complex scheme. Recall that the launch was detected from the early warning radar of a missile attack in Turkey; then the information went to the Norad command post in the USA, where the received data was processed and target designation information was generated, and only after that the necessary data was sent to a specific anti-aircraft complex. Antey-2500 can do all this on its own, without resorting to third-party systems.
The armament of the S-300VM consists of two types of missiles:
- 9M82M. Capable of accelerating to 2300-2400 m / s and attacking ballistic targets. The maximum speed of the target, at which its destruction is ensured, exceeds four and a half kilometers per second. In addition to ballistic targets, the 9M82M can also operate on aerodynamic targets, in which case the maximum range of destruction reaches two hundred kilometers;
- 9M83M. Flight speed up to 1700 m / s, designed to destroy aerodynamic targets. In terms of characteristics, it differs little from previous missiles of the S-300V family of complexes.
The missiles are maximally unified and have a two-stage design. Solid rocket engines. It is interesting that the warhead of missiles, when detonated, scatters ready-made fragments not evenly in all directions, but only in a relatively small sector. In combination with sufficient targeting accuracy, this increases the likelihood of reliable destruction of all types of targets. According to the available information, the missiles of the Antey-2500 complex have a combined guidance system: the missile is brought to a point specified by ground equipment using an inertial system, and a semi-active radar guidance system is switched on in the final flight phase. Direct control is carried out using gas-dynamic rudders. The fact is that the most effective destruction of a ballistic target occurs at those heights where the "traditional" aerodynamic rudders almost completely lose their efficiency. Gas-dynamic rudders are also installed on the American SM-3 antimissiles, capable of operating against targets in the extra-atmospheric space.
Despite all the advantages of "Antey-2500", it is not entirely clear why it is proposed to equip the country's air and missile defense. This complex belongs to the "B" line of the S-300 family. As you know, the letter "B" in the name of the system was originally deciphered as "military". In turn, the "P" line was made to equip the air defense forces. Thus, the use of the S-300V (M) where the S-300P air defense missile system and its “descendants” are supposed to work is not quite a logical step, including without taking into account the advantages of individual systems. However, nothing prevents the use in the S-400 or the future S-500 of the developments obtained during the creation of the same "Antey-2500". Interestingly, the S-300VM is actually an outdated system. It will be replaced by the S-300V4 and there is very little to wait for this. Two weeks ago, the military and the Almaz-Antey concern signed a contract for the supply of B4 modification complexes. The first complexes will be delivered to the troops by the end of 2012. The S-300V4 has approximately the same characteristics as the S-300VM. According to available information, the difference in some indicators is due to the possibility of re-equipping the old S-300V to the state of S-300V4.
The new 40N6E missile should end disputes over the advisability of adopting the S-400 complex (previously called the S-300PM3). Ammunition with a maximum range and height of 400 and 185 kilometers, respectively, in the future will be able to clearly demonstrate "who is the boss." But, unfortunately, the creation of 40N6E was significantly delayed, and they did not fail to use various persons in their "revelations". Tests of the new missile will be completed this year and after that it will be put into service. Thanks to 40N6E, the S-400 Triumph complex will finally be able to cover the country not only from aerodynamic, but also from ballistic targets. Hopefully, after the introduction of a new missile, disputes about the fate of our air and missile defense will not concern the disadvantages of existing systems, but the development of new ones. But the new S-500 air defense system is promised to be made in five years.
