The conflict in Ukraine has entered the so-called third phase, which experts callConfrontation
Table of contents
- How does air defense work?
- How do missiles resist air defense?
- Why is air defense difficult to counter missiles?
The modern conflict on the territory of Ukraine has becomealready unique in many ways. By the way, this is the first serious (and prolonged) conflict of close military groups with modern weapons since the Second World War.
We have witnessed the most active application of allconventional (and not so) weapons other than nuclear, especially large-scale aviation and missile systems for tactical and operational-tactical purposes. But the most odious topic in the current round of confrontation was the use of air defense systems, to which both sides have questions.
Why doesn't air defense shoot down? Why does air defense not always shoot down? Why doesn't air defense shoot down everything? Telegram channels are full of claims to the military from civilians on both sides, because ... missiles are coming.
Missile launch of the tactical complex Tochka-U
But it is impossible not to talk about the basic principles of missile defense
How does air defense work?
When they talk about any anti-aircraft missilecomplex, in articles or reports, we are shown for the most part only part of the complex, in the form of launchers, launchers, or in the jargon of “gunners” – "guns". Here you can understand civilians making material for civilians - weapons, this is what shoots and bullets.
A rocket flies out of the launcher, it's spectacular, it's cool, and it is the launchers that are perceived as something that really fights, the rest is so ... periphery.
But in fact, the main thing that providescombat work, for example, of an anti-aircraft missile division, these are radars - in the S-300PM complex these are RPN (illumination and guidance radar), NVO (low-altitude detector) and RLO (detection radar station).
Radars serve for reconnaissance of the airspace and identification of targets (SAR and RPN), tracking targets, preparing the launch of a missile, then helping it reach it and, finally, evaluating the result of the shooting.
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Launcher S-300PMU2
SART has a large detection distance (1000km), and serves for operational monitoring of the "battlefield" or, if the system is sharpened for missile defense (anti-missile defense), to work on ballistic and cruise missiles, but on-load tap-changers (150-300 km, depending on modifications of the radar and generation C- 300) in divisions perform the main combat work on aircraft.
NVO, as you might guess, serves to work on low-altitude targets (cruise missiles, in some cases, helicopters and UAVs). This radar has a very low ceiling, but it is more vigilant than the RPN.
The entire history of the confrontation between artillery air defense andaircraft, the latter rose higher and higher, where it is harder to hit, and the projectile may not reach. Missile systems, on the contrary, forced aircraft to descend to extremely low altitudes, and create cruise missiles (essentially unmanned projectiles) capable of flying very low and bending around the terrain in flight. Yes, in general, the surge in the development of drones is associated with them.
Launch complex S-300V for ground forces on caterpillar tracks (rear view)
At high altitude, you can’t hide from the radar, but extremely low altitudes are clogged with passive interference - trees, mountains, pipes of factories, power lines, etc.
HBO is set to work in just such an environment, and,in addition to active work, it also acts as an element of position protection - it can detect even very small targets (with a small RCS - the effective signal dispersion area). That is, targets that do not give such a clear reflection of the signal, “muddy and slippery”, like cruise missiles or UAVs, which can attack the air defense division itself. And the low signal transmission power helps if electronic warfare and special anti-radar missiles are used.
Therefore, the S-300P complex, the S-300PM complex, andfurther S-300PMU2, S-400, S-500 are very different in their capabilities, based on different types and generations of radars (with a phased antenna array) and different element base in general. Although superficially at a cursory examination, they are very similar.
The same applies to complexes one step lower, such asBuk, even lower - Thor, Osa or Shell, and so on to Tunguska or Strela-10. They are also very different in modifications and use different missiles, which also have different performance characteristics in terms of speed, range, resistance to interference, etc.
Steps "go down" according to the possibilities ofdetection radius and target interception range/ceiling. On the youngest (Tor, Pantsir, Tunguska), the radar and launcher are placed on the same machine, and the Strela-10 and other MANPADS rely on visual detection by the operator. The lower the complex in terms of capabilities, the higher its mobile and operational capabilities to support regiments and brigades.
Combat shooting S-400
How do missiles resist air defense?
We will cut off the planes in order not to be distracted, and we will save your time. Rockets are mainly divided into two types:
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winged- as already said, they can fly, like airplanesextremely low (from a couple of hundred to a few meters above the ground). They can hit very distant targets (sometimes over 2000 km). Their main feature is low visibility. They are like sharks in shallow water: when you see the fin, it’s too late. Cruise missiles use low altitudes with a high passive interference environment, this saves them from detection by a wide range of radars until the moment when it is too late to do anything.
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ballistic(quasi-ballistic) - missiles fired atballistic trajectory, that is, with a direction of movement specified at the start (this includes ICBMs with a nuclear warhead, Scuds, and Tochka-U). And on-board navigation provides only trajectory correction when approaching the target.
As a rule, at all stages of flight (upper stagestage, ballistic and finish) the rocket does not maneuver. Quasi-ballistic ones (Iskander-M, for example) can maneuver in some or all stages of flight in order to be more resistant to air defense countermeasures.
The Elbrus complex (NATO - "Scud") became a household name for operational-tactical missiles at the end of the Cold War
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Operational-tactical(OT) - with a range of up to 250-500 km and, most often,non-nuclear part (although there is an option for it, if really necessary). Warheads can vary - cluster, bunker, volumetric detonating. They hit targets at great operational depth - these are, as a rule, headquarters and infrastructure at the army/army group level (railway stations, repair and fuel bases, warehouses). These are complexes such as Elbrus (aka Scud, USSR), Iskander (Russia), ATACMS (depending on the type of rocket, USA).
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Tactical(T) - with a range from 10-20 km to 170 km.As you can understand, they are working on approximately the same objects, but at the corps/division level, that is, at shorter distances and closer to the direct line of contact with the enemy. They can also attack fortified areas directly on the front line. These are complexes such as Tochka-U (USSR), ATACMS (depending on the missile, USA)
Separately, it is important to indicate the MLRS systems.In the mass consciousness, they are associated with the Katyushas of the Second World War or the Grads of the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. These are unguided ballistic missiles, small in size, which are fired in large numbers at once and cover entire areas.
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The Americans have taken up such systems quitelate, towards the end of the Cold War, and today they have MLRS of the M270 MLRS type (tracked, 12 launchers) and HIMARS (wheeled, 6 launchers). They have variable missiles, which, with the advent of the GMLRS program, fly up to 92 km (in the ER GMLRS version - up to 150 km).
"Haymars", now actively fighting in Ukraine - a package with six launchers does not even require a loading machine, a kind of “machine gun” among tactical systems
Despite the fact that they are formally classified as MLRS,they are arranged a little differently. HIMARS/M270s operate more like short-range tactical missiles and can attack single or multi-missile targets with high accuracy (circular probable error less than 1 meter), rather than covering areas with large numbers of inaccurate missiles.
Modernization of the Russian complexes Grad and Smerchto the level of Tornado-S (range up to 120 km) received similar capabilities, but there are only a few dozen such systems in service against more than a thousand installations in service with the Americans.
To work against strategic missilesmissile defense systems (anti-missile defense) are used. But starting from operational-tactical and lower, missiles are becoming a standard enemy and target for large and medium-range air defense systems.
Why is air defense difficult to counter missiles?
Formally, OT and T missiles can be hit lateS-300 (S-400) complexes at almost any stage of flight, and something will be too tough for lighter medium-range Buk air defense systems. At a minimum, at the final stage of the approach, when the rocket goes down (the ballistic trajectory can go both 50 and 100 km). The complexes can detect a missile from the moment of launch, and then work on several targets at once.
Combat work HIMARS
But the fighting shows that air defense is barelycope with a third of the launched missiles. And the American HIMARS with generally light, short-range and low-flying missiles have become a real headache. Why did the air defenses turn out to be not so omnipotent, as enthusiastic patriotic journalists from TV often tell us about this?
The answer is not so complicated - time.Missile speeds are very high (supersonic, and at the finish line they can reach near hypersonic speeds), which, with short flight ranges, gives a very short approach time to the target. For example, at the T complex Tochka-U, the flight time for the distance limit is only 136 seconds, which is 120 km, by the way.
Accordingly, the launch of a missile type M31American HIMARS for a distance of 70-80 km takes noticeably less than 2 minutes. And the air defense system may simply not have time to respond to such a threat - for this you need to continuously monitor huge chunks of the sky 24/7, which only a very dense and layered air defense system in combat duty mode can do. It is simply impossible to create one in the frontline zone, most often they close the most important objects / cities of the country (for example, Moscow or Kyiv) or the structure of the Strategic Missile Forces.
Solyanka of tactical and operational-tactical (thicker) missiles
Air defense systems are created in priority to airtargets, but the military, of course, is waiting for systems that are as versatile as possible in terms of capabilities, so confronting T and OT missiles is also important, while they are much harder to shoot down. The percentage of fragments ricocheting is high, due to which the rocket simply goes off course, or the warhead survives with partial destruction.
But even interception does not give reliable chancesneutralize the threat, which, for example, happened with the first generation of Patriot complexes, which could not cope with Saddam's Scuds during Desert Storm, which caused a flurry of criticism from both the military and independent experts, although in 2003 the modernized complexes have already shown 100% reliability. But in this case, it was about only 9 missiles. The traffic of missiles in the current conflict in Ukraine is ten times more.
The only system sharpened oncountering precisely ground-to-ground missiles is the Israeli Iron Dome, which was created to cover, first of all, residential areas from the use of Palestinian Kassam missiles, as well as counter missiles such as Scud, Tochka-U, MLRS (Grad / Hurricane) and even artillery ammunition up to 82 mm mortars.
Launcher of the Iron Dome
According to experts, the Iron Dome is the bestshort-range missile defense system in the world, it has no analogues either in NATO, or in Russia, or in China. But this is a regional specificity of conflicts that have dragged on for many decades. The Israelis put a lot of effort into its creation. And it is very unlikely that they will appear in Ukraine, and it is absolutely unbelievable that Russia could buy them.
For the rest, it must be admitted that OT and T missileswill for the most part reach the desired targets in this conflict. Because with a front length of more than 1000 km, it is impossible for any of the parties to create an echeloned air defense anywhere in the frontline zone.