Last starfighter
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2018
- Messages
- 1,159
- Reaction score
- -3
- Country
- Location
Are the Russian S-400 missiles a serious threat to the U.S. Air force?
Very much so yes. They are incredibly difficult to counter - the S-400 is three different missiles with different sensors and ranges, two different fire control radars, a separate C&C module and an ability to datalink the mobile launchers (of which there can be up to 72 per command vehicle although usual battery size is 8 launchers, spread out) some way away from the radars.
It’s the launch vehicles you need to destroy and these are very difficult to kill. Conventional wisdom from SEAD tactics employed by NATO is to lure out a fire control radar into lighting you up and the firing a pair of HARMs down its bearing and diving for the deck in case the other guy gets a missile shot off. This won’t work against the S-400 as you won’t know the launchers are there until launch and if you do target a radar with a HARM, they are usually protected by a Pantsir battery which will plink off your missiles before the radar gets hit.
Alternatively they can just move the radar vehicles if they know a HARM is in the air - you may have a couple of minutes warning and the S-400 Grave Stone/Cheese Board/Clam Shell/Flap Lid radars are all highly mobile and require little or no limbering to move.
The S-400 is so dangerous because it is very powerful so is resistant to a lot of jamming and able to effectively fight EW aircraft like the Growler very well. The range of the missiles themselves can be up to 450km so the S-400 is an extremely effective area denial weapon - you can’t put your tankers, battle management AWACS or airborne recce assets anywhere near anywhere there **might** be an S-400 battery or batteries. That means when NATO are taking the air fight to Russian controlled territory they do so at a range disadvantage because of the lack of tanking, a tactical disadvantage because of the lack of AWACS support and a knowledge disadvantage because of the lack of reconnaissance information. NATO fighters will have to stage from far behind the lines and tanker to and from the front (although still outside S-400 threat envelope), drastically cutting sortie rates and loiter time. It also means NATO helicopters, support aircraft and transport aircraft cannot be within 450km of the front line so supporting the troops on the ground is exponentially more difficult and time consuming, and it means Russian close air support aircraft and helicopters cannot easily be countered, making the battlespace much harder for NATO to control.
These are huge. It makes a conventional air war extemely difficult to win before the S-400 has fired a single shot.
The thing to bear in mind is that S-400 batteries are just part of it. They are all linked. They don’t even need to have operational radars; they can be cued by A-50s AWACS planes if necessary. They are protected by a net of latest batch Buk/Tor medium range missile systems and Pantsir S-2 point defence weapons, not to mention the more numerous but still formidable S-300 systems of various types and configurations. They are linked and overlapped in such a way that plinking off one fire control radar in a certain sector does not make that sector safe to fly in.
Certainly jamming helps but beyond that how do you defeat the system? Missiles can be intercepted and launching one is bloody dangerous if you’re hiding behind jamming. Stealth? Yeah ok that’s better but the S-400 radars are good enough to see your F-35 just fine if you’re close enough to start dropping JDAMs or SDBs and flying with your bomb bay doors open to drop ordnance. Pantsir also works pretty well against JDAMs.
It is likely the Americans and NATO have a way of countering these threats and that it involves close teamwork, extemely complicated tactics and combined ops, but it is clear that doing so will take a terrible toll on US/NATO SEAD aircraft - losses will be grievous. More likely the Russian thinking holds and the skies are denied to US/NATO on a consistent basis save for specific raids.
I’d imagine such a raid would look like a section, say six F-35s in line abreast, ten or fifteen miles apart with massive jamming support. You’d have the jamming aircraft edge closer to the front and then as they are lit up by the S-300/400/Buk etc radars the F-35s (much much closer but undetected) would loose off a volley of dozens of SDBs from pucker close (or Delilah or Delilah equivalent if NATO buy some) from slightly further away - then disengage at full military power at very low level (they would be very very vulnerable to IR guided Pantsir modes at this point).
So - The Growlers/jamming aircraft would specifically target the S Band signals of the Pantsir systems and suddenly the sky would be full of missiles. The radars would start to be destroyed by the SDBs and a second wing of F-35s would then come in from another point of the compass with a swarm of MALD drones sweeping ahead and below. They'll start engaging any search or fire control radars that pop up as the Growlers turn for home to be relieved and rearmed by more Growlers, fully armed with a load more HARMs. The main strike package would go in and the F-35s and Growlers would stay across the whole ingress / egress routes to try to hit any radars that light up before they can get a missile away.
I’d expect the US to deploying stealthy stand off missiles as well like the Israelis do with their latest Popeye missiles. Can the JASSM do this? Hard to say. Maybe.
Losses would be horrible on both sides.
You can expect to lose half the F-35s and Growlers you send up for missions like this even with the best tactics. Meanwhile the Russian gun and missile radar crews will have also taken a severe beating. The Russians can replace radar vans and crews faster than NATO/US can replace F-35s / Growlers and their highly trained pilots though - they will be back to full strength the following day. NATO/the US simply dont have the numbers to keep that up indefinitely. Lose ten of your SEAD specialist jets in one night, let alone the Golddust Growlers and the whole NATO effort is hit very hard no matter what happens with the strike package. Do that every night for a week and it’s over - if the S-400s aren’t totally neutralised by then they never will be and NATO will have lost the air war no matter what happens on the ground.
It is a fascinating battle and nobody really knows how it will play out. Let’s hope we never have to find out.
Very much so yes. They are incredibly difficult to counter - the S-400 is three different missiles with different sensors and ranges, two different fire control radars, a separate C&C module and an ability to datalink the mobile launchers (of which there can be up to 72 per command vehicle although usual battery size is 8 launchers, spread out) some way away from the radars.
It’s the launch vehicles you need to destroy and these are very difficult to kill. Conventional wisdom from SEAD tactics employed by NATO is to lure out a fire control radar into lighting you up and the firing a pair of HARMs down its bearing and diving for the deck in case the other guy gets a missile shot off. This won’t work against the S-400 as you won’t know the launchers are there until launch and if you do target a radar with a HARM, they are usually protected by a Pantsir battery which will plink off your missiles before the radar gets hit.
Alternatively they can just move the radar vehicles if they know a HARM is in the air - you may have a couple of minutes warning and the S-400 Grave Stone/Cheese Board/Clam Shell/Flap Lid radars are all highly mobile and require little or no limbering to move.
The S-400 is so dangerous because it is very powerful so is resistant to a lot of jamming and able to effectively fight EW aircraft like the Growler very well. The range of the missiles themselves can be up to 450km so the S-400 is an extremely effective area denial weapon - you can’t put your tankers, battle management AWACS or airborne recce assets anywhere near anywhere there **might** be an S-400 battery or batteries. That means when NATO are taking the air fight to Russian controlled territory they do so at a range disadvantage because of the lack of tanking, a tactical disadvantage because of the lack of AWACS support and a knowledge disadvantage because of the lack of reconnaissance information. NATO fighters will have to stage from far behind the lines and tanker to and from the front (although still outside S-400 threat envelope), drastically cutting sortie rates and loiter time. It also means NATO helicopters, support aircraft and transport aircraft cannot be within 450km of the front line so supporting the troops on the ground is exponentially more difficult and time consuming, and it means Russian close air support aircraft and helicopters cannot easily be countered, making the battlespace much harder for NATO to control.
These are huge. It makes a conventional air war extemely difficult to win before the S-400 has fired a single shot.
The thing to bear in mind is that S-400 batteries are just part of it. They are all linked. They don’t even need to have operational radars; they can be cued by A-50s AWACS planes if necessary. They are protected by a net of latest batch Buk/Tor medium range missile systems and Pantsir S-2 point defence weapons, not to mention the more numerous but still formidable S-300 systems of various types and configurations. They are linked and overlapped in such a way that plinking off one fire control radar in a certain sector does not make that sector safe to fly in.
Certainly jamming helps but beyond that how do you defeat the system? Missiles can be intercepted and launching one is bloody dangerous if you’re hiding behind jamming. Stealth? Yeah ok that’s better but the S-400 radars are good enough to see your F-35 just fine if you’re close enough to start dropping JDAMs or SDBs and flying with your bomb bay doors open to drop ordnance. Pantsir also works pretty well against JDAMs.
It is likely the Americans and NATO have a way of countering these threats and that it involves close teamwork, extemely complicated tactics and combined ops, but it is clear that doing so will take a terrible toll on US/NATO SEAD aircraft - losses will be grievous. More likely the Russian thinking holds and the skies are denied to US/NATO on a consistent basis save for specific raids.
I’d imagine such a raid would look like a section, say six F-35s in line abreast, ten or fifteen miles apart with massive jamming support. You’d have the jamming aircraft edge closer to the front and then as they are lit up by the S-300/400/Buk etc radars the F-35s (much much closer but undetected) would loose off a volley of dozens of SDBs from pucker close (or Delilah or Delilah equivalent if NATO buy some) from slightly further away - then disengage at full military power at very low level (they would be very very vulnerable to IR guided Pantsir modes at this point).
So - The Growlers/jamming aircraft would specifically target the S Band signals of the Pantsir systems and suddenly the sky would be full of missiles. The radars would start to be destroyed by the SDBs and a second wing of F-35s would then come in from another point of the compass with a swarm of MALD drones sweeping ahead and below. They'll start engaging any search or fire control radars that pop up as the Growlers turn for home to be relieved and rearmed by more Growlers, fully armed with a load more HARMs. The main strike package would go in and the F-35s and Growlers would stay across the whole ingress / egress routes to try to hit any radars that light up before they can get a missile away.
I’d expect the US to deploying stealthy stand off missiles as well like the Israelis do with their latest Popeye missiles. Can the JASSM do this? Hard to say. Maybe.
Losses would be horrible on both sides.
You can expect to lose half the F-35s and Growlers you send up for missions like this even with the best tactics. Meanwhile the Russian gun and missile radar crews will have also taken a severe beating. The Russians can replace radar vans and crews faster than NATO/US can replace F-35s / Growlers and their highly trained pilots though - they will be back to full strength the following day. NATO/the US simply dont have the numbers to keep that up indefinitely. Lose ten of your SEAD specialist jets in one night, let alone the Golddust Growlers and the whole NATO effort is hit very hard no matter what happens with the strike package. Do that every night for a week and it’s over - if the S-400s aren’t totally neutralised by then they never will be and NATO will have lost the air war no matter what happens on the ground.
It is a fascinating battle and nobody really knows how it will play out. Let’s hope we never have to find out.
