Russian S-300 anti-air weapon delivered to Iran

[gambit]

wow you say other people lack logic but ur post about the downing of the F117 is absolutely wrong (thats absolutely as in completely)

it is not a statistically inevitability, places like Baghdad has some of the most dense AA concentration in the world outside of Moscow but not a single f-117s were downed there, the point is the sky is huge if as you claim the f-117 is truly completely stealthed then there is almost no way to hit it, the AA guns would have to be firing 24/7(not possible) to "spray and pray" even then the chances are low.

Because unlike over Yugoslavia, the F-117 sorties were unpredictable.

also do some damn research the downing of the F-117 in serbia is very well documented,

For what I have written here about radar and how 'stealth' works, do you really believe that I have done NOT any 'damn research' on this fluke event?

the commander used scouts which saw the F-117s take off and we with his out dated sa-2 was able to down it because

1. he knew it was coming

Yes...The Serbs had sympathizers in Europe who monitored NATO bases and telephoned in whenever aircrafts sortied out.

2. he moved often to prevent the enemy from getting his location and taking him out

3. he switch his radar on only when he he knew the enemy was coming thus lowering his chances of being detected and taken out prior to firing a shot

Actions that does NOTHING to enhance his odds of success, only his odds of survival. And you call this 'critical thinking' about this subject?

4. the F-117 was NOT complete stealth, the radar operator of the SA-2 learn to look for the minute signatures of the F-117 thus he was able to down one.

Do you even know what is a 'signature'? I doubt it. As far as radar is concerned, it is possible to have two separate RCS signals that are the same in intensity at the same distance but do have distinct 'signatures'. See if you can look up why.

There is no such thing as 'complete stealth'. People like you who have never turned a wrench on a prop job, let alone a jet fighter, keeps throwing out these made up terms in pretense that you know what you are talking about. Those of us who have relevant experience can barely keep up debunking these misconceptions. The word 'stealth' is not appropriate and that is why I always put the word in quotes every time I feel I have to use it.

The F-117 pilot, Dale Zelko, recalled he had to evade at least two missiles and the evasive maneuvers put him within explosive range of a third or possibly a fourth missile. That mean he was not hit by a missile, only severely damaged by the shrapnels. The Serb missile battery commander, Zoltan Dani, declined to say how he 'modified' his radar to supposedly 'detect' the F-117. For those of us who have relevant experience in the subject, especially those like myself who have handled Soviet avionics, our opinions are that Dani got lucky, nothing more. If he cannot afford to transmit his search radar for longer than one-minute, he certainly cannot turn on his track radars and search radars do not have very good target resolutions no matter how much he tried to 'modify' his junk. He cannot defy the laws of physics.

So with a combination of warning of imminent attacks and NATO's restrictive flight rules, Dani's odds of success increases. Out of 21,000 sorties over Yugoslavia and out of that figure was 4500 low altitude low speed SEAD missions, only two aircrafts were shot down, an F-117 and an F-16. For those of us who took basic statistics course, that practically screamed 'Good Luck'. Critical thinking skills would compel one to ask that if whatever 'modifications' Dani did so he could 'track' an F-117 based upon its 'signature', and do note that I placed those words in quotes to indicate dubious contexts, did he disseminate those techniques to other missile battery commanders? If he did and if those 'modifications' were supposed to work, then why not more 'non-stealth' aircrafts like the F-16 or A-10 shot down? Also, there were about 60 B-2 sorties over Yugoslavia so if those 'modifications' supposed to work so well, foreknowledge of imminent attacks would be unnecessary and at least one B-2 should have been a victim of those 'modifications', so why not even one B-2 was shot down? The answer is simple in that no one, except The Almighty Himself, can replicate positive fortune. That is why only two aircrafts were shot down and Dani just happened to get lucky with an F-117 to enhance his stature among the gullibles, which in this age of the Internet, came out to be Legions of Gullibles.

but i do agree there is no need to regret developing stealth tech, it significantly lowers chances of being detected but that does mean it is undetectable..... (the titanic was unsinkable and what happened there?)

See here...The USAF does not say our 'stealth' aircrafts are undetectable. Everything is detectable by radar. The issue is how far away and how long. You need to re-read everything I wrote about basic radar principles, admitedly not very much, on this forum.

so next time think about ur own posts before calling other people out on lacking thinking skills

I usually try to give supporting evidences and sources to my explanations on this quite technical matter. That indicate I give considerable thoughts about my replies.

uh huh yes.. its about the technology and that still hasn't been up against the s-300 when it has then we will all know whether or not what they say is true until then we can discuss all we want but whether a s-300 can or cannot detect stealth craft cannot be known for sure.

thats what i've been saying, the stealth planes are not invisible, i agree they are hard to detect,, but having a small chance of being detected means it can be detected so there's nothing to rule out that a s-300 cant detect a stealth aircraft(the russians never said how it is at that anyways). i am not claim anywhere it it definitely can im just saying as i did in the beginning that i would take both claims with a grain of salt until some thing more solid comes up

I can settle that question right now...That the S-300 can detect a US 'stealth' aircraft. Except that by the time the S-300 can detect the 'stealth' aircraft, it will be weapons release time for the pilot. Now all you have to do is bone up on how radars works, such as what freq bands are best for long distance search, the mechanics of Track-While-Scan and other modes, why is there always a lower value on the Track figure, or other issues that involve finding any target.

 

[Thomas]

See here...The USAF does not say our 'stealth' aircrafts are undetectable. Everything is detectable by radar.

I do believe though in the not to distant future. that Military aircraft, satellites, ect. will be rendered invisible both visually and from microwaves through the advent of Meta Materials.

Metamaterial Revolution: The New Science of Making Anything Disappear | Light | DISCOVER Magazine

Negative index metamaterials - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[applesauce]

Because unlike over Yugoslavia, the F-117 sorties were unpredictable.

yea... and? enemy in iraq could not know when the f-117s stuck thus could not track it which is to support my case that AA guns going off blindly have a EXTREMELY low, practically no chance of downing an aircraft it cannot tracl and is in no way a statistically inevitability to down an aircraft. i said the only f-117 that was ever down by the enemy was done during Kosovo War, and that it was down because the commander tracked the f-117 and was was suppository able to track it visually by infrared or something some 8 miles away from the aircraft

For what I have written here about radar and how 'stealth' works, do you really believe that I have done NOT any 'damn research' on this fluke event?

you clearly haven't when u claim things like "Called 'spray and pray' and given the truth presented, it was a statistical inevitability that at least one F-117 will be a casualty of this 'spray and pray' tactic." thats your words and they are wrong about the downing of the F-117 which was the issue i was talking about

Yes...The Serbs had sympathizers in Europe who monitored NATO bases and telephoned in whenever aircrafts sortied out.

yes....

Actions that does NOTHING to enhance his odds of success, only his odds of survival. And you call this 'critical thinking' about this subject?

think about this, he cant succeed if he is dead or even if his SA-3 was taken out, NATO would never allow a SAM unit go un-attack if they can track it and it posed a threat to its aircraft. again i was refuting ur claim that the F-117 was down by statistical inevitability of blindly fired AA guns his actions are part of the explanation of how that aircraft was shot down

Do you even know what is a 'signature'? I doubt it. As far as radar is concerned, it is possible to have two separate RCS signals that are the same in intensity at the same distance but do have distinct 'signatures'. See if you can look up why.

There is no such thing as 'complete stealth'. People like you who have never turned a wrench on a prop job, let alone a jet fighter, keeps throwing out these made up terms in pretense that you know what you are talking about. Those of us who have relevant experience can barely keep up debunking these misconceptions. The word 'stealth' is not appropriate and that is why I always put the word in quotes every time I feel I have to use it.

The F-117 pilot, Dale Zelko, recalled he had to evade at least two missiles and the evasive maneuvers put him within explosive range of a third or possibly a fourth missile. That mean he was not hit by a missile, only severely damaged by the shrapnels. The Serb missile battery commander, Zoltan Dani, declined to say how he 'modified' his radar to supposedly 'detect' the F-117. For those of us who have relevant experience in the subject, especially those like myself who have handled Soviet avionics, our opinions are that Dani got lucky, nothing more. If he cannot afford to transmit his search radar for longer than one-minute, he certainly cannot turn on his track radars and search radars do not have very good target resolutions no matter how much he tried to 'modify' his junk. He cannot defy the laws of physics.

So with a combination of warning of imminent attacks and NATO's restrictive flight rules, Dani's odds of success increases. Out of 21,000 sorties over Yugoslavia and out of that figure was 4500 low altitude low speed SEAD missions, only two aircrafts were shot down, an F-117 and an F-16. For those of us who took basic statistics course, that practically screamed 'Good Luck'. Critical thinking skills would compel one to ask that if whatever 'modifications' Dani did so he could 'track' an F-117 based upon its 'signature', and do note that I placed those words in quotes to indicate dubious contexts, did he disseminate those techniques to other missile battery commanders? If he did and if those 'modifications' were supposed to work, then why not more 'non-stealth' aircrafts like the F-16 or A-10 shot down? Also, there were about 60 B-2 sorties over Yugoslavia so if those 'modifications' supposed to work so well, foreknowledge of imminent attacks would be unnecessary and at least one B-2 should have been a victim of those 'modifications', so why not even one B-2 was shot down? The answer is simple in that no one, except The Almighty Himself, can replicate positive fortune. That is why only two aircrafts were shot down and Dani just happened to get lucky with an F-117 to enhance his stature among the gullibles, which in this age of the Internet, came out to be Legions of Gullibles.

WAY TO GO genius all that just to agreed with me that Its was not complete stealth as it it is detectable just difficult to detect, also, a lucky shot? yea i sure somehow 4-5 missiles as u claim found their way so close to the aircraft that the pilot had to EVADE them and i never said the one that brought him down physically struck the air craft, most sams are mean to exploded close enough to disabilty an aircraft anyways, also what the hell do you know about me? assuming i dont know **** about what im talking about, i wasnt even discussing the specifics of the f-117 stealth system i was telling the world how ur post makes no sense and why its wrong, go back and read what i quoted from you and why its not true about the f-117 that was downed

See here...The USAF does not say our 'stealth' aircrafts are undetectable. Everything is detectable by radar. The issue is how far away and how long. You need to re-read everything I wrote about basic radar principles, admitedly not very much, on this forum.

I usually try to give supporting evidences and sources to my explanations on this quite technical matter. That indicate I give considerable thoughts about my replies.

I can settle that question right now...That the S-300 can detect a US 'stealth' aircraft. Except that by the time the S-300 can detect the 'stealth' aircraft, it will be weapons release time for the pilot. Now all you have to do is bone up on how radars works, such as what freq bands are best for long distance search, the mechanics of Track-While-Scan and other modes, why is there always a lower value on the Track figure, or other issues that involve finding any target.

when the hell did i ever say to believe what the russians said? LEARN TO READ in my posts i said to take what the usaf and the russia say with a grain of salt, the USA has its secrets bout the its stealth aircraft but so do the Russians about their missiles. and judging by the way u answer things and not being able to read my posts correctly i'd rather not learn anything from you and go to a far more credible source elsewhere, clearly if things are a simple as u put them(yes i understand a decent amount about about radars) the world would be a far more simpler place. but again never anywhere in my posts am i arguing with you about how radar works or much of anythings else for that matter just that the information i quoted from you was wrong and that we shouldn't just take what the governments say about its hardware at face value

 

[gambit]

yea... and? enemy in iraq could not know when the f-117s stuck thus could not track it which is to support my case that AA guns going off blindly have a EXTREMELY low, practically no chance of downing an aircraft it cannot tracl and is in no way a statistically inevitability to down an aircraft. i said the only f-117 that was ever down by the enemy was done during Kosovo War, and that it was down because the commander tracked the f-117 and was was suppository able to track it visually by infrared or something some 8 miles away from the aircraft



you clearly haven't when u claim things like "Called 'spray and pray' and given the truth presented, it was a statistical inevitability that at least one F-117 will be a casualty of this 'spray and pray' tactic." thats your words and they are wrong about the downing of the F-117 which was the issue i was talking about

This is why I do not take seriously anything you said about 'stealth'. In order to track a target you must first be able to find it because the tracking process uses different frequencies and different mechanics. The differences between Iraq and Yugoslavia is that over Yugoslavia, the F-117 sorties were under predictable flight rules. Predictability increases the odds of success, not at tracking or even search but in being able to toss up several missiles and having at least one of them explode near enough to an aircraft. That is luck and is rightly called 'spray and pray'.

think about this, he cant succeed if he is dead or even if his SA-3 was taken out, NATO would never allow a SAM unit go un-attack if they can track it and it posed a threat to its aircraft. again i was refuting ur claim that the F-117 was down by statistical inevitability of blindly fired AA guns his actions are part of the explanation of how that aircraft was shot down

This is absurd. You are making a serious logical error. You are in effect saying that Dani is GUARANTEED to succeed in shooting down an F-117 as long as he is alive. You are attributing magical powers to the man. Turning on/off his radar and moving often has no TECHNICAL influence on how his radar is able to find, let alone track an F-117. The fact that you cannot tell the difference between the search and track processes make your argument technically silly.

WAY TO GO genius all that just to agreed with me that Its was not complete stealth as it it is detectable just difficult to detect, also, a lucky shot? yea i sure somehow 4-5 missiles as u claim found their way so close to the aircraft that the pilot had to EVADE them and i never said the one that brought him down physically struck the air craft, most sams are mean to exploded close enough to disabilty an aircraft anyways, also what the hell do you know about me? assuming i dont know **** about what im talking about, i wasnt even discussing the specifics of the f-117 stealth system i was telling the world how ur post makes no sense and why its wrong, go back and read what i quoted from you and why its not true about the f-117 that was downed



when the hell did i ever say to believe what the russians said? LEARN TO READ in my posts i said to take what the usaf and the russia say with a grain of salt, the USA has its secrets bout the its stealth aircraft but so do the Russians about their missiles. and judging by the way u answer things and not being able to read my posts correctly i'd rather not learn anything from you and go to a far more credible source elsewhere, clearly if things are a simple as u put them(yes i understand a decent amount about about radars) the world would be a far more simpler place. but again never anywhere in my posts am i arguing with you about how radar works or much of anythings else for that matter just that the information i quoted from you was wrong and that we shouldn't just take what the governments say about its hardware at face value

The fact that you used the phrase 'complete stealth' repeatedly tells me that you do not know even the basics of radar detection, buddy. There is no such thing as 'complete stealth', only low level of observability, which depends on distance, transmit energy, aspect angle and several other factors that probably would further confuse you. Stealth is not a definitive level of RCS value where each aircraft can be held against. You cannot even explain why, if it was so easy for Dani to 'track' an F-117, only two aircrafts out 21,000 sorties were shot down. That is not a combat record to boast about. If you cannot explain this to the readership, in a credible TECHNICAL manner, you have very well argued against me on how radar works and so far I am not impressed.

 

[pmukherjee]

Guys found this somewhere, it makes sense.

Air Defense: China Quietly Defends Iran
China Quietly Defends Iran
August 12, 2009: While Iran has been unable to get modern Russian S300 surface-to-air missiles (yet), they have gone ahead and built a nationwide air defense network using Chinese HQ2 missiles. These were first purchased in the 1980s, but since then, Iran progressed to the point where they are now building HQ2 missiles and radar stations under license. It's believed that China has quietly allowed Iran to build the latest versions of the HQ2 as well. These are not quite as effective as the S300, but are pretty formidable.

The HQ-2 is a Chinese version of the Russian SA-2 system (from the 1950s). The Chinese have upgraded the SA-2 with modern electronics, an improved warhead, better rocket motors and more maneuverability. Their inventory of missiles is believed to be about 10,000. However, many are older models, and many of these are probably of uncertain reliability. American electronic countermeasures can probably defeat all models of the HQ-2. Newer models of the HQ-2 have a range of 40 kilometers, and will hit the target 70 percent of the time (if there are no countermeasures.) The HQ-2 radars have a hard time dealing with stealthy aircraft, and the radar is needed to guide the missile to its target (via radio signals from the ground to the missile).

China has been able to purchase Russian S300 systems, but still has an incentive to improve their HQ2s. That's because about half of their 150 air defense missile battalions are equipped with HQ2s, and that is not likely to change any time soon. So the Chinese are probably continuing to make improvements in the HQ2, and selling the technology to Iran. China wants long term access to Iranian oil, and helping upgrade Iranian air defenses is one way to help with the oil situation.

 

[applesauce]

This is why I do not take seriously anything you said about 'stealth'. In order to track a target you must first be able to find it because the tracking process uses different frequencies and different mechanics. The differences between Iraq and Yugoslavia is that over Yugoslavia, the F-117 sorties were under predictable flight rules. Predictability increases the odds of success, not at tracking or even search but in being able to toss up several missiles and having at least one of them explode near enough to an aircraft. That is luck and is rightly called 'spray and pray'.

i'll say it again, in the documentation and other very public imformation about this event the commanding officer of the SAM was reportedly able to track the aircraft using visual tracking methods IE: infrared signature and such.
the use scouts and informants to determine where the aircraft is so that his radar and other method of aircraft detection doesn't have to be on for every long, only when the air craft is coming so that when he is able to track the f-117 (8 miles away by infrared according to some) he will fire his missiles then quickly shut his equipment down and move on to prevent retaliation.
also i think your mistaken im not saying anything about stealth, the stealth capabilities and how it works is not what im arguing about.

This is absurd. You are making a serious logical error. You are in effect saying that Dani is GUARANTEED to succeed in shooting down an F-117 as long as he is alive. You are attributing magical powers to the man. Turning on/off his radar and moving often has no TECHNICAL influence on how his radar is able to find, let alone track an F-117. The fact that you cannot tell the difference between the search and track processes make your argument technically silly.

ur absurd, im not claiming anything is guaranteed, read it again, im say he has a 100% chance of NOT being able to shoot it down if he is dead before having the chance.
turning off his radar and such has the effect of the NATO unit not being able to find him thus allowing him to survive and through use of informants and experiences gain a shot at the aircraft

and the fact that u apparently cant understand this part of my post :"again i was refuting ur claim that the F-117 was down by statistical inevitability of blindly fired AA guns his actions are part of the explanation of how that aircraft was shot down" worries me. i am not saying any where that him shutting off the radar had anything to do with his chances of shooting down a f-117 merely that the shutting down the radar part was part of his tactic during the war to survived eventually he was able to gain a crack at the f-117, how he shut down the plane is another issue abit one that is related and i am saying it is not a statistically inevitability during the war that shot it down rather it was a deliberate attack on the plane and that the commander was not blindly firing his sam which is not a play in the hand books of any military in the world.

The fact that you used the phrase 'complete stealth' repeatedly tells me that you do not know even the basics of radar detection, buddy. There is no such thing as 'complete stealth', only low level of observability, which depends on distance, transmit energy, aspect angle and several other factors that probably would further confuse you. Stealth is not a definitive level of RCS value where each aircraft can be held against. You cannot even explain why, if it was so easy for Dani to 'track' an F-117, only two aircrafts out 21,000 sorties were shot down. That is not a combat record to boast about. If you cannot explain this to the readership, in a credible TECHNICAL manner, you have very well argued against me on how radar works and so far I am not impressed.

let me clearify what i mean by complete stealth, many people i have come across the forums for some reason or another thinks that when the US talks about stealth they mean that it is COMPLETELY undetectable by radar <--- this is what i mean undetectable by radar

i have already said this but...i'll say it again to make it perfectly clear to u, i DO NOT agree with those people who thinks a plane is undetectable, i know stealth currently mean a very low level of observability but again not what im arguing about.

also no one ever said it was easy for the commander to track this plane only that he in his interviews held that he was able to and so far the US government has not disagreed. also yes 1 down out of thousands of flights is impressive i never said it wasn't, if you will go back to the initial paragraph i quoted from u and read it carefully if you do then u'll say that the only thing i have a problem with is ur explanation of HOW the plane go shut down.

so to sum this all up,
1. i am not arguing about how stealth works or how "good" the plane is or how impressive it is

2. the problem i have is when u attribute the downing of the F-117 to AA fire and that it was a "statistical inevitability" for that plane to have gone down

3. my argument is: the plane was down because of a commander in that war who kept himself from being blown up by only using his radar for 10 minutes or so at a time and moved around constantly, was oable t find out the exact time the plane was headed in his direction by using patterns of previous flights and informants was actually saw the plane take off. then as the plane neared he turn on his detection equipment and was able to track the plane via the plane's IR signatures and was able to fire several missiles at the plane with at least one exploding close enough to down the aircraft.

if you have any comment or arguments about #3 then by all mean post more if not then we can end this here as all the other stuff u brought up is not the topic of my post nor any arguments i have made

 

[gambit]

i am saying it is not a statistically inevitability during the war that shot it down rather it was a deliberate attack on the plane and that the commander was not blindly firing his sam which is not a play in the hand books of any military in the world.

Christ Almighty...You are dense. If Dani does not have a clear radar track on the F-117 and fire his missiles anyway, what else could it be but 'blindly'? As of now, you are dismissed by me as technically incompetent.

 

[applesauce]

Christ Almighty...You are dense. If Dani does not have a clear radar track on the F-117 and fire his missiles anyway, what else could it be but 'blindly'? As of now, you are dismissed by me as technically incompetent.

im dense.... do u even read what i wrote, i said he tracked the thing using IR for the last 2-3 posts now, also the stuff about Baghdad and such is to show that blindly fired AA guns generally do not down aircraft as show by the air attack in Baghdad even though it has one of the most dense AA covers.

Also who fires SAMs blindly? there is no way any one would saturate the sky with SAMs not to mention hes one commander of one SAM unit with maybe a couple of missiles(2 fired at a time at best), this is why all sams have some form of tracking because it is pointless to blindly fire sams into the sky.

if your trying to convince me that this guy with one SA-3 was able to blindly attack into the sky at an aircraft with unknown attitude
and was able to down it with 2 missles or less then you are the one thats dense

go ahead a dissmiss me as technically incompetent all you want still doesnt change the fact that you are wrong not to mention u initially say it was down by AA which is completely wrong

 

[Thomas]

im dense.... do u even read what i wrote, i said he tracked the thing using IR for the last 2-3 posts now, also the stuff about Baghdad and such is to show that blindly fired AA guns generally do not down aircraft as show by the air attack in Baghdad even though it has one of the most dense AA covers.

Also who fires SAMs blindly? there is no way any one would saturate the sky with SAMs not to mention hes one commander of one SAM unit with maybe a couple of missiles(2 fired at a time at best), this is why all sams have some form of tracking because it is pointless to blindly fire sams into the sky.

if your trying to convince me that this guy with one SA-3 was able to blindly attack into the sky at an aircraft with unknown attitude
and was able to down it with 2 missles or less then you are the one thats dense

go ahead a dissmiss me as technically incompetent all you want still doesnt change the fact that you are wrong not to mention u initially say it was down by AA which is completely wrong

Firing SAM's blindly is a more common practice then you think. Saddam was a great example of that.

 

[applesauce]

Firing SAM's blindly is a more common practice then you think. Saddam was a great example of that.

wasnt successful at all, was he now

 

[Thomas]

wasnt successful at all, was he now

exactly my point. but those on the receiving end of sustained bombardment get desperate. and some air defense regiment commanders most likely want to at least look like they are trying.

 

[IceCold]

In order to be able to detect a 'stealth' aircraft, it would be very helpful if you have such an aircraft. Does either Russia or China have any?

I was reading your posts, very informative i must say. Two things came to my mind:

1) The russians too were working on stealth something known as Plasma stealth a proposed process that uses ionized gas (plasma) to reduce the radar cross section (RCS) of an aircraft. i am sure you are already well aware of the process, here is a link:

Plasma stealth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2) When the US F-117 was downed by the Serbs, the Russians must have had a good first hand look at the wreckage. There were even reports of the downed F-117 being delivered to Russia to examine it although the pilots may have destroyed some key elements.

My question is based on the above two things how likely is it that although Russians do not have a stealth jet such as the Raptor or the F-35 and are still working on it, they still may have managed to develop a radar and a SAM system reportedly known as the S-400 to counter the lastest generation US fighter jets based on the knowledge learned from the above mentioned factors.

 

[gambit]

I was reading your posts, very informative i must say. Two things came to my mind:

1) The russians too were working on stealth something known as Plasma stealth a proposed process that uses ionized gas (plasma) to reduce the radar cross section (RCS) of an aircraft. i am sure you are already well aware of the process, here is a link:

Plasma stealth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I would not place too much stock on what the Russians claimed about this. Plasma is produced by ICBM warheads on the descent through the atmosphere and even aircrafts in the supersonic regime produces plasma. Not only that, plasma produces its own emissions, albeit in a different spectrum, that could be detected.

2) When the US F-117 was downed by the Serbs, the Russians must have had a good first hand look at the wreckage. There were even reports of the downed F-117 being delivered to Russia to examine it although the pilots may have destroyed some key elements.

My question is based on the above two things how likely is it that although Russians do not have a stealth jet such as the Raptor or the F-35 and are still working on it, they still may have managed to develop a radar and a SAM system reportedly known as the S-400 to counter the lastest generation US fighter jets based on the knowledge learned from the above mentioned factors.

The behaviors of radar waves on surfaces are not unknown. On a planar surface, it is deflection and this is what the F-117 was based upon. If the signal meet a surface at 90deg angle, most of the deflection will be back to source. But if the surface is off 90deg, no matter how slight, the deflection will be 90deg away from source...

On a sphere, however, the incoming radar signal will behave in what is called the 'creeping wave' effect...

Creeping wave - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In radar ranging, the creeping wave return appears to come from behind the target.

It is the curves on a body that will facilitate this behavior and this is what the B-2, F-22 and F-35 are based upon. The remains of the Yugoslavia F-117 shot down, at best, could only give anyone the information on th e composition of the RAM installed. The F-117's average RCS is from the many angled facets of the aircraft. As severely damaged as that F-117, I doubt that the Russians could have deduced what the body, electronically speaking, look like.

But since the F-117 is retired, the aircraft and its method of reducing RCS -- angled faceting -- is no evidently no longer useful when we look at the F-22 and its brethens. Not only that, keep in mind that a pulse is finite in that it has a beginning and an end and it loses energy in its travel through the atmosphere. Therefore any amount of deflected energy is desirable. Targeting radar pulses will have higher pulse repetition frequency (PRF), meaning very short pulses and less energy than search pulses. For the F-22, curvatures will induce largely the 'creeping wave' behavior on the impact pulse, some angled facetings will deflect some of the pulse, and absorbers will sap away some of the pulse's energy. This is why any claim by the Russians about the S-300 or the S-400 being able to detect, track and finally target the F-22 should be taken with serious doubts.

 

[Thomas]

This is why any claim by the Russians about the S-300 or the S-400 being able to detect, track and finally target the F-22 should be taken with serious doubts.

Shhhh......many people here sleep better at night thinking the Russians can effectively counter the F-22.

 

[jupiter2007]

Didn't Pakistan purchased upgraded S-200 from Ukraine?