"Vaunted Russian air defences completely worthless" Topic

I've been reading a bit about the performance of Russian air defences in Syria and Libya and it appears that the west's fears about these system are completely unfounded.

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The systems included are:

S300 long range SAM – used in Syria
Buk-M1 – medium range SAM – used in Syria
Pantsir short range air defence system (gun/SAM combo) – used in both Libya and Syria.

The Pantsir's main role in Libya and Syria has been to act as targets for Israelis and Turkish airforces. Pantsir units in Libya were virtually annihilated by Turkish drones whilst the Turkish and Israeli airforces have destroyed many Pantsir and Buk systems in Syria without loss.

The S300 was deployed in Syrian units and has accomplished absolutely nothing. Israel still bombs Syria with impunity. And not just with stealth F-35s but with AH-64s and non stealthy F-16s as well.

They blame crew training but it's been proven the Russians are here as advisers.

They blame Russians not permitting the utilisation of S300 but surely the Russians would not want to have their vaunted systems proven to be a false deterrent.

The other interesting tidbit concerns the S400 – which also seems to be heavily overrated. Turns out its 400 km range is false – that is based on an assumption on missiles the Russians are trying to develop but haven't entered into service. Actual range against large high flying aircraft such as AWACS is 150-200 km and against low flying targets it's a mere 20 km.

The S400s biggest problem is physics -like any ground based radar, it's ability is restricted to what it can see within its horizon.

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To be fair the American made Patriot has struggled to stop Houthi missiles being lobbed at Saudi cities and oil installations. And this despite Saudi air defence network being one of the best in the world, and often crewed by foreign "advisers" instead of locals.

Clearly SAMs are no longer a viable option to stop enemy offensive operations.

Given how easy cheap drones have been able to smack Pantsirs (whose job is to defend against such systems), these systems no longer even serve to increase cost of attack.

So if the west continues to develop an offensive based system with an emphasis on stand off attack, stealth and maintain adequate electronic warfare capability the Russians and Chinese are effectively neutralised and the west will have no problems liquidating their forces without substantial loss.

Note the Russian and Chinese airforces lack sufficient interceptor numbers and thus rely on SAM systems that have now been proven to be tactically of virtually no value.

And just to prove how useless the S300 is, just this July and early August the Israelis launched a number of attacks on Syrian targets including ones in Damascus that are defended by the supposed state of the art S300.

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There were more attacks on other targets in June as well.

The Israelis seem to have completely neutralised the system to the point it's only value is scrap metal.

The implicatons are clear – there is no threat to western aircraft from these systems except the odd lucky shot.

Any future air war against China and Russia might be closer to the air attacks on Iraq in 2003 or Libya in 2011 than the fears previously presented – NATO/Americans shutdown the A2/AD networks within 24 hours whilst blasting airbases with stealth aircraft and standoff weapons. Complete air superiority with 24-48 hours!

Finally a couple of more articles on the myth of Russian (and thus Chinese) A2/AD networks and the fallacies that underpin them.

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The second article from War on the Rocks even acknowledges that Russian generals have no faith that their air defence system will hamper let alone stop an American air offensive.

"To be fair the American made Patriot has struggled to stop Houthi missiles being lobbed at Saudi cities and oil installations."

The Patriot is almost 40 yers old and is trying to shoot down missiles. The Russians appear to be having problems shooting down planes. It seems one system is clearly superior to the other.

S300 entered service in 1979 though like Patriot it has been upgraded over the years.

However clearly all the Russian upgrades in the world haven't cured it of its inherent Soviet backwardness.

However they seem to work OK against civilian aircraft such as airliners.

I wouldn't read too much into it. Syria doesn't have much of a sophisticated and integrated air defense (IAD) system to speak of like the ones Russia and China possess.

OUCH! bsrlee, I about spit my coffee after reading that. Sad but quite funny!

I've seen the criticism that Russia and China would perform better than the Syrians because of personnel. The Syrians have a lot more combat experience in recent history than the Russian and Chinese militaries. I get their training isn't on par but they're used to seeing NATO and Israeli aircraft and being hit by the Israelis and Turks. They can't do a thing to stop them. Better trained but less experienced troops from Russia and China wouldn't fare a whole lot better. Especially with the PLA…I don't trust a military with commissars and rigid command to respond quickly to a multi faceted air assault.

I wouldn't read too much into the results from various nations, thus far.

Clearly, they don't live up to the Russian marketing hype, but I doubt they're worthless, either.

The US, Israel, and other NATO countries are just very good at figuring out their weaknesses, and developing good tactics to counter them.

Iraq had one of the most sophisticated, and dense air defense systems on the planet, courtesy of their Soviet/Russian allies, but it was systematically destroyed over time by coalition forces.

Clearly, without a viable air force to back them up, SAMs and AAA are very vulnerable to being destroyed piecemeal, over time.

Clearly, they don't live up to the Russian marketing hype, but I doubt they're worthless, either.

The US, Israel, and other NATO countries are just very good at figuring out their weaknesses, and developing good tactics to counter them.

If they are being bypassed/countered by their opponents then they are worthless.

Iraq had one of the most sophisticated, and dense air defense systems on the planet, courtesy of their Soviet/Russian allies, but it was systematically destroyed over time by coalition forces.

Iraq's AD system had a number of weaknesses which meant it was quite weak overall:

- Core C3 system was French KARI system which was compromised the moment France shared its secrets with the Americans. The battle management system was British ASMA which was also compromised from the start.

- Iraqi SAM systems were mainly already old and extremely outdated – SA-2/-3/-6. All 3 systems were obsolete by 1982 when Israel dismantled a large chunk of the Syrian AD system in a single day. The US had already bypassed similar systems over Libya in 1986 Operation El Dorado Canyon.

The only modern SAM system was the Roland.

Iraq had some other issues:

1. Politicised officer corps where promotions were based on tribal and political allegiances and not competence.

2. Totally obsolete fighter arm mainly based around MiG-23 and MiG-25 with nearly 40 MiG-29s supporting them. Even the MiG-29s were third rate.

As such Iraq's supposed sophisticated system never managed to shut down Iranian air ops despite Iran's fleet dwindling due to battle losses, embargo and no new aircraft being received except a small number of smuggled F-5A/Es and some Chinese J-7 (MiG-21 clone).

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Some of these issues are present in Russia and China who uses Russian derivatives (eg HQ-22 is essentially a Chinese copy of the S300).

Note that the S300 also currently serves in NATO (Greece and Bulgaria) so is totally compromised despite upgrades.

Both countries have weaker fighter arms.

Excluding ground attack aircraft, Russia has only 600 ish combat aircraft capable of air to air (Su-27/30/35/MiG-31.
MiG-29 is only used for training).

China has about 1300 however half of them are J-7s (MiG-21 clone) or J-8 (equivalent to a MiG-23). The rest is split between Flanker derivatives ala Su-27/30/J-11/J-15/J-16 and J-10 (modified version of Israeli Lavi fighter)

They are also short on AWACS – Russia only has 16 A50s, only 4 of which have been substantially upgraded since 1980s.

The Chinese AWAC fleet is about 30 aircraft.

In comparison, NATO operates 57 AWACS aircraft (though numbers have shrunk by about 6 in recent years) not including French and US E-2 Hawkeyes deployed on carriers but including 4 Turkish B737 AEW&C.

US Allies in Pacific (Korea, Australia and Japan) contribute another 27 aircraft.

Clearly, they don't live up to the Russian marketing hype, but I doubt they're worthless, either.

The US, Israel, and other NATO countries are just very good at figuring out their weaknesses, and developing good tactics to counter them.

If they are being bypassed/countered by their opponents then they are worthless.

They are not even making it difficult for opponents or stalling or anything. They are just sitting there doing nothing (eg Syrian S300) or being destroyed.

Their net contribution to war fighting in Libya and Syria is to divert aircraft/drones to destroy them.

Iraq had one of the most sophisticated, and dense air defense systems on the planet, courtesy of their Soviet/Russian allies, but it was systematically destroyed over time by coalition forces.

Iraq's AD system had a number of weaknesses which meant it was quite weak overall:

- Core C3 system was French KARI system which was compromised the moment France shared its secrets with the Americans. The battle management system was British ASMA which was also compromised from the start.

- Iraqi SAM systems were mainly already old and extremely outdated – SA-2/-3/-6. All 3 systems were obsolete by 1982 when Israel dismantled a large chunk of the Syrian AD system in a single day. The US had already bypassed similar systems over Libya in 1986 Operation El Dorado Canyon.

The only modern SAM system was the Roland.

Iraq had some other issues:

1. Politicised officer corps where promotions were based on tribal and political allegiances and not competence.

2. Totally obsolete fighter arm mainly based around MiG-23 and MiG-25 with nearly 40 MiG-29s supporting them. Even the MiG-29s were third rate.

3. Apparently the system was far more rigid than even the Soviet one due to need for political control.

As such Iraq's supposed sophisticated system never managed to shut down Iranian air ops despite Iran's fleet dwindling due to battle losses, embargo and no new aircraft being received except a small number of smuggled F-5A/Es and some Chinese J-7 (MiG-21 clone).

And it just crumpled when smashed by Uncle Sam and friends.

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Some of these issues are present in Russia and China who uses Russian derivatives (eg HQ-22 is essentially a Chinese copy of the S300).

Note that the S300 also currently serves in NATO (Greece and Bulgaria) so is totally compromised despite upgrades.

Both Russia and China have weak fighter arms.

Excluding pure ground attack aircraft, Russia has only 600 ish combat aircraft capable of air to air (Su-27/30/35/MiG-31.
MiG-29 is only used for training).

China has about 1300 however half of them are J-7s (MiG-21 clone) or J-8 (equivalent to a MiG-23). The rest is split between Flanker derivatives ala Su-27/30/J-11/J-15/J-16 and J-10 (modified version of Israeli Lavi fighter)

They are also short on AWACS – Russia only has 16 A50s, only 4 of which have been substantially upgraded since 1980s.

The Chinese AWAC fleet is about 30 aircraft.

In comparison, NATO operates 57 AWACS aircraft (though numbers have shrunk by about 6 in recent years) not including French and US E-2 Hawkeyes deployed on carriers but including 4 Turkish B737 AEW&C.

US Allies in Pacific (Korea, Australia and Japan) contribute another 27 aircraft.

the S300 also currently serves in NATO (Greece and Bulgaria) so is totally compromised despite upgrades

So does this mean that the vaunted S400 is compromised because it's sold to NATO member Turkey and US ally Egypt?

Quite possibly. It would depend on those countries allowing access. Bulgaria and Greece are NATO (Turkey is too but on the outer).

The Americans also acquired a partial S300 system that Croatia purchased but never introduced into service.

Israel definitely got access to S300 info when they conducted specific exercises against Greek S300s (originally acquired by Cyprus but transferred to Greece following Turkish uproar).

And lo and behold Israeli F-15 and F-16s now happily whizz around lobbing bombs at Damascus despite presence of S300.

In any case S400 is an evolved S300. It's previous designation was S300PMU-3 but it was relabeled for marketing purposes. Note the Greek S300s are S300PMU-1 and Syrian ones S300PMU-2.

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Also I only just found out that the S350 is essentially a version of the South Korean KM-SAM and that some KM-SAM features were used on S400!

Apparently South Korea was hedging bets against China and thus working in conjunction with Russians on S350!

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I suspect that given all of the above the S400 is probably already a known quantity to US/NATO.

From Egypt, perhaps yes.

Turkey is an unreliable "ally", so not sure they'd share anything about it with others in the EU and/or USA, given that would compromise their system too.