S-350 "Vityaz" SAM System

william.boutros wrote:You don't need to throw your air force inside the air defence zone. You can overwhelm with missiles or target with stealth missiles and even jam and use decoys and anti radar missiles. The US already demonstrated that 105 cruise missiles can really overwhelm defenses and do the job.

its not much of a argument when comparing strong vs weak or numerous vs rare and than from the result of it drawing conclusions

just as easily can be said that a country with a third world air force can not penetrate integrated Russian air defense

it is easy to deploy a air defense that will deal with 100 cruise missiles or 500 cruise missile just as same its just that not anyone has the means, technical knowledge etc to do it

just as same not anyone can field 100 cruise missiles or 500 of them and most of the air forces of the world does not have such an inventory. Look at the Poland for instance and

its 100 odd fighter air force. Do you think it can do surveillance with it and keep track of everything thats going on in the country it intends to attack and than the consequence of

shooting blindly or going in blindly or staying on ground with its air force

william.boutros wrote:
You don't need to throw your air force inside the air defence zone. You can overwhelm with missiles or target with stealth missiles and even jam and use decoys and anti radar missiles. The US already demonstrated that 105 cruise missiles can really overwhelm defenses and do the job

Even against a country like Syria 105 missiles was not enough.

Russia has interceptor to destroy bombers and a navy to destroy cruiser. The remaining that would pass will be dealt with air defence.

william.boutros wrote:You don't need to throw your air force inside the air defence zone. You can overwhelm with missiles or target with stealth missiles and even jam and use decoys and anti radar missiles. The US already demonstrated that 105 cruise missiles can really overwhelm defenses and do the job.

Smaller planes aren't going to carry a large amount of cruise missiles, larger planes can be detected from thousands of kilometers, given a good early warning system. In addition to this, having to launch hundreds of CM's against a few static targets, to be capable to destroy a building or two is quite a big problem when you have a lot of targets to hit.

The Iranians launched <20 missiles and at least 12 of them hit their targets. Had the Iraqi's or the Americans had the same interception rate as the Syrians, only 3 missiles would have actually damaged anything, the rest either failing or getting shot down. If the Syrians had an actual air-force with AEW&C, the amount of missiles shot down would have likely been even greater. Had the Syrians obtained S-300's or some other longer-ranged systems, they would have likely been able to more effectively defend against the cruise missile attack.

william.boutros wrote:

Viktor wrote:Russian layered air-defense system will become with each passing layer denser from top tier 400km at distance till at 0m decoy

Russian troops test-fire latest S-350 anti-aircraft missile system
https://tass.com/defense/1108421


with 96 missiles ready to shoot targets per system and 32 missiles fired at max the number rapidly multiplies with each added division.

For eight division that means 768 missiles ready to fire and 256 missiles fired at its targets at the same moment. (Katyusha of air defense)

I can not see any smaller air force able to push forward advance and than exit the battlefield without its head being chopped off. For instance Poland would easily loose all its airforce

within just a few attempts to storm targets defended with these systems and would have to either not use them or restrict their use or shoot from the distance risking opposing

interceptor run. Even when restricting their use for only shooting from the distance it risk entering SAM traps as has no ability to cover enemy air space in real time with surveillance

thus it could enter SAM trap without even knowing it and knowing

it requires constant surveillance and small number of countries of the World has such capability and such capability can be neutralized with 400 km range missiles forcing enemy

curiosity into dark.

You don't need to throw your air force inside the air defence zone. You can overwhelm with missiles or target with stealth missiles and even jam and use decoys and anti radar missiles. The US already demonstrated that 105 cruise missiles can really overwhelm defenses and do the job.

You can, but that's no good

The enemy will also be throwing missiles at you, and they'll need a lot less missiles to take out a target if your air-defence system is not up to the same par.
And in that case staying out of air-defence zones won't help, as the enemy will also target your airstrips, pilot barracks, command centres, munitions, fuel and planes parked on the ground, decreasing the number and readiness of your own offensive platforms and swinging things more in their favour

The West has gotten too used to bombing and taking out targets in 3rd world countries in the chaos of civil wars, and your thinking reflects this

If it comes to a country like Russia, it will come down to a battle of attrition, where the total amount of missiles in inventory vs the enemy's air defence capabilities will be the formula that comes into play.

You don't need to throw your air force inside the air defence zone. You can overwhelm with missiles or target with stealth missiles and even jam and use decoys and anti radar missiles. The US already demonstrated that 105 cruise missiles can really overwhelm defenses and do the job.

The US and allies threw 105 cruise missiles against a group of loosely tied together air defence systems that were largely working on their own with no help from Russia. This is an air defence that Israel routinely entered without threat, yet it managed to take down 71 missiles.

More importantly when you talk about overwhelming a defence you need enormous numbers which means meticulous coordination and of course lots and lots of launch platforms, which when we are talking about Russian defences become vulnerable to pre-emptive self defence attacks to weaken the attack before it even starts and that is ignoring reprisal attacks against bases from which these attacks have been launched.

Now Syria has an IADS Israeli aircraft wont even enter their airspace... even the super expensive stealthy planes they have... they have to mount larger and larger attacks with the payoff that occasionally (ie happened twice) that a single Pantsir air defence gun/missile system gets destroyed... when it is on its own... which would not happen in a Russian force with plenty of platforms that work together.

Even against a country like Syria 105 missiles was not enough.

Indeed... they tried to hit two targets and didn't get very good "coverage" at all even with just a restricted target sheet.

If the Syrians had an actual air-force with AEW&C, the amount of missiles shot down would have likely been even greater. Had the Syrians obtained S-300's or some other longer-ranged systems, they would have likely been able to more effectively defend against the cruise missile attack.

If the Syrians had an IADS then I doubt many missiles would have made it to target.

The IADS is a management system to more efficiently use sensors and weapons to improve situational awareness for all, so targets are allocated to batteries to ensure they all get engaged and none slip through... ie the purpose of an IADS is to make the number of threats needed to overwhelm the system orders of magnitude higher... and with longer ranged missiles it gives you more options for missiles to hit targets and you can start hitting targets sooner.

The West has gotten too used to bombing and taking out targets in 3rd world countries in the chaos of civil wars, and your thinking reflects this

The Iranian ballistic missile strike has perhaps made them realise that their rear areas are not as safe as they thought and that Russia has a few ballistic missiles too... maybe they could do this as well.... and China for that matter...

If it comes to a country like Russia, it will come down to a battle of attrition, where the total amount of missiles in inventory vs the enemy's air defence capabilities will be the formula that comes into play.

The Soviets and the Russians have more air defence missiles than the rest of the world combined, so that formula favours the Russians.

If it comes to a country like Russia, it will come down to a battle of attrition, where the total amount of missiles in inventory vs the enemy's air defence capabilities will be the formula that comes into play.

The official numbers I saw for NATO cruise missiles are something like 300-500 Scalp for french airforce, around the same for germany/Taurus and UK/StormShadow. US has some 2000 tomahawks.

Russia has more than enough anti air missiles deployed to shoot them down. Tors have 8/16 missile per vehicle, pantsir has 12, S-350 has 12, buk has 4/6 per launcher, Sosna has 12 also... multiply all that by 4 or 6 and then by the numbers of units. You xill get huge numbers. And for each launcher they hace a stock of 2 or 3 reloads.

Russia has also jamming vehicled to jam their gps.


Now compare bato air defence against an attack of cruise missiles. They are defenceless. Only there ships could do something but if russia sebd them through land they won't even see them.

Viktor wrote:

william.boutros wrote:You don't need to throw your air force inside the air defence zone. You can overwhelm with missiles or target with stealth missiles and even jam and use decoys and anti radar missiles. The US already demonstrated that 105 cruise missiles can really overwhelm defenses and do the job.

its not much of a argument when comparing strong vs weak or numerous vs rare and than from the result of it drawing conclusions

just as easily can be said that a country with a third world air force can not penetrate integrated Russian air defense

it is easy to deploy a air defense that will deal with 100 cruise missiles or 500 cruise missile just as same its just that not anyone has the means, technical knowledge etc to do it

just as same not anyone can field 100 cruise missiles or 500 of them and most of the air forces of the world does not have such an inventory. Look at the Poland for instance and

its 100 odd fighter air force. Do you think it can do surveillance with it and keep track of everything thats going on in the country it intends to attack and than the consequence of

shooting blindly or going in blindly or staying on ground with its air force

Yes, I agree. There is also NATO in the West.
S-350 can engage 16 missiles. It is expected to serve along PantirS1M that can engage up to 4 missiles simultaneously.
But even a modest opponent can throw a number of cheap air launched gliders or cheap volleys of unguided rockets to overwhelm a defense.

william.boutros wrote:
Yes, I agree. There is also NATO in the West.
S-350 can engage 16 missiles. It is expected to serve along PantirS1M that can engage up to 4 missiles simultaneously.
But even a modest opponent can throw a number of cheap air launched gliders or cheap volleys of unguided rockets to overwhelm a defense.

Yes a modest country can buy decoys and than throw it in. But throw it in into where? How will it know where SAM are until they are up and shooting missiles at you?

What you are suggesting is going in blindly ready to overwhelm the air defense of which you know nothing (position, numbers, sequence, tactics ...) and when you find it shoot

small range unguided rockets and slow flying gliders onto them. I dont see how could that work without SAM ripping the head of your air force ?

Yes, I agree. There is also NATO in the West.
S-350 can engage 16 missiles. It is expected to serve along PantirS1M that can engage up to 4 missiles simultaneously.
But even a modest opponent can throw a number of cheap air launched gliders or cheap volleys of unguided rockets to overwhelm a defense.

4 wrong points here.

1) Modest opponent attacking Russia. If it happens Russia will destroy its army in 2 or 3 days like Georgia. They won't even have time to prepare their air force before Russia start shooting iskanders at its bases.

2) Gliders. I think you mean those glindig bombs. Well, first they need gps to work so you need to know exact position of enemy SAMs. They are not cheap. They have mostly a max range of 100km but that is possible only if the fighters launch them from 10km or more in altitude making them easy targets for S-350 or S-400.

3) Rockets. They have 3-4 km range. It is a suicide mission with 0% Pk the SAM.

4) S-350 is composed of 4 launchers with 12 missiles each. So 48 missiles. Pantsir is composed of 6-8 vehicles IRC so 72-96 missiles. Good luck overwhelming all that.

A S-350 unit consists of 3 "divisions" of 4 trucks each with 12 9M96 missiles = 144 missiles with a range of 60 or 140 km. Some of the trucks or all, depending on the given situation, will skip the 9M96 for the smaller 9M100. Which could mean up to 576 missiles. This outfit would be used mostly against cruise missiles, guided bombs and smaller drones (or loitering ammunition).

Hole wrote:A S-350 unit consists of 3 "divisions" of 4 trucks each with 12 9M96 missiles = 144 missiles with a range of 60 or 140 km. Some of the trucks or all, depending on the given situation, will skip the 9M96 for the smaller 9M100. Which could mean up to 576 missiles. This outfit would be used mostly against cruise missiles, guided bombs and smaller drones (or loitering ammunition).

They are creating the Morphey air defence system that will use 9m100 and protect other S-400 and S-350.

S-350 is designed around and for 9m96 as a long range system.  Theorically it could carry only 9m100 but if they introduce Morphey they will put some for close defence but not full truck of 9m100 only.

Isos wrote:

Yes, I agree. There is also NATO in the West.
S-350 can engage 16 missiles. It is expected to serve along PantirS1M that can engage up to 4 missiles simultaneously.
But even a modest opponent can throw a number of cheap air launched gliders or cheap volleys of unguided rockets to overwhelm a defense.

4 wrong points here.

1) Modest opponent attacking Russia. If it happens Russia will destroy its army in 2 or 3 days like Georgia. They won't even have time to prepare their air force before Russia start shooting iskanders at its bases.

2) Gliders. I think you mean those glindig bombs. Well, first they need gps to work so you need to know exact position of enemy SAMs. They are not cheap. They have mostly a max range of 100km but that is possible only if the fighters launch them from 10km or more in altitude making them easy targets for S-350 or S-400.

3) Rockets. They have 3-4 km range. It is a suicide mission with 0% Pk the SAM.

4) S-350 is composed of 4 launchers with 12 missiles each. So 48 missiles. Pantsir is composed of 6-8 vehicles IRC so 72-96 missiles. Good luck overwhelming all that.

1- This answer is not related to the question.
You still see Afghans fighting and winning over Americans, Soviets and British.

2- They need a GPS conversion Kit and wings.

Air defense units are located in a specific place unless they are on alert. It is possible to get close enough to the Russian border and launch missile volleys against a general area like a city even by a less advanced opponent as is regularly happening against Israel and Saudi in the middle east.
Examples within Russia:
Estonia is around 200 KM from St. Petersburg proper and less from other settlements.  
Sochi is even closer to Georgia and Stavropol to Muslim majority Russian Dagestan.
Russian settlements in the far east are also very close to the borders.

3- Rockets or missiles. There are all calibers from BM21- to BM-27 to short range ballistic missiles. Iran has around a dozen fairly simple and inexpensive different SRBMs in 90-300 KM range.
3.1 Air defense units are located in a specific place unless they are on alert.
If the objective is terror, it is possible to get close enough to the Russian border and launch missile volleys against a general area like a city as is a regular practice against Israel and Saudi in the middle east.
3.2 If the objective is a specific target, an opponent can launch a volley of cheap missiles as decoys with a few others with guidance to overwhelm and confuse a defense and increase the hit probability chance of the smart missiles.
Examples within Russia:
Estonia is around 200 KM from St. Petersburg proper and less from other settlements.  
Sochi is even closer to Georgia and Stavropol to Muslim majority Russian Dagestan.
Russian settlements in the far east are also close to the borders.

4- The number of missiles is true.
Unfortunately Syrian Pantsirs are regularly overwhelmed by Israeli rocket and missile volleys.
Russian defenses in Khmeimem (TOR, Pantsir and S400) were also overwhelmed by a dozen or so slow flying wooden UAVs.
A couple of years earlier Russian helicopters were destroyed in Palmira by an ISIS bombardment despite the defenses.

Defenses are a complicating factor but there are ways around them.

william.boutros wrote:Air defense units are located in a specific place unless they are on alert.

This is not true.

ORBAT of air defense units is to keep the SAM position (if used properly) to conceal its presence. Idea is to catch your opponent unprepared and than to inflict maximum damage.

So alert is not made by SAM units whose positions would be announced to the enemy by keeping still as you think but by concealment from the enemy and alert is

maintained by first echelon radars at all times. There are no times of alert and times when there is no alert. Alert is at all times.

It is easy to produce wrong conclusions when scenario taken involves the most favourable scenario for the opponent. If on the opposite you would take the most favourable scenario

for the defender you could think of a situation where passive radars tracks advancing fighters into defender territory on prepared decoy targets set up by the special service of the

air defense units. Ground based ECM blinds attacking fighters radars and SAM units opens up while attacking fighters adjust their speed and height to release payload and

than defender fighters comes in to finish off fleeing remains of the attacking force. This scenario is more realistic with more tactically prepared solders and yours with more

uneducated. So basically I see no point in arguing that an ATGM will destroy a tank that does not manoeuvre given enough ATGMs used each and every time

Because of such problems and different and elaborate concealment tactics used within SAM ORBAT problem is that you have the fighter force and do not know what to think

So what will you do?

Viktor wrote:

william.boutros wrote:Air defense units are located in a specific place unless they are on alert.

This is not true.

You should track the movement of Russian air defense installations in Khmeimin. Also, unless you want to destroy the air defense unit itself the knowledge of its actual location is irrelevant.

A defender needs to defend against all scenarios whereas an attacker needs to figure out 1 scenario only.

Defenses are a complicating factor but there are ways around them.

Again all your points are wrong. You mostly assume Russia has no idea what going on in neighbour countries and has only air defence systems.

You also confuse guerilla war with conventional war.

Russia has radars and observation tools and knows exactly what's going on in any border country. Contrary to guerilla, a conventional army can be watched and any big movment will be detected. Russia won't wait for it to come, they will send an awacs and sukhoi in the air and get ready another 24 on the ground. At the first move they will start shooting. And will never let those enemy jets come close enough from any russian base.

Rocket and gliding bombs have rather small range. And even SRBM won't be able to hit anything of great value because russia won't put its main based at the border. They may hit some advance observation posts but then their country will be destroyed similarly to what happened in Georgia.  

And definie what "enemy" you are talking about. Because a guerilla like or terrorist org like ISIS won't be able to get lot of ballistic missile so in that case even fixed S-300V will be enough. A conventional army near russian border won't be able to prepare a big overwhelming attack because it will be monitored. Russian won't watch at those jets being filled up with hundreds of gliding bombs and MLRS being moved towards russian border and wait. They will put russian army on alert and bases will be empty.

william.boutros wrote:

Viktor wrote:

william.boutros wrote:Air defense units are located in a specific place unless they are on alert.

This is not true.

You should track the movement of Russian air defense installations in Khmeimin. Also, unless you want to destroy the air defense unit itself the knowledge of its actual location is irrelevant.

A defender needs to defend against all scenarios whereas an attacker needs to figure out 1 scenario only.

(Russia is a different story. its a nuclear armed superpower and destruction of its base would mean quick escalation with the use of nuclear weapons)

So nope. Attacker will never know the position of the SAM units. Defender does not need to defend anything. Your assumption that it does is all he needs

Defender can opt to use its offensive means and not defensive giving false sense of its defencelessness or its can surprise you head on in a moment you least expect from the

concealed positions. Either way and in so many other way you will not know what to attack. You may think hey there is a cute air base with opponent fighters sitting idle that I might

destroy just to find out it is decoy base you are attacking while loosing 20% of your air force. So without real time coverage of entire country you will never know what will await your

arrival. But how will moderate size air force employ real time coverage of opponents territory ?

I need to see you so that I can shoot at you principle is assumption with no reality to support it. Why would anybody fight in a ineffective way unless he does not know.

william.boutros wrote:Also, unless you want to destroy the air defense unit itself the knowledge of its actual location is irrelevant.

Wrong. When you destroy the object but loose the air force so now you have nothing to attack and nothing to defend it becomes relevant

The NATO lies about overwhelmed Pantsir systems again. And regularly also.

One system was damaged and put back into service a few days later. One system was destroyed because it had no missiles and ammunition anymore and the syrian soldiers were smoking cigarettes instead of moving to a new location.

The air defence in Hmeimim was never overwhelmed by anything. And Russia never lost any helicopters do to this and planes were also not damaged. That are lies told by western propagandists.

What about AGM 158 missile. The USA has a lot of these missiles? In addition, the US and NATO have a powerful aviation that after a cruise missile attack can make another strikes.

This thread is about Vityaz... a Russian system currently only recently entering Russian service.

The number of missiles the US has is irrelevant... they don't have the capacity to launch enough missiles in one go to overwhelm Russian air defences and when they try they will find the bases used for that initial attack will be attacked as well as NATO HQ and the US equivalent.

Such a western attack would be totally self defeating... just like Russia sending an unmanned drone to fly over UK airspace to kill Chechen terrorists the UK has seen fit not to arrest and deport to Russia for trial.

Swarm attacks are not new... for fucks sake why do you think Soviet anti ship missiles from the cold war were design to have a datalink connection and operate as a team in numbers to attack ship targets... they were doing this in the 1970s for goodness sake... speed and numbers to defeat an IADS... the west has gone for stealth and numbers but the cost of numbers makes that expensive... what a surprise...

And it is really amusing those talking about overwhelming defences.... an entire battery of SAMs is not the same as the individual systems the Syrians operated separately.

With an IADS the Syrian air defences are so well managed that so far since the IADS was set up and the Syrian forces trained to use it they have lost two Pantsir vehicles after they ran out of missiles... Russia has no way to defend itself from NATO I guess based on that...

But then not shooting down a single drone or cruise missile in Saudi Arabia seems to make NATOs situation much more dire... the west clearly has no expectation to be attacked by drones or cruise missiles... look at the CIWS on Soviet and Russian ships to show they don't make such mistakes... US bases hit by Iranian missiles WITH WARNING OF SEVERAL HOURS and aircraft were destroyed in that attack... there was nothing they could do... THAAD and PAC-3 Patriot are not very mobile and are horrendously expensive.... conversely the Russian systems are widely deployed and much more effective...

GarryB wrote:

What about AGM 158 missile. The USA has a lot of these missiles? In addition, the US and NATO have a powerful aviation that after a cruise missile attack can make another strikes.

This thread is about Vityaz... a Russian system currently only recently entering Russian service.

The number of missiles the US has is irrelevant... they don't have the capacity to launch enough missiles in one go to overwhelm Russian air defences and when they try they will find the bases used for that initial attack will be attacked as well as NATO HQ and the US equivalent.

Such a western attack would be totally self defeating... just like Russia sending an unmanned drone to fly over UK airspace to kill Chechen terrorists the UK has seen fit not to arrest and deport to Russia for trial.

Swarm attacks are not new... for fucks sake why do you think Soviet anti ship missiles from the cold war were design to have a datalink connection and operate as a team in numbers to attack ship targets... they were doing this in the 1970s for goodness sake... speed and numbers to defeat an IADS... the west has gone for stealth and numbers but the cost of numbers makes that expensive... what a surprise...

And it is really amusing those talking about overwhelming defences.... an entire battery of SAMs is not the same as the individual systems the Syrians operated separately.

With an IADS the Syrian air defences are so well managed that so far since the IADS was set up and the Syrian forces trained to use it they have lost two Pantsir vehicles after they ran out of missiles... Russia has no way to defend itself from NATO I guess based on that...

But then not shooting down a single drone or cruise missile in Saudi Arabia seems to make NATOs situation much more dire... the west clearly has no expectation to be attacked by drones or cruise missiles... look at the CIWS on Soviet and Russian ships to show they don't make such mistakes... US bases hit by Iranian missiles WITH WARNING OF SEVERAL HOURS and aircraft were destroyed in that attack... there was nothing they could do... THAAD and PAC-3 Patriot are not very mobile and are horrendously expensive.... conversely the Russian systems are widely deployed and much more effective...

Westener went obsessed by ballistic missile defence after the two war against Iraq: just look at the different development path Patriot and S-300 got after the end of Cold War.
PAC2 and PAC3 enhancements were completely devoted to this, in the meantime failure of MEAD left US (and Germany and Italy also ) without any equivalent to S-300PMU and V, only very recently they opened (or better were forced to) open a little their own eyes and make same corrective like FINALLY getting a radar for Patriot able to be used on a 360° degree and not just on a +/- 70° arc and ARH missiles
Still those missiles are on the same trailer they got at the very beginning...

Arrow wrote:Radar with S-400 is still used in the 120 degree range and use TVM guidance not ARH.

Targeting radar of S-300PM (and consequently of S-400) i.e. the 30N6/30N6-1 has a Field Of Vision (henceforth FOV) of 120 degrees as normal for any ESA radar but is mounted on a steering plate that can be rotated 360°.
Organic to the system there is however also the 5N64S search battle/management radar made off by two opposite dish plates rotating each 180° so to to complete the complete scan in less time.
All those radar are mounted as all the other components of the system on high mobility trucks and are able to be set up in a matter of minutes.
Patriot radar concentrate all those functions on an unique radar, so it was surely more sophisticated.
There is just this little, secondary problem that said antenna is not rotating at all and STILL NOW moved with a trailer so if  a target is coming outside that F.O.V. or even worse is coming from different direction at about the same time they have to shut off and put the radar in travelling mode, attack the trailer to a truck mover , change the facing, unlock the trailer,  fixate it to the ground etc, etc...

S-400 use still the some TVM missiles inherited by S-300PM series but add also ARH ones beginning with 40N6E and 9M96, same with radars, some components are PESA Hybrid, other AESA from the initial introduction of the system.  

I will give you however a (partial) satisfaction: original version of Patriot was in the overall,SUPERIOR to  the first versionS of S-300 (i.e. P to PT), TVM from the beginning, one radar able to do both search that targeting, less time needed to be put in function etc, etc...

What you have not ABSOLUTELY not understood (in your default, always turned on, male reproductive organ measurement functioning mode) of my own post is that at a certain point, a very early one i must add, they concentered all their modernization efforts of the Patriot almost exclusively on  the ABM defence role of it.
This allowed Soviet to overcome the initial shortcomings of their own system, that were motivated by their initial lower level in some key technologies necessary to implement  the great development potential of their own design through  successive, constant series of refinements and upgrades.  

I have also said openly  that one of the leading reasons that lead to such an outcome is that american though to address the inherent, structural shortcomings of the Patriot adopting MEADS and the failure of such a program left them in actual dire straits.

S-350E is instead designed to deal specifically to those all trough the horizon waves attacks NATO is planning to try in order to overcome current russian generation, perceived more than real weak points.
It would however doing it by integrating with those system, in order to counter a specific menace not by replacing them.

Patriot launch tubes are angled and not vertical... having 360 degree radar is pointless if your launcher is angled in one direction.

If the launcher is angled to the north and the radar detects a target to the south you need to move the launch trailer holding the missiles 180 degrees... not by the press of a button... like an older system like SA-6 or SA-11/17 BUK... or nothing like the TOR, S-300, S-400, S-350 etc etc because the vertical launched missiles can fly in any direction without moving the launcher... but by getting the truck and attaching it to the trailer with the missiles and then turning the trailor to the intended direction and then unhitching the launcher and putting its stabilisers back down... only take 20 minutes...

BTW TVM guidance is cheaper, meaning you can buy more systems and more missiles than you can with ARH missiles, yet you can still do most things an ARH missile can do... tracking targets doesn't need to be via the radars with that S-400 battery... you could get target data from other platforms to get your TVM in the air and close to the target... once it is spotted the system uses the radar view of the missile to track the target and guide the missile...

GarryB wrote:Patriot launch tubes are angled and not vertical... having 360 degree radar is pointless if your launcher is angled in one direction.

If the launcher is angled to the north and the radar detects a target to the south you need to move the launch trailer holding the missiles 180 degrees... not by the press of a button... like an older system like SA-6 or SA-11/17 BUK... or nothing like the TOR, S-300, S-400, S-350 etc etc because the vertical launched missiles can fly in any direction without moving the launcher... but by getting the truck and attaching it to the trailer with the missiles and then turning the trailor to the intended direction and then unhitching the launcher and putting its stabilisers back down... only take 20 minutes...

BTW TVM guidance is cheaper, meaning you can buy more systems and more missiles than you can with ARH missiles, yet you can still do most things an ARH missile can do... tracking targets doesn't need to be via the radars with that S-400 battery... you could get target data from other platforms to get your TVM in the air and close to the target... once it is spotted the system uses the radar view of the missile to track the target and guide the missile...

Thank you.
You have added the other things I would have like to add but renounced in order not too made my own post excessively long.

Let's add that the cold launch system, now a trademark of russian vertical launchers was one of the improvements made to the S-300 as original version used an hot one but they found it too heavy and stressful for the truck chassis.

People using the current Russian forces in Syria as an example should recognise that they are there as peacekeepers basically and are not actively fighting Turkey or Iraq or Israel... so their passive use of SAMs... ie only to defend Russian forces located in Syria is not a good example to transfer to Europe or anywhere else.

If Israel was launching attacks from over the border at Russian targets the Russians wouldn't sit there and try to swat all their munitions as best they could... they would start shooting down Israeli military aircraft flying anywhere including outside Syrian airspace over Lebanon and Israel... when Israeli fighters are shot down over Israeli airspace how will they be able to continue their attacks on Russian SAMs and ground forces in Syria?

Not only that but the airfields the Israeli aircraft that are launching these attacks become fair game for Russian cruise and ballistic missiles too.

The point is that if you shift this to Europe and even give NATO 3,500 F-35s the AWACS and inflight refuelling aircraft will not last very long at all and the airfields they operate from will also come under regular attack...

I am not suggesting it will be totally one sided, but it will be nothing like any conflict NATO has fought thus far and will not be an air power only war for them... thei HQs will be attacked very soon after conflict starts simply because that would be the best way to end the NATO aggression.