I understand that in the case of ICBMs you need silos because no truck will be able to carry a 100 ton ICBM for example Sarmat but what's the need for silo based ABMs? Makes far more sense to make them mobile.
Like I said above it is all about evolution... the systems Nudol and A-235 evolved from were ABM missiles from the cold war that clearly were not allowed to be mobile under the 1972 ABM treaty. All their infrastructure and systems were fixed and designed to defend Moscow. the rules of the ABM treaty meant the US and Soviets could have one ABM system each with no more than 100 interceptors and they could defend either their capital city or an ICBM field... the Soviets chose to protect Moscow and so the silos for the interceptor missiles were in Moscow and were fixed.
These missiles are enormous with eye bulging acceleration and are silo launched.
Now that the ABM treaty is no more it would make sense for them to perhaps build other ABM systems in other fixed locations like Leningrad or Murmansk to protect other cities or ports or major industrial areas, but these systems are not designed to be mobile and there would be little value in making them more mobile as they are intended to protect large fixed locations.
Why spend money to make it more like S-500 which will be fully mobile.
I am not questioning the technicalities. All that I'm saying is if it is that easy to modify a missile to increase its range how do countries that are signatories to MTCR like US, Russia etc ensure that the buyer is not tampering the missile to increase the range.
They can't.
And there is nothing to stop any country from doing so.
I could take a Cessna single engine trainer aircraft... put an autopilot in it and fill it up with fuel and put a 200kg HE bomb in the front seats. With the back seats full of a fuel bladder and the fuel tanks full it might have a flight range of more than 500km... a cheap cruise missile.
Obviously any country could do the same with a 747 and have a weapon able to deliver a 100 ton payload of explosive for several thousands of kms... it is not hard.
Top of my head the program that runs these missiles will ensure that the max range is not breached, which is why I found Prof.Theodore Postol's explanation that Iraqis were able to increase the range of the Scud from 300kms to 600kms somewhat amusing.
Terrorists in Saudi Arabia managed to develop fairly deadly cruise missiles that hit the US despite the international agreement... your average cruise missile is a cheap motor that you could probably buy on the internet... wont be as efficient as the ones in Kalibr or Tomahawk, but just add more fuel and thicker heavier wings developing more lift... a ground launched missile with its own underwing drop tanks that climbs to medium to high altitude and fly for 3,000km and then drop its empty tanks and then drop down and fly low to the target is not that hard... most countries could do it if they wanted... the genie is out of the bottle.
In fact most UAVs could be the basis for a cruise missile... most HALEs can operate for days and can have enormous ranges... add a 500kg payload and tadaa... you can violate all sorts of treaties like the INF treaty (have a range between 500km and 5,500km and it becomes and IRBM or IR cruise missile) and export treaties of all kinds...
Obviously the key is the warhead and accuracy... the murderers from Saudi Arabia solved the latter with human guidance and the former was simply fuel and gravity.
The better accuracy the less of a warhead is needed.
1980s Soviet cruise missiles needed Nuke warheads because their 250-300m CEP meant conventional explosives were not effective... add precision guidance however and get that CEP below 10m and 500kgs of HE becomes effective.
1) Their missile are very big not like S-XXX series. Any truck firing this would have damages. Plus they can just have ABM around Moscow. A mobile luncher allows to cover much spaces. Russia signed a deal with US. It's the same for US, can cover just one particular area not all the country.
Another good point... the enormous acceleration of these ABM missiles would melt a truck on launch...
Hello, I do not know if this is the proper topic, but I would like to understand the difference between the S-300 family and the BUK family (recently upgraded with the BUK M3).
Are they supposed to work together?
from what I understood usually medium/long range SAMs like the s-300 or S400 wotk together with system like Pantsir for short range pbrotection.
Where does the BUK system fits in all of this? is it an alternative, or what?
Buk is an Army weapon... you can tell because it has tracked vehicles to operate with armoured formations. The S-300V4 also has tracked vehicles, as does Tunguska and TOR... they are all Army systems. Pantsir is an Air force system but the Tunguska and Pantsir are merging.
Pretty much at Division level a division has air defence regiments that include gun and missile (ie Tunguska or Pantsir at the moment or in the past Shilka and Osa), and also missile (TOR at the moment or SA-13 or SA-9 in the past) as local defence.
For area defence there is BUK which used to be SA-6 (KUB).
At higher levels is S-300V (used to be SA-1/SA-2 long range fixed missiles).
Basically the Army has Igla and Verba for MANPADs, then TOR and Panstir/Tunguska for SHORADS, then BUK for medium range, then S-300V4 for long range air defence and will likely get a few S-500 for very long range and BM defence.
The Air Force equivalent would be Igla and Verba MANPADS, then Pantsir and some TOR, then S-350 (but previously old model S-300) then S-400, and then S-500 at the top tier.
Note the Air force systems are wheeled vehicle based for road mobility but would generally be defending fixed targets like airfields and HQs and comms centres etc.
The SHORADs generally defend larger SAM systems from saturation attacks.
Army systems are tracked and fully land mobile to move with the forces they protect.
The Shorads protect units to a lower level as well as larger area SAMs from saturation attack.
If hostilities break out S-400 or S-500 units will be taken out by stealth aircraft like the F-22 & F-35 because they have the ability to locate & characterise the search radars of S400, S-500 at ranges far exceeding the LOD of the search radars against them. The LOD of the S-400 search radars vs the F-22 is ~ 17 nm & ~ 30 nm for the F-35 in all aspect performance, but is ~ 20 nm frontally for the F-35. SDBs, anti radiation missiles can be launched at as much as 45 nm depending on launch height, speed, wind force/direction etc.
Therefore, you will be left with the A-135 to intercept any incoming Ballistic Missile.
Hahahahaha... first of all what are those F-35s and F-22s going to destroy all those S-400 and S-500 batteries with?
Even a BUK and shoot down an ARM... Pantsir can shoot down 4 ARMs per TELAR at one time with one missile guided to each target independently... a battery of 6 Pantsirs protecting one S-400 battery could therefore take on 24 ARMs at one time... where are all these ARMs coming from? any platform within 400km of the S-400 will be shot down and any platform within 800km will be shot down by S-500... so where are these ARMs coming from?
Those detection ranges only apply to X band radars... S-400 and S-500 will have radars powerful enough to track paint chips in space... and will be connected to an air defence network with long wave radar and EO systems that can detect stealth targets at extended ranges... those F-22s wont even get close to an S-400... Area SAMs are not deployed on the front edge of the front line... there will be layers of all sorts of SAM types those aircraft will have to get past... all of which have thermal optics and optical guidance channels that don't care how many trillions of dollars you spend on stealth. In the 1980s the operators of a rapier SAM at Farnborough used their thermal tracker to track a B-2 that visited... it would be no more difficult now... and the stealth of the B-2 is rather better than the stealth of either F-22 or F-35 no matter what the brochures say.
The most modern tree for Army AD would look like this:
S-400V4/VM
Buk-M3/M2
Pantsir-SM
Tor-M2
Sosna-R
Verba/Igla-S
Oops, yes, I forgot they were adding SOSNA-R. It is a 10km range laser beam riding missile with very high speed and excellent accuracy. It gets to its 10km range in about 8 seconds so the target wont know what hit them... nice cheap missiles too.
isos and Skandalwitwe, thanks.
what i was trying to understand is: are the buk systems smaller and more mobile than the S300 family? (because they all are mounted on tracks if i am not wrong).
and is there a naval version also of the BUK?
Yes.
Think of BUK as the system it basically replaced KUB... SA-6 and sort of SA-4.
The Army version of S-300 is the S-300V which is tracked as well.
In NATO terms S-300V and BUK are SA-12/SA-24 and SA-11/SA-17.
The S-300V has basically replaced the SA-2, SA-3, and SA-5.
The naval version of BUK is SA-N-7 on Sovremmeny class Destroyers and now the vertical launched version Shtil-1 on the new talwar frigates.
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. To be honest, I don't know its price, but I'm sure that we are talking about 10 millions of dollars.
