Keywords : Russia S-500 S-300 S-300
According to American intelligence services, Russia has successfully carried outan interception of an aerial target located nearly 300 miles awaywith the new S-500 anti-aircraft and anti-missile system. This would constitute the most distant interception carried out by a ground-to-air system.
According to the Russian authorities, the S-500, which will replace the S-300, will enter service from 2020, and will enable effective defense against hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles, drones and aircraft, even stealthy ones. Indeed, the S-500 radar devices integrate UHF band radars, having the particularity of being able to detect aircraft such as the F-22, the F-35 or the Chinese J-20, thanks to a specific resonance phenomenon. These same radars are currently being deployed in S-400 units already in service.
Remember that the S-500 like the S-400 is based on a set of detection means, command posts and missile batteries of different types, making it possible to have several solutions and to choose the most suitable at the time of interception. The S-500 should be dedicated to strategic defense, particularly against hypersonic cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and stratospheric artifacts, while the S-400 will be in charge of aircraft, drones and conventional cruise missiles.
Shorter range protection will be entrusted to mobile batteries BUK-M2 (100 km), TOR (30 km) and Pantsir-2 (10 km), each of these systems can exchange data with the others. Advanced aerial detection devices such as the A-50 Mainstay, drones and satellites complete the detection tools, in particular ensuring detection of devices operating at very low altitude to take advantage of the terrain mask, and will be able to direct strikes by data link . Finally, the system is completed by the Russian fighter, with 700 Su-27, Su-30, Su-35 fighters and around a hundred Mig-31 interceptors, operating in synchronization with the Ground-Air defense.