Anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense is unquestionably one of the fields of excellence of the Russian defense industry and armed forces. It must be said that since the Cold War, air forces and long-range cruise missiles strikes have, for their part, been the fields of predilection for Western military power. As a consequence, the Russian armed forces are now implementing no less than a dozen mobile anti-aircraft systems employing missiles, ranging from the S400 to the Pantsir S2 via the S300 and Buk systems.
In the West, it is common to design a system to be versatile, and provide a large defense perimeter. This is the case of the American Patriot, but also of the Franco-Italian SAMP / T Mamba, providing defense at a distance ranging from a few kilometers to more than 150 kilometers. This is also why the Russian systems are so misunderstood, especially by the media, and even by some analysts and some military. Indeed, the design of Russian Air and anti-missile defense is based above all on the complementarity of the systems, whether in terms of range, altitude, nature of targets and mobility. In addition, Russian anti-aircraft defense is organized in two distinct blocks, which certainly communicate, but have very different missions.
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