S-500 is kill

tal , 2 days ago

newsweek.com/russia-s500-air-defense-system-crime…

The S-500 is designed to intercept short-to medium-range targets, including ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, according to Russian state-run media.

Less than two weeks in the field and the first S-500 has apparently already intercepted a ballistic missile of the sort it was designed to counter.

One imagines that additional S-500 systems would surely produce additional interceptions.

tal , 2 days ago

Shit-talking aside, though, Russia never claimed that the S-500 was actually done – I assume that they just yanked their prototype onto the battlefield because the S-400 wasn’t able to intercept ATACMS missiles either (which it’s supposed to be able to – the S-400 doesn’t have an excuse). We rolled out the Patriot when it was still in a prototype, half-baked stage in Iraq, too – just that it was all we had that might be able to intercept a ballistic missile, and we really needed the capability right then – and it didn’t fare well either.

So I suppose that the S-500 guys probably don’t necessarily deserve quite the ribbing that the S-400 guys do. They were probably put in kind of the same place that our Patriot guys were.

Tar_alcaran , 2 days ago

We rolled out the Patriot when it was still in a prototype, half-baked stage in Iraq, too – just that it was all we had that might be able to intercept a ballistic missile, and we really needed the capability right then – and it didn’t fare well either.

About 9% intercept ratio during Desert Storm, which was 30 years ago, but both the Patriot and the Al Hussain missiles were pretty much brand new. S400 is a decade and a half newer than ATACMS though.

Patriot did (a lot?) better in Iraqi Freedom, but the exact numbers are all over the place.

tal , 2 days ago

About 9% intercept ratio during Desert Storm, which was 30 years ago, but both the Patriot and the Al Hussain missiles were pretty much brand new.

Regarding being brand new, what I mean is that the Patriot existed for an anti-aircraft role, but its anti-ballistic-missile capability wasn’t supposed to have been done by that point.

Tar_alcaran , 1 day ago

It was pretty new though, it was in use for some 5 years when the Gulf War started.

yesman , 1 day ago

Sure, but in the 90s intercepting a ballistic missile was a new capability. The tech must be more mature now. Besides, the way Russian procurement works, prototypes are usually light years ahead of what eventually gets produced and issued.

cerement , 2 days ago

so it was “near Kharkiv”, huh?

remotelove , 2 days ago

Lulz. https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/018bde4d-086a-4bbe-b0cf-616848dfda6f.png

Tar_alcaran , 2 days ago

Just over two weeks. That’s almost 5 times as long as the entire special operation!