Almaz-Antey S-400 Triumph / SA-21 Growler TABM/SAM

Forest Green said:
NMaude said:
Is there any truth to the reports I've heard that Russia has been using some of its' SA-12/20s and SA-21s as surface-to-surface missiles in Ukraine?
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I keep hearing this too. Especially in Kherson region.
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I did see part of an S-300V TEL in one video from the Ukraine/Russia war. In the shot I saw you could see the director mast sticking up out of some trees.

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This discussion remids a typical discussion of UFOlogists.

UFOlogist 1: Aliens visited Earth (no proofs)
UFOlogist 2: Yeah, and i think they're preparing to enslave Humanity. (no proofs^2)
UFOlogist 3: How desperate they are! (no proofs^3)

And while even the original statement has no proofs, i have only one little question: What you're discussing here, spinning one speculation over another?
 
NMaude said:
Would this be the SA-21's surveillance early-warning radar?
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Not sure.

40V6M/40V6MD Universal Mobile Mast / 40Ð’6Ðœ/40Ð’6МД УниверÑÐ°Ð»ÑŒÐ½Ð°Ñ ÐŸÐµÑ€ÐµÐ´Ð²Ð¸Ð¶Ð½Ð°Ñ Ð’Ñ‹ÑˆÐºÐ°

Technical Report APA-TR-2009-0504; Title: 40V6M/40V6MD/40V6MT Universal Mobile Mast / 40Ð’6Ðœ/40Ð’6МД/40Ð’6МТ УниверÑÐ°Ð»ÑŒÐ½Ð°Ñ ÐŸÐµÑ€ÐµÐ´Ð²Ð¸Ð¶Ð½Ð°Ñ Ð’Ñ‹ÑˆÐºÐ°; Abstract: The 40V6M/MD family of mobile mast systems is a ubiquitous feature of the Russian air defence landscape, used...
www.ausairpower.net

One of right??

1658307865862.png
A deployed S-300PS / SA-10B battery showing the 5N63S Flap Lid B and 5N66 Clam Shell A deployed on 40V6M 24 metre masts. Note the MAZ-7910 radar vehicle with the antenna head removed (Russian internet image).
 
If they can the UAF need to follow up and destroy the antenna as they're harder to replace than the electronics.
 
NMaude said:
If they can the UAF need to follow up and destroy the antenna as they're harder to replace than the electronics.
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The antennae may already be damaged if the base is. It's a 200lb warhead so there's likely to be shrapnel everywhere that doesn't show up that clearly in the shot.
 
Flyaway said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1547670748197556225
View: https://mobile.twitter.com/JayinKyiv/status/1547670748197556225
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and the punishment came
ria.ru

Шойгу вручил "Золотую звезду" гендиректору концерна "Алмаз-Антей"

Министр обороны РФ Сергей Шойгу вручил в четверг "Золотую звезду" Героя Российской Федерации генеральному директору концерна ВКО "Алмаз-Антей" Яну Новикову,... РИА Новости, 21.07.2022
ria.ru ria.ru
 
NMaude said:
What does it say in English?
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"On Thursday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu presented the Gold Star of the Hero of the Russian Federation to Yan Novikov, General Director of the Almaz-Antey Concern,"

So, the rumor mill that Novikov was in serious danger was not true.
 
NMaude said:
If they can the UAF need to follow up and destroy the antenna as they're harder to replace than the electronics.
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With the state if Russia electronic industry, a sad joke that barely exists, and the Sanctions from everyone for everything including electronics...

Eyeah no, they not getting any more spares for a good while yet. Infact better to leave it as is and hit it again after its repair to force them to burn that spare as well. Russia is going to struggle to make more and tge Anteana basically a lawn ornament without the electronics.

And hey, even if they do have the spares ot take a month minimum to put it back together again on top of the few weeks waitingfor the spare to arrive from Nowhere Siberia...
 
Forest Green said:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81LBzc--czw

How can it use SARH in the terminal phase of ground attack? What radar is pointing at ground targets? Does it mean passive radar homing for emitters?
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well simple INS. Surface attack mode exist as far as S-75/SA-2 back in 50's. It become essentially a ballistic missile. Some other system like Buk even went as far as advertising maritime strike capability for the 9M317 missile.

Accuracy will depend on whether it has any Satnav and quality of the INS. If it has Satnav then we can expect CEP of some 10m's If it use pure INS without any updates etc.. a low quality INS with INS drift of 35 km/hr Shooting from maximum 250 km range will creates some 2km CEP while better quality INS will produce better result. IF drift can be kept to 1 km/hr a CEP of 64 m could be achieved.
 
Forest Green said:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81LBzc--czw

How can it use SARH in the terminal phase of ground attack? What radar is pointing at ground targets? Does it mean passive radar homing for emitters?
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S-300 missiles have inbuilt antenna for radio correction. You can guide it to a known land target. Such ability was included since SA-2.
But the whole shebang likely is a hoax by unscrupulous journalists, as:
1. Range in such case doesn't exceed that of MLRS, and Russia has no shortage of MLRS and munitions for them.
2. SAM Missile warhead not that suited for land strikes, esp. hardened structures.
3. Its a waste of money and precious missile, because p.1. I't one thing to attack a ship, as armor is thin or nonexistent and SAM is usually cheaper than SSM, and it's another to attack hardened land target.
 
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TomS said:
NMaude said:
What does it say in English?
Click to expand...

"On Thursday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu presented the Gold Star of the Hero of the Russian Federation to Yan Novikov, General Director of the Almaz-Antey Concern,"

So, the rumor mill that Novikov was in serious danger was not true.
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I'm mean what was anybody expecting from one of the most curopte nations on earth.
 
Anduriel said:
S-300 missiles have inbuilt antenna for radio correction. You can guide it to a known land target. Such ability was included since SA-2.
But the whole shebang likely is a hoax by unscrupulous journalists, as:
1. Range in such case doesn't exceed that of MLRS, and Russia has no shortage of MLRS and munitions for them.
2. SAM Missile warhead not that suited for land strikes, esp. hardened structures.
3. Its a waste of money and precious missile, because p.1. I't one thing to attack a ship, as armor is thin or nonexistent and SAM is usually cheaper than SSM, and it's another to attack hardened land target.
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The other possibility is Ukrainian's own S-300 failures yet attributed to Russia.

5V55 and 48N6 missiles have finite lifespan... about 15-20 years for which after they for Russian case be expended in training exercise or maybe used as high speed drone. Past that guaranteed lifespan well, probability of failures increased resulting with those youtube vids on incident of S-300 exercise.
 
Anduriel said:
Forest Green said:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81LBzc--czw

How can it use SARH in the terminal phase of ground attack? What radar is pointing at ground targets? Does it mean passive radar homing for emitters?
Click to expand...
S-300 missiles have inbuilt antenna for radio correction. You can guide it to a known land target. Such ability was included since SA-2.
But the whole shebang likely is a hoax by unscrupulous journalists, as:
1. Range in such case doesn't exceed that of MLRS, and Russia has no shortage of MLRS and munitions for them.
2. SAM Missile warhead not that suited for land strikes, esp. hardened structures.
3. Its a waste of money and precious missile, because p.1. I't one thing to attack a ship, as armor is thin or nonexistent and SAM is usually cheaper than SSM, and it's another to attack hardened land target.
Click to expand...

While the SA-20 wouldn't make a good SSM the Russians may have no choice but to use them as their appear to have almost run out of modern cruise-missiles due to an inability to acquire western electronics components for their guidance and control systems due to import embargo.
 
Do we even have the hard number of Russian cruise missiles and ballistic missile inventory in the first place ? I feel it's more like a dare now rather than "intel" the only stake involved would be some "lost reputation due to spread of disinformation" but not much else.

It's like 4-5th time already i heard such story of Russia running out of missiles.
 
stealthflanker said:
It's like 4-5th time already i heard such story of Russia running out of missiles.
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They are definitely getting low and I recall in the early days of the invasion Russia was basically spamming Ukraine with cruise-missiles and now they're increasingly using 60 year old Soviet relics such as the AS-4 Kitchen.
 
NMaude said:
stealthflanker said:
It's like 4-5th time already i heard such story of Russia running out of missiles.
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They are definitely getting low and I recall in the early days of the invasion Russia was basically spamming Ukraine with cruise-missiles and now they're increasingly using 60 year old Soviet relics such as the AS-4 Kitchen.
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yeah but how low is low ? and cruise missile spam still happen even today. and rationale of using KH-22 ? well instead of using them as highspeed drone or demilitarized.. might as well throwing it there and hope Raduga can get newer Kh-32 on time.

The point is Unless you know exactly their Pre-war inventory, there will be no real way to tell wheter they are running low in the first place.
 
NMaude said:
Some figures I've heard suggest that Russia has expended 45-50% of its' cruise-missile stocks.
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Ya by low people usually mean "to low to actually use sense russia needs to keep 50% of its stocks for use against nato" (after all aperintly 60% of America wants to put up a no fly zone over Ukraine right now) not "actually running out of missiles" so while using s-300s in the ground strike role isn't efficient, its better then losing even more of what's left of Russias conventional deterrent.
 
Forest Green said:
NMaude said:
If true I wonder if they have been used to try and take out the UAF's new M142s?
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Don't know, I wasn't even aware their guidance worked against ground targets. They seem to have mostly hit buildings based on claims.
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It is almost certainly nonsense re: bombing cities or whatever.

As most news in Ukrainian must be filtered through Ukrainian censors before Reuters, it is probably being twisted into "Russia is bombing Ukraine with S-300 missiles," simply because it looks better on the American news channels. It is not a secret that Ukraine is doing well in the moral-political/propaganda front. Thus it is a relatively simple, "intuitive", and emotionally resonant claim by design for the layman's thinking.

S-300 has no realistic mission set that involves ground target firing, as unlike missiles like Nike Hercules most modern Almaz missiles lack a nuclear warhead which would make this practical. While it can do this with inertial guidance, as can essentially any modern theater air defense system (except perhaps THAAD), any such mission would mean using nuclear warheads outside of very specific cases which are rarely practiced.

In fact, the only country which has practiced such things routinely, and against soft targets only such as landing barges, is Ukraine, at least in recent years. Its Missile Defense Regiments are trained to conduct anti-landing artillery fires with air defense missile systems such as the S-125 and the S-300.

The claim that Russia is raining S-300s down on Ukrainian urban areas is most likely because of Ukrainian S-300 boosters falling on the apartments and Kyiv deflecting this in English media. It's less embarrassing than admitting their air defense troops accidentally hit an apartment block I guess. Ukraine's missile stockpiles are older than Russia's and have periodically been seen to fail to ignite/separate properly, but this is probably very rare. It is more likely they are being accidentally guided into large story Brezhnevkas or the boosters are not producing enough thrust, as I've seen a video of at least one S-300 attempt a climb at a poor angle and smash into a apartment block in Kyiv, or that the air defense troops are overzealous in their engagements and firing at inopportune times to hit low altitude weapons or assault aviation. So they are somewhat poorly trained, and a bit eager on the launch button, perhaps.

In Ukrainian sources, I suspect this would be reported as fairly accurate truth i.e. "local Air Defense Troops of the 138th Missile Regiment fired S-300s in defense of Dnipro City against Russian cruise missile attack, two missiles were fired and a cruise missile was destroyed. The apartment on 30 Konotop Street was damaged by anti-missile fire. Responding civil defense troops have contained the fire with few casualties, the injured have been evacuated to hospital," or something. Since they are being fired out of cities this would inevitably involve the spent booster stages falling onto houses or whatever too, but as they are mostly empty though it's not a huge deal.

Were Russia to want to bombard Ukrainian cities some more, it could easily do this with the weapons it already has, such as Kalibr and Kh-55 derivatives, or anti-ship missiles delivered by strategic aviation. There is not much a reason to resort to employing theater air defense troops in this job, and their range is very limited to do so, and their warheads are not useful for the task.

Perhaps they are being employed in a similar manner to HIMARS to strike soft skinned vehicles or artillery concentrations though? Hitting a HIMARS would be exceptionally hard as the S-300 cannot hit moving targets, and these are not in, or near, cities though. They might be in villages, but that is not where a Brezhnevka would be. So hitting concentrations of ground forces in assembly areas, or munitions stockpiles, seems the most reasonable ground to ground use of a theater or strategic SAM system.

As of now there are essentially zero major Ukrainian cities in range of theater air defense troops, but there are ample quantities of villages. That said, it's more than likely they are just doing their jobs keeping AFU assault aviation away and simply minding their own business when a HIMARS rocket explodes the battery command post though.

That they are close enough to be struck by rocket artillery troops with American high precision missiles is just because Ukraine is fairly flat and there are not many good hills to site anyone's theater air defense systems on. So they must be closer to the frontlines to be able to see. However it is somewhat funny imagining an actual artillery duel between HIMARS and S-300 though. I suspect they would both miss each other because they would move after they fire and the S-300 crews would eventually "lose" because HIMARS crews would shoot their battery command center and radar trucks after failing to hit any of the TELARs.

So while I suppose it's possible the Southern forces are using S-300s as a crude analogue to HIMARS, since they are both fairly accurate and have similar sized warheads. It would be odd to use S-300s and not the superior BM-30 to defeat the HIMARS though, as the former has higher range and explicit anti-artillery cassette projectiles for dispensing SADARM-type munitions. Both would require foreknowledge of HIMARS' location.

So I imagine it is more likely that S-300s are occasionally being used to hit Ukrainian ground troops and their ammunition or assembly points during their counterattack, and mostly being called to keep the AFU Su-25s away. Because that actually makes a modicum of sense or something.

stealthflanker said:
Anduriel said:
S-300 missiles have inbuilt antenna for radio correction. You can guide it to a known land target. Such ability was included since SA-2.
But the whole shebang likely is a hoax by unscrupulous journalists, as:
1. Range in such case doesn't exceed that of MLRS, and Russia has no shortage of MLRS and munitions for them.
2. SAM Missile warhead not that suited for land strikes, esp. hardened structures.
3. Its a waste of money and precious missile, because p.1. I't one thing to attack a ship, as armor is thin or nonexistent and SAM is usually cheaper than SSM, and it's another to attack hardened land target.
Click to expand...

The other possibility is Ukrainian's own S-300 failures yet attributed to Russia.

5V55 and 48N6 missiles have finite lifespan... about 15-20 years for which after they for Russian case be expended in training exercise or maybe used as high speed drone. Past that guaranteed lifespan well, probability of failures increased resulting with those youtube vids on incident of S-300 exercise.
Click to expand...

It is probably a combination of motor/missile failures and a bit of genuine incompetence in missile site placement and low altitude target engagement by AFU missile defense troops being attributed to Russian bombing. There are some rather unfortunate implications in a lot of explicitly Ukrainian reporting that can be attributed more to ulterior or unscrupulous motives than simple errors, though.

It takes a fair amount of knowledge of air defense systems to even think that the Russians might be using them for surface to surface bombardment with inertial guidance, rather than Ukraine simply own-goaling their own apartment buildings because they have limited means of megacity urban air defense beyond large theater SAMs.

It takes only a bit more to realize how unlikely this is.

Most people don't get to the first part though so the unstated insight appears to be obvious: Russia made their peaceful SAMs into deadly SSMs, because they knew they would run out of cruise missiles, and so they could kill more Ukrainians. I imagine that's how the typical reader who gets incensed by those sort of articles would view it at least.

flateric said:
yep
Gerashchenko as trustworthy as Konashenkov
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Still waiting for the cursed ultimate RT-UA Cinematic Universe crossover:

The year is 2024, Russia is firing COVID-69 (engineered to be at least 50x worse than COVID-19 by the American biolabs) laced S-300s into Kyiv's orphanages to spread the deadly disease amongst the elderly grandmothers who have been left behind to tend to the town, while their sons are off to war. When the American-designed Mountain Dew and Doritos-activated anti-Slav virus is turned on and kills the AFU defenders, the Russian Army will sweep in and save the orphans of Kyiv from living in the ghost city.

The Ukrainian orphans will then be evacuated to Chita in order to settle the new virgin soil as Russia accelerates the Siberian permafrost melt by burning more coal than Poland, China, India, and Germany combined. The USA will no longer be king of maize nor king of smog, for now Russia will be number one, thanks to its strongest ally, and the deepest ties to the one true fraternal nation...

Featuring an original science fiction screenplay based on M. Kharitonov/K.A. Krylov's short stories; A.Y. Gerashchenko and I.Y. Konashenkov present...Green Ukraine: A Siberian Story, the true tale of the planting of maize, only on TV-3.

The ratings will be absolutely off the charts.

Forest Green said:
NMaude said:
I suspect that in SSM mode they'd use command-inertial guidance.
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That's seems like a ridiculous waste of what must be a pretty expensive missile.
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The brutal knowledge that 9M96 has an "anti-Abrams" switch on the operator console for inertial surface-surface firing.

NMaude said:
Some figures I've heard suggest that Russia has expended 45-50% of its' cruise-missile stocks.
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I remember seeing this exact "figure" about 3 months ago.

Russia isn't shelling UA cities because there's nothing left to shoot there anymore. All the stuff to shoot at, i.e. the AFU troops and tanks, is now out on the frontlines instead. Which is why all the air defense alerts are for tiny villages near Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, and along the Slavyansk axis. Maybe RuMOD will go back to sending cruise missiles into cities when AFU sends guys to get their broken tanks fixed but they kind of have their hands full right now.

Also, there's very little reason to believe that the AS-4 strike was due to "low ammo" or whatever. It's literally the only documented combat use of AS-4 so far. There are myriad other reasons.

Maybe the DA's Tu-160 squadron wasn't available that exact hour? Maybe the three or so Gorshkovs weren't in range, or had already expended their cruise missiles and were being reloaded in Sevastopol, or maybe a pair of AS-4s was deemed the most effective means of penetrating the air defense zone? Russia has plenty of cruise missiles in inventory. It mostly just wants for launching platforms. It's the USA that has the opposite problem: too many VLS cells not enough Tomahawks.

tl;dr Shooting S-300s at cities is dumb lol. Ukrainians just do that themselves and blame the Russians. Russia might be firing them at ground troops as a crude HIMARS, while the HIMARS themselves are having to dodge BM-27 counterfire, though.

sferrin said:
Forest Green said:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81LBzc--czw

How can it use SARH in the terminal phase of ground attack? What radar is pointing at ground targets? Does it mean passive radar homing for emitters?
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S-300 used in an antiship role would wreck your whole day.
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It would be like being hit with something between a Standard or a Talos in size and warhead? It would severely hurt or sink a barge or large landing craft but nothing substantial to a surface escort unless you're particularly fire prone or very very tiny and minor shocks cause big damage. Praying Mantis had something similar happen to a Iranian FAC that was tiny, and it was ultimately only sunk by combined surface gunfire from several frigates and a destroyer, and that was four Standards but I think one or two might have missed.

While they definitely knocked it out of action but it wasn't like it couldn't have been repaired.

Also relevant: https://missilethreat.csis.org/ukraine-tests-surface-to-air-missiles-as-antiship-weapon/

It's not exactly ground breaking, nor particularly dangerous, as surface to air missiles generally lack adequate warheads for putting big holes in ships, but they can cause fires and some internal shock damage. They also can make ships uninhabitable, as was the case for Sheffield. The Japanese ASM-3 has a similar diving profile as a SAM and uses some sort of weird two-part warhead that punches a fat hole through a ship and also explodes to do shock damage.

The only lethal thing to a warship is having holes near or below the waterline, though. Pretty much anything else can be fixed with enough elbow grease and if you sink shallow enough even that's not enough. :\

SAMs would only sink LCMs, hovercraft, or low freeboard barges I think. Somewhere hull shock guarantees a hole in the ship. They'd need to be used in combination with a Bereg-E type gunfire system to sink small escorts, but maybe AFU has something like that?
 
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What is the missile in the bottom left?

39913603_2077380419146430_2721734454946037760_o.jpg
 
Just random picture. This is advert for 40H6E missiles. Bottom left say: “Tactical, operational-tactical missiles/special mission missiles (nuclear I think) with speed up to 4800 m/s”.
 
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