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Lulz.
Just over two weeks. That’s almost 5 times as long as the entire special operation!
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-s500-air-defense-system-crimea-ukraine-kyrylo-budanov-1912333
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.
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.
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.
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.
It was pretty new though, it was in use for some 5 years when the Gulf War started.
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.
so it was “near Kharkiv”, huh?
