do you have any hard data on the S-400?? I coulnd't find anything exept some general info

heres what i can find, and i'm still reading: http://www.stormpages.com/jetfight/wwwboard/1039.html http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/s-400.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/russia/1999/FTS19990305000148.htm very detailed

S-400 will end any air battle over russia and if the Serbs had S-300 they would of finished the war in the first 2 days. S-300 and S-400 and the worst nightmare for USA air force

And after these AD systems shoot their load at some decoys, UCAV's and or cruise missiles that are headed their way to take them out, then what?

It seems that some people in here still think that air supremacy can be countered, ie that it will be determined by incoming aircraft being confronted by saturated ADS. The USAF/USN has had decades of example of how theatre supremacy can be staged by the used of ALCM, SLCM's etc.. Fixed wing assets come in after. The US military is not goimng to commit manned solutions in a potentially compromised theatre. Hence the upramp of PGM's and the deramp of manned solutions. Did some of you tacticians do a sleeping beauty and fall asleep during the last 15 years?? ;) Or lets use another real example. ICBMS are fitted with conventional but high energy ordinance. The CEP stays the same, the radius changes. Whatever is at point zero is dead. No 300-400 system will have a hope. They're not ABM's Considering that the above scenario has been seriously proposed in a number of sceanrios, then the US does not need to shove B2, B1, B52 drivers anywhere near a theatre that is too risky. ICBM's using current HE packages are a safe and easy solution. Lets remember that the Russians used a Tochka battlefield missile to take out a Chechyan rebel. No airstrike, no risk, target dead before they hear the supersonic whistle. Identify to launch to kill time? 10 minutes. If you want to believe that an S300-400 system is your guarantor of sector protection then go for it. Better SAM's aren't the paradigm shift. They were the tipping point in the 6 day war, and over Vietnam. Not now. This tipping point has been PGM's, Space control of PGM's and smarter ordinance acting as companion technologies to existing force applicators such as stealth aircraft etc.. I'd argue that stealth already has hit its high point and the new Aces high is yet to be tested. Finally, i'd like to see how an S400 will cope against a mach 7 or mach 12.5 hypersonic such as what EADS has been testing in the last 6 months.

apols for the tone of that last thread, didn't mean to make it sound so brutal or like a fait accompli.

"ICBM's using current HE packages are a safe and easy solution. Lets remember that the Russians used a Tochka battlefield missile to take out a Chechyan rebel. No airstrike, no risk, target dead before they hear the supersonic whistle. Identify to launch to kill time? 10 minutes." Don't even need ICBM's..ATACM's and its future variants are more than enough to provide SEAD and even counter artillery punch. Course if we TRULY want to be bastards all we'd have to do is bring up the land version of the Tomahawk again.

the past has showed us that russian are overrated.And there is no better proof than the battlefiled. there was a period during soviet media and so on claimed that sam5 where the best sovet arm to kill us jet until had come that came us navy jet in mediteran sea attacked and destroyed some sam5 site in lybia before that it was sam6 missile which the best arm to kill western until arrived the destruction of some sam6 sites in 1982 in south lebanon by israelis air force which kill sam 6 myth so i think now s-400 SA-20 is also a myth like sam5 and sam 6 myths

Bazos, the last Iraq forcible entry showed modified russian SAM systems using heat seakers from some of the ALI's modified to make a dual seeking option. It surprised the hell out of the analysis team as the capability of those particular missiles was unknown, and there was no counter to that combination of seeker head. It made the investigation team pause a little. As the sov/russian economy started to deteriorate, more effort was spent on missile solutions than aircraft (and look at what the Russian govt is forcing upon the aircraft manuf's now). Missiles are cheaper, faster and easier to produce, you also don't lose pilots. If you look at mission reports of older pilots who flew in GW1 they clearly indicate that the environments were the most intense they had ever seen. It was the most protected theatre in the world. It was only due to "system jointness" that control was able to be in place and those crews complete their missions with less casualties. There is universal respect for these systems, remember that the US was buying ex Russian kit for evaluation in the late 1980's from countries such as Moldavia (eg 21 complete Mig 29's) so as to assess capability. Its the whole reason why the US has doctrine just for SEAD. Better safe than sorry.