June 1, 2007: Russia has begun deploying another
upgrade to its S300 air defense missile system, now renamed the S-400. The
first battalion (four launchers and a radar) will be installed outside Moscow
this Summer. Russia plans to buy up to 200 launchers (each with four missiles)
by 2015, and phase out the older S-300 and S-200 systems. China, a major user
of the S-300, will be a major export customer for the new system. South Korea
is developing their own version of the S-400, via s special deal with Russia.
Originally called the S-300PMU3, it has been
renamed the S400 because of the large number of improvements. The S-300/400
system is roughly equivalent to the U.S. Patriot system, and was originally
known as the SA-10 to NATO, when the system first appeared in the early 1980s.
S-300 missiles weigh 1.8 tons each and are 26 feet long and about 20 inches in
diameter. The S-300 missiles have a range of some 200 kilometers (400
kilometers for the S-400) and can hit targets as high as 100,000 feet. The
missile has a 320 pound warhead. The target acquisition radar has a range of
700 kilometers.
The S-400 has twice the range of the U.S. Patriot
and claims the ability to detect stealthy aircraft. The S-400 also has an
anti-missile capability, which is limited to shorter range (3,500 kilometers)
ballistic missiles. That would mean a warhead coming in at about 5,000 meters a
second (the longer the range of a ballistic missile, the higher its re-entry
speed.)
The S-400 system actually has two missiles, one of
them being a smaller, shorter range (120 kilometers) one. The S-300 has no
combat experience, but U.S. intelligence believes that the tests these systems
have undergone indicate it is a capable air defense weapon. Just how capable
won't be known until it actually gets used in combat.
