Vietnam, as pointed out, saw attrition by American aircraft due to SAM's (largely very early versions of V-750 and much later some S-125 and Strela-2). Total numbers of aircraft lost to SAM's are believed to be 83, including 18 B-52's and 7 helicopters out of 4244 SAM's fired. In the 1965 India-Pakistan war 3 aircraft were shot down (1 Pakistani RB-57F, 1 USAF RB-57 and a friendly fire accident). In the 1967 Arab-Isreali war 22 V750's were fired for the loss to two Mirage IIICJ with about 10 aircraft lost during the war of attrition, including 5 F-4E Phantom's to the S125 which forced a U.N. sponsored cease-fire on 7 August 1970. During the 73' war the Arab's fired some 2,100 SAM's for a total of 46 confirmed kills and a number of aircraft damaged (mostly by Strela-2). Looking at the raw data it seems an awful lot of missiles had to be fired to achieve each kill but that's not the whole story. Almost all the kills listed above are credited to V-750, an elderly early generation missile even when it was being used in major combat for the first time in the 1960's. Secondly, kill ratio is not the best way to analyze the effectiveness of such systems. What other effects do such systems have? They force the attacker to divert a number of assets to the suppression of the SAM threat, thus reducing the number of strike aircraft. They restrict the use of reconnaisssance assets, and force attacking aircraft to adopt different tactics which may reduce their effectiveness and accuracy or expose them to other defensive measures - such as flying low to avoid SAM's thus exposing themselves to AAA. By 1967 both the Israeli's and the U.S. had enough intelligence on V-750 to develop effective countermeasures and tactics to deal with it. The Israeli's were surprised by the far more effective S-125 and especially the 2K12, which forced thier aircraft down within the reach of the Strela-2 adn ZSU-23-4. After the 73' war though much intelligence was gained about all of these systems. The problem since is that every significant air campaign fought, with the exception of the Falkland's crisis, has been fought largely with variations on these 1950's and 60's vintage systems, albiet in updated forms. Thus it is hard to say anything conclusive about how newer systems would perform in combat. That said, it is quite likely that in any future combat history will repeat itself - a new threat will make itself felt, causing a change in tactics until effective countermeasures can be developed, and the cycle will repeat itself again.

Quite right. Also, any of the three most likely major confrontations looming before us now (Syria, Iran, North Korea) would for the most part be more of the same, as all three countries have reasonably substantial air defenses that are primarily built on decades old weapon systems. None of the three would present much in the way of new threats to American forces. I continue to marvel at how so many tinpot dictators will buy a squadron of second-rate FULCRUM or, even worse, of first-rate FLANKER (aircraft that they can't even maintain, and certainly don't have and maintain pilots with the skill to fly proficiently), rather than several battalions of truly modern SAMs that could cover their entire country with a serious threat to anyone except a first-rate air force like America. Even we would execute mission planning far more carefully against a contry that deployed two S-300 brigades, each with four S-300PMU1 battalions accompanied by four TOR-M1 battalions, than if it had two squadrons or even regiments of Su-30MKIs. Displacedjim

I wouldn't necessarily assume that a modern air defense system is any easier to operate and maintain (or any more effective) than a modern combat aircraft. I would also argue that those aircraft are far more useful, as they can do other things besides presenting a hazard to hostile intruders.

"I wouldn't necessarily assume that a modern air defense system is any easier to operate and maintain (or any more effective) than a modern combat aircraft. I would also argue that those aircraft are far more useful, as they can do other things besides presenting a hazard to hostile intruders." there are pros and cons in this. the principle being that on an economies of scale level, it's more useful to deploy a competent ADS than to buy squadrons of aircraft. lose a plane, and you lose a $25m+ platform, plus a pilot at $2m, plus a degradation of capability depending on where the inidvidual lay on the competency and influence curve lose a missile - and you lose a few million dollars, no pilot lives at risk and you can probably reload 30 plus missiles for the same aircraft cost (and greater if the fixed wing platform is expensive) Russia emphasised ADS because she needed to load the defensive bases - she didn't go out and build more aircraft, or develop new ones like next years new Audi, instead she bumped up missile development and saturated ground based air defences.

"I wouldn't necessarily assume that a modern air defense system is any easier to operate and maintain (or any more effective) than a modern combat aircraft. I would also argue that those aircraft are far more useful, as they can do other things besides presenting a hazard to hostile intruders." -- Fitz ---- I didn't assume that, and I would also argue that--if we were talking about a first-rate military. I'm talking about any relatively small third-world nation like Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Yemen, or North Korea, for example. Granted, backwater countries like these can always pay a bit extra for the "good driver" plan and buy some Ukrainian mercenary pilots to go along with some new Russian FLANKER, and then a couple squadrons of capable jets could actually be useful (which I think Ethiopia and Eritrea did do). But if their goal was primarily self-defense of their airspace--and not bluster and trying to look powerful--then they would be far better served to get a modern layered, integrated air surveillance and SAM network for the same, or less, money. Displacedjim

I still think your wrong. A big part of "defending ones airspace" is going up and seeing exactly what it is that is intruding on that airspace and - if its not supposed to be there - escorting it back out of that air space, or forcing it to land as the case may be. We could be talking about anything from an off-course Learjet to smugglers to hordes of bomb-laden attack aircraft. Planes give you that flexibility (and a lot else besides). Missiles are only useful in a hot-war scenario.

Ive read all these posts and it seems noones answered the jist of the topic.Is the patriot3 better or not as good as the s-300 system for those that know?Or their most upto date system compared to ours or a euro system.

Nobody knows because they have never been tested side-by-side in rearl-world conditions. Fair nuff?

You can still do that with a real tough IADS, which incorporates some cheap aircraft. Ideally, you'd use fast interceptors b/c once the shooting starts, your aircraft are going to ground. I think I got a handle on what displacedjim is trying to say. History has shown no air force can stand against US/NATO airpower. A big part of that reason is pre-emptive strikes using cruise missiles and other standoff weaponry. We take aircraft out before they even get a chance to take off. When they DO manage to get in the air, it's in onesies and twosies, and it becomes a competition among the fighter jocks to see who can get there first to bag the sucker coming up off the deck. Eventually, like the Iraqis, they get scared $hitless and go to ground. Next, we just station AWACS with a fast CAP force to keep them there. Air supremacy accomplished. Now you let all the attack/strike guys roll in and start bombing the crap out of tank columns and artillery groups. And they can't stop us b/c their fighters are all on the ground or were blown to pieces. Or both. That changes if you've got a huge SAM network in good cover. Meaning countries like North Korea. Serbia. Mountains and forests combined mean you're never going to find those hundreds of SAM launchers all over the damn country. As long as those SAMs are out there, all the attack missions get scrubbed. A-10s can't expect to survive alone against hordes of SAMs. Neither can F-16s or F-15Es against a really dense SAM threat. Going after mobile targets becomes VERY risky. FAC-A missions are done at low altitude with heads in the pit...major bummer to SA. When those SAMs start coming up, you gotta pray you've got good eyes doing top cover fo you. You can still do fixed target strike against high value targets...if you want. But you'd need jammers and HARM shooting Wild Weasels, along with extra tanker assets. More aircraft means more work for AWACS, etc. Just really puts a big crimper on operations in general. Of course, we HAVE cracked such nuts in the past. In GWI there was that operation where we threw out all those drones simulating full sized aircraft, followed by a $hit ton of HARM missiles. But if you look at that from a statistical point of view, it's a war of attrition. My HARM missile and decoy missile against your SAM radars. Who'll run out of which first? Gets even worse with the new IR guided SAMs, especially if you can deploy them in countries that are high above sea level(ex. Afghanistan is a few THOUSAND feet above sea level).

But we have a multitude of examples where a massive ground based air defense system based on missiles had utterly failed to preclude attacks on the territory being defended. All of them in fact. It all sounds lovely in theory but it doesn't work in practice because it ignores a very simple but utterly true fact. Ground based air defense systems and airborne systems are not mutually exclusive. They compliment each other. Relying on too much of one and not enough of the other is self-defeating. PS "Really cheap aircraft" are usually totally inadequate for the sorts of day-to-day peacetime air defense operations I described in my last post. An example: Austria has really cheap but still relatively high performance interceptor aircraft in the form of second-hand Saab Draken's. These proved totally inadequate for dealing with overflights by Croatian MiG-21's during the recent Balkan's war. Austria is now buying Eurofighters.