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Ukraine goes offensive with protection missilesDavid Birkas (CCA2) – Wikimedia Commons
When Russia began burning by way of its stock of Kh-101 and Kalibr land-attack cruise missiles final 12 months, it began final 12 months bombing Ukrainian cities indiscriminately, it more and more started to show to its stock of S-300 missiles. Russia had designed many missiles for the system because it was within the means of changing its older S-300 batteries with the extra succesful S-400 system.
And when a strange-looking missile hit what was mentioned to be a sawmill close to the city of Bytosh in Russia’s Bryansk Oblast — greater than 100 miles north of the border with Ukraine — it appeared as if Ukraine could have taken a web page out of Russia’s playbook through the use of air protection in a really offensive manner.
The missile turned out to be a V-880 Vega utilized by Ukraine’s Soviet-era S-200 long-range missile. flak batteries – codenamed SA-5 Gammon by NATO.
Correct or not, Russia claimed 4 missiles had been defeated by digital warfare and air protection hearth whereas making an attempt to strike targets in Crimea and close to Rostov and Kaluga. Individually, a number of missiles had been reportedly shot down by defending S-300VM or S-300V4 batteries whereas making an attempt to assault the crucial Kerch bridge to Crimea, apparently resulting in a suspension of visitors.
Ukrainian officers have neither confirmed nor denied Russia’s claims.
Ukraine had retired its S-200s a decade in the past, however it was thought to retain no less than three or 4 batteries price of launchers (about 24), if no more. Though on the finish of 2010 there was discuss of reactivating it flak roles—as occurred for Ukraine’s reconstituted S-125 and 2K12 Kub batteries—there was no proof to this point of S-200s being utilized by Ukraine or Russia within the battle.
Experiences additionally present that the US has been actively making an attempt to do this persuade the President of Bulgaria to switch S-200 and S-300 missiles from his military to Ukraine. In return, Bulgaria would obtain trendy gear equivalent to NASAMS missiles and F-16s. That means that the US was assured that Ukraine might simply deploy S-200s.
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So possibly just a few S-200s have been made operational. The dearth of pictures exhibiting the S-200 launchers could point out affordable operational safety to keep away from inadvertently revealing the placement of the hard-to-move launchers. Maybe a wayward flak rocket ship flew deep into Russia – related mishaps have occurred with Syria’s S-200 batteries.
Two S-200 launchers and a cross-section of a V-880 missile on show at Hungary’s Ketzel Park Museum of Navy Historical past in 2009.Wikimedia Commons
But when the Russians’ studies of a number of S-200 assaults are right, it means they’re being systematically used for land assaults.
At first look, it’s extra stunning for Ukraine to make use of air protection missiles for land assault missions than it’s for Russia. Ukraine continues to face much more intensive air threats from Russia than the opposite manner round, and has no skill to get alternative missiles for its principally Soviet-era methods.
Maybe Ukraine concluded that the S-200s had been too outdated and too fragile (as a result of they had been so motionless) to be price utilizing giant assets in an air protection function. Ukraine has primarily sought long-range weapons to launch assaults towards targets in Crimea and Russia, however has little (if any) remaining Tochka ballistic missilesand any western long-range weapons it receives (equivalent to Storm Shadow and SCALP-EG missiles) are in all probability given below the situation that they don’t seem to be used for assaults on Russian soil. Hypothetically, missiles from S-200s could possibly be a home useful resource for that functionality, unconstrained by international restrictions.
S-200: Defender of the Soviet Motherland
The S-200 entered service in 1967 to function a set long-range air protection defending the Soviet heartland from nuclear-capable NATO strategic bombers and spy planes flying at excessive altitude. The system’s 5N62 “Sq. Pair” concentrating on radar had a most vary of 170 miles, whereas the V-860 and later V-880 missiles might hit plane from 110 to 300 miles away, and as much as 65,000 to 131,000 ft, relying on the style mannequin.
V-880 missile on 5P72V launcher at Patriot Park in Moscow in October 2016.Vitaly V. Kuzmin – Wikimedia Commons
Every particular person V-880 missile (or 5V28) utilized by an S-200V is absurdly buff, measuring 10.7 meters lengthy, weighing practically 8 tons, and possessing a minimum of 4 fixed-stage first-stage missile boosters gas. These can be jettisoned as soon as expended to permit a further liquid-fueled second stage booster to take over. All these rockets helped propel the rocket as much as Mach 8 and allowed it to achieve planes flying at greater than thrice its pace pace of sound at most vary and top.
Not like most Soviet missiles that depend on radio command steerage, the S-200’s missiles used a built-in passive radar seeker that may goal plane illuminated by mirrored alerts from Sq. Pair on the bottom. radar. Upon closing with its goal, a proximity fuze detonates the colossal missile’s 485-pound warhead, releasing 37,000 fragments to destroy every part inside a 120-degree forward-facing cone. As if that weren’t sufficient, some V-880 missiles had been additionally outfitted with 25 kilotons nuclear anti-aircraft warheads.
5N62V “Sq. Pair” concentrating on radar in its Ok-1V antenna submit on show on the Technical Museum of Togliatti in Russia in 2010.ShinePhantom Picture (CCA-SA3) – Wikimedia Commons
The unique S-200A Angara system used the V-860 missile and was efficient to 100 miles and 65,000 ft. It was quickly outmoded by the jam-resistant S-200V ‘Vega’ system and V-880 missile which elevated most vary to 150 miles and altitude to 130,000 ft, and the same nuclear-capable Vega-M. A smaller variety of the final word S-200D ‘Dubna’ methods had been produced with a spread of 300 kilometers.
On the system’s peak within the Nineteen Eighties, greater than 2,030 S-200 launchers had been deployed throughout the Soviet Union, with a battery usually consisting of six 5P72B static launchers, one radar, a command submit, and transport and reload automobiles. By this time, NATO aviation was centered on low-altitude penetration ways that the S-200 was not designed towards, though it nonetheless performed a fictional function in threatening high-flyers. SR-71 Blackbird spy planes and slower RC-135 and E-3 surveillance plane. It’s useful that the ageing S-200 batteries can nonetheless be networked and managed from the command posts of the next S-300 and S-400 methods.
The S-200VE, an export mannequin, was additionally bought overseas, a few of that are nonetheless operational within the NATO states of Bulgaria and Poland. Different notable operators embody Algeria, Iran, Kazakhstan, Myanmar and Syria. In 2018, the Syrian pressure of 40-50 S-200 launchers was answerable for the only downing of an Israeli jet – an F-16I Sufa – in the course of the Israeli strike. ten years of bombing concentrating on Iranian/Hezbollah belongings in Syria. But in addition Syria’s S-200s batteries by accident shot down a pleasant Russian Il-22M command submit plane the identical 12 months (15 useless), the island of Cyprus struck with an errant missile and suffered losses in suppression assaults by the Israeli air defenses.
Iranian S-200 system throughout maneuvers in November 2009 aimed toward simulating the protection of nuclear installations towards air strikes. Iran’s S-200s have been modernized with solid-state electronics.AFP – Getty Photos
Ukraine’s Vega missiles
Ukraine inherited many S-200Vs from the Soviet Union. In 2013, three Ukrainian air protection brigades (based mostly in Kherson, Odessa and Kiev) and two regiments in Crimea and Kamyanka-Buzka (close to Lviv) had been nonetheless outfitted with S-200Vs. Whereas much less trendy and succesful than Ukraine’s S-300P and S-300V methods, the S-200s nonetheless had larger most vary. Nevertheless, the final S-200 unit was disbanded in October… only a few months earlier than Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
After the preliminary invasions of Russia in 2014-2015, Ukraine started work on restoring a few of its retired Soviet air defenses, and the reactivation of S-200 batteries turned a goal. However a 2018 report calls the S-200 the one former Soviet system that the military of Ukraine nonetheless couldn’t use.
S-200V on show on the Ukrainian Air Power Museum in Vinnytsya in 2008, whereas the missile was nonetheless in service. Notice the S-125 Pechora medium-range system within the background. Ukraine managed to return S-125s to service, however not S-200s earlier than the invasion of Russia.George Chernilevsky picture (CCA-SA3) – Wikimedia Commons
There’s nonetheless no media proving that operational S-200s are in service in Ukrainian. One can speculate that some could have been discreetly reactivated and should have been upgraded with assist from Poland.
Defender turns into attacker?
Whereas S-300s and most different Russian air protection missiles have a built-in secondary land assault mode, the existence of that mode on the S-200 has not been confirmed. That being mentioned, Syria has lobbed S-200 missiles in very low accuracy terror strikes concentrating on Syrian rebels and Israel.
Steerage is required for an S-200 floor assault to be militarily efficient. In precept, a separate radar could possibly be skilled on a very giant floor goal (such because the Kerch Bridge) for the missile’s passive seeker to cling to. At finest, such an association solely appears practicable below sure circumstances.
Alternatively, Ukrainian technicians might have mounted rudimentary inertia and/or jerry can mounted GPS steerage to combine with the missile’s pre-existing inertial measurement unit that tracks the missile’s pace and bearing. This might enable for course correction whereas flying to fastened coordinates.
Whereas doubtless nonetheless not correct sufficient and never designed for stealth, V-880 missiles would nonetheless be difficult for interception resulting from their supersonic pace, and would hit laborious resulting from sheer dimension, pace and their one-quarter weight tons. warhead. The utmost vary of 159 or 190 miles towards air targets might translate right into a floor assault vary of 250 to 310 miles by some estimates.
Russian sources stay satisfied that Soviet anti-bomber defenses have been reworked into an actual menace to targets on Russian soil. If true, we could ultimately see extra of the highly effective, however ageing, Soviet air protection system.
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