Modernizing Russian AD...

[Kurt Plummer]

Missiles and Bombs
Russian AA systems upgrade to boost efficiency - Frolov
By RIA Novosti
URL of this article:
http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/index.php
Dec 13, 2006 - 6:15:11 AM


>>
MOSCOW: An upgrade of Russia's antiaircraft missile systems will significantly boost the efficiency of fighting tactical ballistic missiles and other high-precision weapons, an air defense official said Monday.
"In November, in one of the military districts, we completed an experiment to establish a mixed regiment equipped with the modernized missile systems Buk M1-2 and Tor M1," Lt.-Gen. Nikolai Frolov said.
>>

Well, I supposed it depends on how you classify 'antimissile defense' as being of the launcher or of a city but generally these systems high speed target envelopes are way too small to deal with much more than a FROG/ATACMS type (all endo, sub 200km) threat.

They are just fine for threatening tacair targets attempting to use unboosted ballistic ordnance of course but the inevitable problem becomes one of a 50 million dollar SAM sight vs. a half million dollar missile (presumably why the Tor is there).

>>
"Tactical exercises with practical field firing were conducted."
He said modernized air defense systems are a great improvement over those currently deployed in Russia and abroad.
>>

This being code speak for 'come one, come all, exports urgently sought for the latest black box!'.

>>
"In 2008, we will complete research and development work to upgrade the Osa missile system, which is capable of detecting moving aerial targets and destroy them at short range, as well as to deal with floating obstacles," the general said.
>>

Yeah, right. Even with the 9M33M2/M3, the SA-8 is still a sub-5nm effective weapon, past which the RFCG has a problem discriminating the missile radar beacons from the target and must switch to EOCG with it's own range vs. angle track resolution problems.

As the first 'does it all' TELAR weapons system, the Gecko remains a landmark in Russian development of AD technology. But as an operationally effective example of a modern SHORADS, it is a Mammoth swinging a steak knife.

>>
Frolov also said the currently used Strela-10 missile system will be replaced by a modernized system capable of operating in all weather conditions and at any time of day.
>>

This is actually interesting until you realize that the SA-13 (an IR weapon) is itself so ancient that 'replacements' (in the form of the Tunguska and Tor) have themselves undergone two separate 'M-odifikanskaya' upgrades.

I do wonder whether the Russians are 'speaking in tongues' as an oblique reference to the RVV-ZRK or MRADS however. From what I have read, this is a truckmounted shelter system along the lines of the Pantsyr with a VL _ARH_ missile.

Giving you more mobility than NASAMS and more cue than CLAWS in roughly the weapon performance class of an ESSM.

The question then being, whether they have finalized the missile configuration. Last I heard, the choice was as yet 'undecided' between Vympels Adder derivative-

http://img156.exs.cx/img156/6012/vympelrvvaezrk7ih.jpg

(10nm?)

And the Fakel 9M96-

http://img156.exs.cx/img156/6012/vympelrvvaezrk7ih.jpg

(20nm?)

The fact of the matter is that someone has 'seen the light' inherent to ignoring AMRAAM vs. Adder as the mark of an airlaunched regional escalation of combat capability.

Because most threat nations cannot afford the inventory count or training to make the /launch platform/ upgrade worthwhile vs. their neighbor. And most nations not jumping on the bandwagon are in fact looking to beat the AMERICAN standard. Which is a whole 'nother standard of force on force levels again.

If you remove the Su-30 or MiG-29SMT (or MiG-21 Bison or or or) from the cost:benefit equation you easily have a 10 million dollar SAM system with 6-8 missiles onboard that can reach targets at the 16-20,000ft level on an 8nm slant. Before scooting away from an AARGM or similar (Armiger, Delilah etc.) counter launch.

i.e. A cheap and ready MEADS clone which is both relatively independent from direct DEAD attack and a potential threat to IAM droppers trying to stay above the conventional SHORADS threat floor while still closing to a dead-cert LAR envelope or pod imagery verification using standard USAF standards for confirmed targeting and collaterals safe release.

You may need a lot of such a system to get decent bubble overlap but with the active seeker you presumably also get a fairly competent IMU which also means the ability to cue from a shared network and thus have multiple dumb/smart TELs-as-terminals which should further help keep the costs down and the complex survivable.

>>
"In 2008, its development should be completed, and starting from 2009, deliveries to troops will begin," he said.
Russia will celebrate Air Defense Day December 13.
>>

Is it just me or is it rather sad that a nation now 'all about profit' still feels the need to celebrate a condition of perceived threat to justify their nationality? Or maybe we're supposed to /feel/ sad for their poor dumb paranoid selves so that we won't notice the escalatory 'spiral upgrade' they should no longer be able to afford in a more vigorous pursuit of life liberty and the pursuit of mass consumerism.

It's so hard to tell with those clever barbarian chess players...


KPl.

 

[Chrom]

Most modernizations of older systems consist of upgrading guidance, aquision & datalink on the launcher platform. Its actually quite cheap upgrade what greatly increase the effectivity. As for "anti-missile defence" - remember what there are not only ballistic but also cruise missiles. In fact, in 99% cases you probably want anti-cruise missile defence rather than ABM defence. For example, when was the last time USA used ballistic missile in combat? Right now BM are too expenicive and too ineffecient to use for anything but scaring civilian population like e.g. in Israel.

 

[Kurt Plummer]

Most modernizations of older systems consist of upgrading guidance, aquision & datalink on the launcher platform. Its actually quite cheap upgrade what greatly increase the effectivity. As for "anti-missile defence" - remember what there are not only ballistic but also cruise missiles. In fact, in 99% cases you probably want anti-cruise missile defence rather than ABM defence. For example, when was the last time USA used ballistic missile in combat? Right now BM are too expenicive and too ineffecient to use for anything but scaring civilian population like e.g. in Israel.

Fair enough. When you see a Snowdrift or Firedome sitting atop a 15m mast like a Clamshell or Flaplid, we'll talk again.

The simple fact of the matter is that CM are among the easiest of all threats to intercept using a combination of popup mines along terminal approach corridors and MALI type OTH pursuit interceptors. Indeed, it is the very /speed/ of high altitude intended missile systems, along with SARH or RFCG guidance to defeat weather in a small body, which complicates matters unnecessarily.

The fact remains that air defense is a volume-not-point denial game and as soon as you set an S-300/400 class weapons system atop a given target axis, you not only validate /all other axes of approach/ (with winged IAM and high altitude cruise) but you redouble the 'perceived target value' of the defended site or facility.

Particularly with modern standoff IAM, volume defense can only occur in the transit lanes and is more or less a random affair for which the ability to target high altitude threats must be set against the cost and mobility of a vehicle mounted SAM. With a booster, I'm sure that RVV-ZRK can hit 20,000ft. It may not do so over much more than a mile or two wide 'column' extending up from the launch box. But enough of these things together could give some real edge to a Kosovo type (Mass BAI campaign) effort in particular.

Whereas overblown MANPADS ala Gaskin and Gopher will never cut it.

9m96 being another option altogether but one which I think will require a rather larger TEL to render functional as a VLS weapon.

In the end, the Russians and their customers are fools. Because both the cost and effectiveness/vulnerability of a given system is set by the time of flight vs. repass capabilities of the kill mechanism /after/ guidance cue has given the game away and the rapid proliferation of MLDS along with ever more sophisticated RWR makes this ever more true.

OTOH, if you have the damn missile -already at height- then the threat has to rely on background saturated UV sensors (or very expensive IR) to pick up a weak-turbine propulsion signature and effectively you can run a missile the size of a sofa twice the distance that a Favorit can go as a telephone pole. Or make 3-4 passes.

For these reasons alone, peope are idiots for playing the 'upgrade' game. If it was junk in 1980, it's still junk today. Conceptually, the best SAM out there launches off a catapult on the back of a deuce class truck and only receives the most basic of 'check this volume, now swing over there' vectoring like any other (manned) interceptor.


KPl.

 

[Chrom]

KPl.

Allthougth i agree what MANPAD's-like systems with in-build guidance like Strela-10 are crap, all other short(medium)-range systems like OSA, Krug, Kvadrat,Tunguska, C-125, etc what rely on host launcher for guidance get actually quite a lot from upgrade. These are command guided versions and they are just as effective as they host launcher sensors. So by upgrading host launcher you get almost modern SAM with *slightly* subpar old missiles, which you may have a lot in stocks. Morever, 3-world countries can produce these old missiles by themselfes - also quite handy.

 

[Kurt Plummer]

Chrom,

>>
Allthough I agree what MANPAD's-like systems with in-build guidance like Strela-10 are crap, all other short(medium)-range systems like OSA, Krug, Kvadrat,Tunguska, C-125, etc what rely on host launcher for guidance get actually quite a lot from upgrade.
>>

As long as the surveillance/guidance radar is associated with the launch group, to gather and guide the weapons, you limit your effective area coverage (by LOS) and double your target value (by associative guilt) in killing it AND the weapon platform in-a-go.

You also tend to restrict intercept geometries to the extent that the weapons fly similar trajectories and bearing spreads to stay in the guidance loop and this makes it possible to stress one as you stress them all.

To me, an ADV is nothing but a truck. Put a new wooden-round tube on that TEL within size and weight constraints for the class and ALL your technology upgrade can go into THE BULLET NOT THE RIFLE. The BIT test is in the tube. The datalink or cable preprogrammer interface is in the tube. Even potentially the 2-way datalink itself. IN THE TUBE.

At which point the only compatibility requirement is the on-off and firing buttons.

And suddenly you have a Kub battery for which three rounds are I-ARH and the other 9 or 15 are still 'two at a time at one target, two targets only if they are within tight bearings' CW-SARH.

What's the difference?

1. If you are saturated with threats (multiple lolo'ing Tornados on a short horizon) and/or uncertain of the SEAD posture you can put up your 'best defense' on the shortest illumination cycle using ANY 2D/3D search system rather than the fire controller, loft out a weapon whose IMU will put the seeker in a position that gives you SOME chance of quartering the airspace globe around a target without earning an ARM between the eyes for your efforts. Even over the local horizon. If that seeker finds the threat and /reports it/ then the other seekers can be TVM'd to follow.

2. If you are facing a very high energy force (F-16CJs running interference for Tornados for instance) you can pop three rounds to different altitudes and offset turnin points and have EACH ONE deal with the target 'on assumption' of a defensive reaction to the previous one setting it up. i.e. Tap Bounce for the SAM. This also applies to low signature threats where the ability to see a CM crossing in front of you doth not equate to a sure-thing for the pursuit conversion as it 'goes tiny' as the weapon pulls lead.

3. If you 'get used to' the notion of remote directed fires (illuminate here, shoot from over there) you can upgrade components and the only thing you have to reverse engineer is the 'pirate interface' that lets each talk to the other. Which means a French Tyger radar can cue for your VL MICA. Or your RVVAE-ZRK with equal aplomb. THIS is dangerous. Because it makes the rainbow threat environment workable both on the assumption of not shooting at 'anything Allied' vs. 'anything ATC'. Such is what happened with the situation in OAF and it made a lot of tacair pilots royally /pissed/ to take a few sweeps from an offlimits area and then suck up EOCG SA-3 and 6 shots from much closer in a few seconds later.

For the site commander what this means is the difference between taking /a/ shot. And then scooting out and away (it should be noted that the Serbians kept their AD alive by taking it offline to move /constantly/ during Kosovo, thus rendering it 90% worthless anyway).

Or staying on weapons tight and letting the threat go on by because it's not worth the whole battery just to miss. (the other 10%, hunkered and bunkered 'as a complex' and praying not to become the primary target for tonight).

>>
These are command guided versions and they are just as effective as they host launcher sensors. So by upgrading host launcher you get almost modern SAM with *slightly* subpar old missiles, which you may have a lot in stocks. Morever, 3-world countries can produce these old missiles by themselfes - also quite handy.
>>

Junk in. Junk out.

The POINTY END is where the upgrade NEEDS to work the most. Particularly if an element of the problem is weapon CG receivers which, by your standard are not 'fixed' to operate in a new frequency band or wider channel stack. As with the SA-2 and it's external uplink array around the forebody of the Guideline which we jammed the crap out of from Vietnam onwards.

CONCLUSION:
'Knowing The Russians', I would tend to be leery of the idea that what they were actually doing was passing off Kub->Kvadrat type 'upgrades' as the equivalent of old home-country level technology baselines that had since been rendered surplus by newer (SA-11/17) followons.

It's the oldest trick in the book and is easy to do on a constant level of /apparent/ yearly improvements whereby SA-6 gains IR tipped variants and SA-6b brings in a supplemental Firedome TELAR which gradually translates to full up SA-11 and so on. All 'at cost' (which to the Russians is damn near nothin').

Like I say. You want to play the AD game, you START with a modern conop. Like flyup drone that BECOME a loitering turboSAM force off a catapult on a truckbed. Flying AWAY from the launcher and UP to engagement height BEFORE becoming a swarm-weapons system (irrespective of outside cue if need be).

And then you build around known vulnerabilities of specific systems on a node-by-node basis of mix and match to give it that cue, starting at the SOA and bleeding-edge onwards so that you can buy replacements less incrementally than by individual components of the ENTIRE air defense system.

Going with tired junk and trying to reincarnate it with modern high density memory and processors that 'are still all-Russian' is a guaranteed way to be beaten by both the restricted conop design shortcomings. And the overall vulnerability by which any single nations systems are characterized and compromised through humint level espionage and techint level predictability in their approach and capacities.

But hey, the Third World has always been a mob of ready made victims. That's why they are the Thirld World. Caveat Emptor.


KPl.

 

[Chrom]

Man, you miss the main point of short/medium range command guidance SAM's - they price. With they missiles price they can fire literally against every dumb bomb and every MRLS's rocket and still dont force you to beg for bread. If not the price, we would see S-300/400 SAM's all around in hundreds of thousands.

 

[Kurt Plummer]

Chrom,

>>
Man, you miss the main point of short/medium range command guidance SAM's - they price. With they missiles price they can fire literally against every dumb bomb and every MRLS's rocket and still dont force you to beg for bread. If not the price, we would see S-300/400 SAM's all around in hundreds of thousands.
>>

Oh Please. SAMs of ALL kinds are only effective because the cost of the _delivery platform_ inherent to an Airframe is so very high as to bottleneck the nature of the fires that can otherwise be indiscriminately delivered by ballistic or cruise means. You want to play hit-the-needle games SERIOUSLY and you _must_ go to DEWS. Whose simplicity will, within 10 years, render your conventional airpower worthless anyway.

That said, I can't find the cost of the Barak SAM on a per-round basis, only a quote for a '100 million dollar contract' for another Indian ship which also includes the dual fire control radars and 24 cell VLS.

However; say 114 million for 800 Rapier BX-1 upgrades to Turkey-

http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Papers/BP29appendix.htm

Is 'in the range' of an accurate price for the (admittedly more of a Roland equivalent) Israeli system at 142,500 dollars each.

Now compare it to this-

http://synthesist.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_synthesist_archive.html

Which quotes a 1,000 dollar per round cost for a BM-122 with a range of 25km.

And compare it to this-

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/weapons/q0279.shtml

Which shows a map of effective coverages from the various parts of Israel.

Further, realize that between legitimate businesses and a 'booming' counterfeit market, the Iranians can probably get 50% recovery on their 'investment' in a militant Lebanon.

While finally understanding that the various 'po wittle guwillaz' fired some FOUR THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT rockets into Israel.

http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief006-10.htm

If 10% of those hit vital areas where civillians might bitch at being target practice that's still 422 threats you have to deal with. And despite being 'Israeli Made' as some kind of Vunder Veapon guarantee on effectiveness; the Barak in it's qualification tests with the INS off Mumbai _failed_ in it's first round engagement on a target and had to be backstopped by a second round due to 'communication/handoff difficulties' between the missile and control group.

So, doing the math, you come up with 4,228,000 worth of surface to surface crap (because Hezbollah still have to launch all four thousand rockets to get a 10% hit rate) vs. 844 SAM firings at 11,984,800 dollars.

i.e. Nearly THREE TIMES the Monkey Force's expenditures, all of it high tech.

Which further ass-u-me's that the Israeli's Red Dawn early warning systems can discriminate particularly short range (Qassam 1-2-3) threats with sufficient clarity to NOT try for say /half/ the inbound rounds. Which would raise the costs to 300,188,000 dollars. That's THREE HUNDRED MILLION sir.

Now let's assume that you have to 'triple up' coverage for each SAM because they are, after all, only good for about 3-5nm. Assuming each fire unit has the same number of rounds to deal with a daily 150-200 inbound rockets in streaming saturation of ONE launcher bearing. You are talking just 3-5X (TELAR coverage) either of the above number numbers which rapidly escalates to just HUGE costs.

Which is why the military lives on remote reservations 'far from harm' and is NOT in fact a shield for the civillians and _never has been_. Because it is impossible to protect such a large target.

ARGUMENT:
Militaries exist to butcher, offensively. So that they may take from their enemies the cost of their support. And so that they may ensure that those who survive the slaughter live in such eternal terror of being _annihilated_ and their empty lands taken from them, that they are /never tempted/ to such desultory attacks as are shown here.

Guerillas ONLY WIN when you do not go in and murder their home and hearth logistics. Enslaving or annihilating their women and children so that the otherwise 'unemployed' (and worthless) warriors have no food or shelter.

Caesar knew this with the Gauls. The U.S. Cavalry did this with the Native Americans. What all the fools here think is that this comes down to some kind 'exercise in endurant will' which only requires patience to win. In reality what it comes down to is obliterating the threats ability to prosecute the war at all.

Will to Will, the ones who have nothing are more patient than the ones who are comfortable. Because they typically can't go much further down the slope of have-notism while we see our wealth slipping away with every useless muzzle mutt and his toys that we have to pay for.

Furthermore, the only thing that opportunistic animals of any kind respect is the overwhelming and OVERT use of power which could destroy them utterly and thus remove all possibility of their /ever/ climbing uphill to a given state of victory. The sad truth being that such victory will NEVER be enabled, even by the idiots who drive them on, because it would only leave the realization that they STILL have -nothing- of their own. Even as it destroys the justification (Convince a man to hate a distant stranger and he is yours so long as you supply the bullets. Teach a man to live and he instantly no longer has to listen to you) by which their ignorance empowers those who use them.

The only thing a lack of constant and ruthlessly brutal oppression of threats -wherever found- does /today/ is ensure that a desperate Israel _tomorrow_ may find she has to up the ante to nukes.

CONCLUSION:
I have nothing but contempt for the Israeli state. It was conceived in the suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust as the worst kind of religiously centric 'safe haven' at the cost of those who had been in the area for THOUSANDS of years since /Romans/ last kicked Israel over. I certainly despise the outside influence on my nation's government. And the 2.5 BILLION PER YEAR we throw at them to sustain a hollow economy through FMF _military_ funds. They were unable to help us pinpoint the exact nature of 9/11 and so even their value as 'regional intel' sources is now proven to be vastly overstated. Yet for all this, they are both a more stable nation state and trustworthy social psychology of educated mindset than the poor minority of Arabs who live like beggars in the ghetto shadows of their oil-rich brethren to the East.

And so we should simply turn our backs and allow them to WIN (as they must if they are not to _lose_) before we teach the threats over their how to best defeat us with the very high tech which rogue nations like Iran are now capable of emulating with increasing efficacy and seemingly no reprisal.

There is no greater threat to your tomorrow than the man whose grudge against you is allowed to live uncrushed into hopelessness today. We knew this, once...


KPl.

 

[Chrom]

1 missile for Tunguska cost about 2000$, i cant see what Osa missiles cost much higher. Either way, you cant compare that to 500.000$ for self-guiding missiles a-la AMRAAM or S-400.

 

[Kurt Plummer]

Chrom,

>>
1 missile for Tunguska cost about 2000$, i cant see what Osa missiles cost much higher.
>>

Really? I would appreciate some verification or a site reference on that.

>>
Either way, you cant compare that to 500.000$ for self-guiding missiles a-la AMRAAM or S-400.
>>

The thing is, you have to defend AREAS of target vulnerability. Preferably from a frontage arc of coverage so there is no ballistic fallback on your own people.

The Israelis had the suppression of the larger launchers down to a science. Some are quoting less than 45 seconds from 'flash to boom'. But the smaller rockets, even those with a nominally extreme exposure factor relative to their short range, they just couldn't put iron on the launcher fast enough to win.

THAT threat, from the Qassams and Katyusha clones and their ilk. Is something which can both readily saturate a small SAM and end up costing you more than the defense is worth relative to coverage areas and redundant overlaps to handle mass attacks.

Unfortunately, while I personally believe that the optics trains and chemical loops are more than adequate to handle rapid fielding of M-THEL like COIL systems. I also know that the difference between a 3-5km RAM 'CLK' or Coherent Light Kill (which is also about what you are looking at from SHORAD/VSHORAD systems, given times of flight and target size issues on acquisition and intercept mechanics) and a 20km MANPADS one is the equivalent of a 5,000ft and a 15-20,000ft threat floor on manned airframes.

And the one thing which allows the West to remain dominant over the mindless savages of Islam is our airpower. Our ability to butcher them in their hundreds _where_ _they_ _live_.

Such that, between the knights-of-the-sky aristocratic hypocrisy of job description as a 'union conspiracy'. And the very real need to kill targets without commiting to the very kinds of slogging infantry battles shown on the Northern Border; the military muzzle mutts and their political leash holders will CONTINUE to let their civillian pops bleed for them.

The only thing which will change this perceived trade off will be the first time a CBR and/or (cheap FOG IMU) precision capability is introduced to the extent that these 'terror weapons' become either small-investment mass casualty producers (probably without their users knowing it as Iran 'independently ups the ante').

Or able to score point target hits on the -value- of the infrastructure (which will always be 'more important' than the mere humans who occupy it), robbing Israel in particular of the ability to hunker down and take a random beating.

"Go ahead and kill my serf but don't you dare touch my castles!"

That's the way things are. They way they have always been. And the way those who have power will ensure that they remain. As long as they hold the technology base keys to disenablers like DEWS. And an airline ticket to escape the disaster they create.


KPl.