re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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“Zelensky wants a conflict between the United States and Russia to begin,” American television The Hill.

But why should Russia suddenly worry about this? Ukraine has been attempting to strike Russian targets for a while now without much success. Well, because now Ukraine is having serious success. I previously reported on the Russian S-400’s troubles against the ATACMS missile: the problems have gotten much worse for Russia. S-400s are now being regularly taken out to pasture by the barely stoppable ATACMS.

Another battery was just decimated yesterday in Donetsk with a second claimed one being hit in Alushta, Crimea again, though there’s no definitive evidence on that yet. Though I should note I’m not sure it’s proven the below is an S-400, as some suggest it could have been an S-300/350 series based on the destroyed radar.

But here we can finally see in full color how it goes down with the newly released Ukrainian footage. Not only is the S-300/400 and surrounding Shorad defenders—if any—incapable of neutralizing the guiding Shark drone, but the ATACMS missiles themselves overwhelm the battery:

How do we know it’s ATACMS and not anything else? The extremely wide cluster munitions spread is consistent with the much larger ATACMS rather than HIMARS, for instance, which carries less munitions and has a far smaller spread. Also, in the post-strike damage video seen above you can clearly see a discarded ATACMS fuselage on the ground. Ukraine also released a video showing a launch of up to 8 or more ATACMS, though it’s not 100% clear it is meant to show this one specific attack, though that appeared to be the implication.

So: assuming that launch was in fact connected to this particular S-400 hit, what can we surmise? The S-400 battery clearly launches a slew of missiles, and most analysts are interpreting that to mean that the battery did manage to shoot down almost the entire ATACMS package, with only one missile hitting cleanly at the end. But that one was enough to destroy virtually the entire battery.

The problem is: the S-400 is meant to have a 400km detection range. But the system is clearly engaging the ATACMS only seconds away from their impact. This could indicate a major shortcoming of the system, or merely our lack of details.

For instance: sure, the radar itself can detect 400km in the most optimistic/idealistic conditions, but:

That’s only for maximal-sized objects with huge RCS’s like B-52s. A missile, even a large one like an ATACMS, would still be detected at a much closer range—it’s simply down to mathematics. In fact, as the calculations in the above image show, a sub 1.0 RCS object (which most missiles are) would be detected at approximately 30km or less.

The S-300/400 systems can and are loaded with a variety of different missile types for different purposes, some being very short range missiles. If this particular battery was equipped with mostly short ranged ones then it would not be able to engage the ATACMS at long range anyway.

There’s no telling of the crew training of the particular unit.

Some pro-Russian analysts say it’s still a success when the systems are shooting down “most” of the ATACMS at 70-90% rate. The problem is, when your S-300/400 are being attrited with multiple batteries taken out each week, it doesn’t matter if your success rate is 90%—your systems are still failing in their primary duty. It’s just that it’s not a failure particular to them but of the entire AD eco-system. There appears to be a lack of integration (IADS) and a holistic approach to detecting objects at safe ranges, which includes utilizing AWACS and other airborne platforms. The fact that the S-400 is only responding at the final moments of the missiles’ arrival time and time again is a deep issue in detection for the Russian forces.

If it is true that another system was likewise hit in Alushta, Crimea just a day later, then it means Russia has no way of reliably stopping the ATACMS as they are pretty much hitting anything at will.

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