The S-300 has emerged within the twenty first century as maybe of essentially the most outstanding and broadly recognisable air defence system on this planet, and is operated each in a number of branches of the Russian Army and by a spread of international purchasers from China and Vietnam to Algeria and Iran. Notable fight deployments have included these by the Ukrainian Army from February 2022 towards Russian forces, in addition to restricted use within the Nagaro-Karabakh Battle the place the methods have been fielded by each Armenia and Azerbaijan. The system’s superior capabilities have usually made its gross sales a matter of appreciable political significance, and at occasions controversy, starting from a Russian sale to Iran within the 2000s which was cancelled by Moscow below Western strain, or the sale of the S-400, an enhanced and renamed S-300 variant, to NATO member Turkey in 2016. Though the S-300 system has been in service for 44 years since 1979, it was solely within the Nineties when its capabilities started to revolutionise Russian air defences and the defences of the nation’s many purchasers which acquired the methods. A have a look at how the S-300P household of air defence methods noticed its capabilities radically improved with the start of the S-300PMU collection, which started to enter service from 1992, offers necessary perception into the air defence platform’s evolution and the way it gained such a big place in Russia’s defence.
S-300s within the Nineteen Eighties had entered service as medium ranged air defence methods, changing the ageing S-75 from the Fifties and pairing a complicated anti missile and anti plane functionality with very excessive mobility and the flexibility to shortly relocate after firing. Lengthy vary air defence duties have been on the time the accountability of the S-200 system, which had an unrivalled 300km engagement vary and will intercept all method of targets as much as and together with ballistic missiles at low hypersonic speeds. The S-300P against this had a 70km vary, whereas its successor the S-300PM/PS which entered service in 1985 prolonged this to 90km and improved precision. This modified drastically with the induction of the S-300PMU-1 into service in 1992, with it and its successors receiving a completely new designation, SA-20, the place the S-300P/PS collection had been designated SA-10, to mirror the basically new capabilities launched. The system launched a protracted vary functionality with its 48N6 missiles having a 195km engagement vary and Mach 5.8 velocity. Though its missiles have been shorter ranged and slower than these of the S-200, they have been lower than 1 / 4 of the dimensions which allowed them to be transported on cell launch automobiles the place S-200s had been relegated to fastened websites. The outcome was a revolutionary enhance to survivability for Russia’s lengthy vary air defence methods.
Whereas it had greater than double the engagement vary of the earlier technology of S-300s, the PMU collection additionally launched for the primary time on this planet the flexibility to deploy a number of complementary missile varieties concurrently – offering a multi layered defence inside a single unit. The system’s sensors have been additionally revolutionised to facilitate engagements at lengthy ranges, and paired this with an unprecedented diploma of compactness and mobility. The capabilities of the S-300PMU-1 not solely facilitated main exports, most notably to China, but in addition allowed Russia to section out its S-200 items whereas creating a protracted vary community that may be far tougher to take out. As Russia’s air defence community quickly contracted following the Soviet collapse, albeit not as drastically because the Air Power or most different areas of the armed forces, the flexibility of a single system to offer three layers of air defence was enormously appreciated. The S-300PMU-1 was succeeded in 1997 by the S-300PMU-2, which launched the flexibility to interact intermediate-range ballistic missiles and noticed important enhancements to its command put up, missile storage, upkeep suite, radar and digital warfare methods. Particular person firing items gained extra autonomy, and the system might interact extra targets concurrently.
The S-300PMU-2 in the end paved the best way for improvement of the S-300PMU-3, later renamed the S-400, which entered service in 2007 after appreciable delays however was produced in a lot bigger numbers than its two predecessors mixed. New capabilities included a 250km engagement vary, later prolonged to 400km, in addition to the flexibility to intercept hypersonic missiles at speeds exceeding Mach 8, increased mobility and the flexibility to interact extra targets concurrently and information as much as 160 missiles without delay. The S-400’s signature functionality, nonetheless, was its use of a number of radars in numerous wavebands offering a really lengthy 600km detection vary towards bigger plane and a detection vary of near 100km towards fighter sized stealth targets from the fifth technology. Submit-Soviet S-300 variants, together with the renamed S-400, had capabilities unrecognisable from the Soviet period medium vary S-300P/PS/PT methods, and will function in a a lot wider vary of roles. Because the Air Power quickly contracted within the Nineties, and modernisation slowed with promising fifth technology fighter packages cancelled, the S-300PMU-1, PMU-2 and S-400 ensured that cell ground-based methods can be relied on much more closely by post-Soviet Russia than that they had been within the Soviet period, offering a method of defending nationwide airspace that was seen as far less expensive.
