David versus the Gargoyle: The S-300PMU-1

October 5, 2:04 PMMilitary and Civil Aviation ExaminerDave Majumdar

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An S-300 battery on parade in Moscow (www.kremlin.ru)

 Last month reports circulated that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quietly visited his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in an effort to convince Moscow to refrain from supplying arms to Iran and Syria. Of particular concern to Israel is the purported sale of the advanced S-300 Integrated Air Defense System (IADS) to Iran.

 Defense analysts have widely speculated that the operational deployment of the S-300 air-defense system by Iran would present a nearly insurmountable obstacle for any attempted Israeli air strike on that country. This is because the S-300, also known as the SA-20 Gargoyle in NATO parlance, represents a deadly threat for conventional aircraft according to air power experts.

 “For non-stealth aircraft, the SA-20 represents a virtual no-fly zone,” said retired United States Air Force General Richard E. Hawley.

 Hawley, who served as the commander of U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command from 1996 to 1999, said the S-300 series possesses far better radar, has much greater range, and is far better integrated into a networked air defense system. As such, the S-300 is generally regarded as much more lethal than previous generations of surface-to-air missiles (SAM).

 Additionally, the S-300 series is much more resistant to the electronic countermeasures that are typically employed by strike aircraft to defeat such weapons and is capable of engaging targets with much smaller radar cross-sections.

 The S-300PMU-1, the variant allegedly being considered for sale to Iran, is capable of engaging targets from altitudes as low as 30 feet to as high as 90,000 feet. The system is effective against incoming targets travelling at velocities as fast as 9,000 feet per second according to the Almaz Scientific Industrial Corporation, the Russian firm that builds the weapon.

 In the horizontal plain, the S-300PMU-1 can engage targets as close in as 3 miles to ranges as far out as 95 miles. In addition, the missile system is capable of employing against incoming intermediate-range ballistic missiles at ranges of up to 25 miles.

 The S-300 does all this while attacking six targets simultaneously, engaging each incoming track with two missiles. One missile is launched every 3 to 5 seconds. The system is totally mobile and can be networked into an air battle management system to provide even more lethal coverage and to ensure that the weapon is much more survivable. While the performance statistics for the S-300PMU-1 are impressive, even higher performance versions of the weapon are already available for export.

 Hawley, a former fighter pilot with more than 3,000 flight hours and 438 combat missions flown over Vietnam, said the prospects for conventional strike aircraft would be grim when facing off against the S-300 series.

According to Hawley, the only way to successfully engage the S-300 with conventional non-stealth aircraft would be to use stealthy cruise missiles such as the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) fired from outside the effective range of the air defense system. The other option would be to resort to Vietnam-era low-level tactics.

 The problem for Israel is that it does not currently possess the JASSM missile. Production of the weapon for the U.S. Air Force has suffered from repeated delays due to technical faults. Currently, as of 27th August 2009, production of the JASSM has been deferred until further tests can be carried out on the missile according to David Van Buren, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for acquisition. Israeli aircraft would therefore be forced to use the low-altitude approach against the S-300.

 Low-altitude tactics — where jets skim over the earth at treetop levels — are extremely hazardous and are of limited effectiveness, Hawley said. An attacking force would likely face “very significant losses,” he added.

The idea behind attacking at low level is that the incoming aircraft would use the terrain to mask their approach to the target. This is due to the fact that radars cannot see through geographic features such as mountains, but while such tactics help mitigate the threat of the long-range surface-to-air missiles, new threats are emerging in the low level arena.

 These additional dangers stem from lower-tier missile systems such as the advanced Russian Tor-M1 point defense weapon— already operational in Iranian service — and most especially from air-defense artillery pieces. An often-overlooked fact is that most losses of combat aircraft in the later half of the previous century were not inflicted by surface to air missiles but by anti-aircraft artillery, Hawley emphasized. Even during the first Gulf War, most coalition aircraft losses were due to cannon fire from the ground hitting aircraft flying at low level.

 The picture is further complicated by the fact that Russian air defense systems are networked, Hawley said. All surveillance systems, missile systems, and anti-aircraft artillery are interconnected to form an integrated air defense system. Data from individual radars are transmitted to all the other defending forces to form a coherent air-defense picture.

 As a result, simply destroying a single radar or one missile battery does little to diminish the overall threat, making integrated air-defense systems the single greatest challenge faced by modern air forces.

 One other potential option being pursued by both Israeli and US forces is the use of “non-kinetic” means to disable integrated air defense systems. Shrouded in secrecy, the non-kinetic approach involves infiltrating and disrupting enemy communication systems and computer networks. “Project Suter”, developed by BAE Systems and allegedly integrated onto operational platforms such as the EC-130 Compass Call, RC-135 Rivet Joint, and F-16CJ strike aircraft by L-3 Communications, is but one of a multitude of such programs currently underway for the USAF. The Israeli airstrike on the purported Syrian nuclear facility in 2007 is alleged to have utilized such techniques to blind the defending forces air defense systems.

 Hawley, meanwhile, emphasizes that the most effective way to combat integrated air-defense systems is to operate stealth aircraft such as the F-22A Raptor or the F-35 Lightning II.

 In the near term, this may not be a viable option for Israel. The very earliest the IDF can hope to acquire the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter is in the 2014 timeframe, however the aircraft may be not operational by that time due to developmental problems. Meanwhile, the F-22 Raptor is banned from export by the so-called "Obey Amendment" under US law due to that aircraft’s extremely sensitive technology. Additionally, the Raptor is due to end production in 2011 under current plans.