In April 2024 Iran fired more than 120 intermediate-range ballistic missiles,170 drones, and about 30 cruise missiles fired at Israel. Still, according to the Israeli military, 99 percent of these missiles or drones didn’t reach their targets. They were found and destroyed on the way.
Similarly, during the Hamas attack on Israel hundreds of missiles were fired on Israel soil, a large number of which failed to cause any major damage to Israel and were already intercepted, that is, destroyed. All this has been possible only because of Israel’s capabilities and missile defense system. Otherwise if this missile number reaches a country that is so large in area, then it is difficult to imagine how much damage can be caused.
Similarly, the American missile defense system Patriot has also proved successful to a great extent in Ukraine, which has given Ukraine a good fight against the Russian missiles. Apart from these, interceptors against missiles fired from American destroyers in the Red Sea. had been used by Houthi rebels. These systems had proven to be very successful in neutralizing many anti-ship missiles.
After the success of these systems in recent war environments, defense experts believe that this has increased both the importance and market of defense systems and the potential of the missiles. Now the militaries around the world will make more and more investments to develop these patchy and costly systems afresh or buy them from another manufacturer.
The S-400 is considered the best surface-to-air missile defense system. This system is made from three to four components. The first one is “Range surveillance radar which can detect 300 different targets in a 600 km radius at the same time. Its biggest feature is that it has an installed jammer protection system because now even modern aircraft systems have jammers that can be used by enemy countries. This long-range radar of the S-400 is mounted on heavy trucks.
The second component or part of the S-400 is the command and control system which is also mounted on the vehicle which keeps getting signals from the surveillance radar and gives instructions after processing. The third part of this system is a launch vehicle on which four missile tubes are installed. These containers contain missiles of the same type or different types. It may be that one complete S-400 battery i.e. a complete S-400 missile defense system, eight to 12 launch vehicles can be deployed.
The biggest feature of this system is that it has no missile defense system in short range. To intercept the missile, a short-range missile is fired which has a maximum range of 40 km. After this medium range, the interceptor missile of the system can destroy any target within 120 km range. The long-range missile is capable of destroying the targets within the 250 km range. Whereas very long-range missiles of this system can target even up to 400 km away. The biggest benefit of having four different types of interceptors is if any target comes near so instead of firing a long-range missile, a short-range missile is fired.
The USA disliked the purchasing of S-400 by other countries, and started to threaten sanctions on that particular country. It passed the CAATSA federal law, which gives the US president the right to sanctions on a country that country. The loss Turkiye made by purchasing the S-400 is that the USA kicked it out of purchasing F-35A planes.
So that less cost is incurred to engage any target, S-400’s fourth component is the engagement radar which is also installed on a truck. It is also a multifunctional radar that launches to engage the target. This radar works with surveillance radar and can guide 160 missiles at one time. Other than this some optional components are also part of this system which help in identifying targets at low altitudes. The overall work of the S-400 is that surveillance radar detects the target and sends signals to the command and control centre which identifies that either the object is their own or related to the enemy then first thing is determined is how much came near the target and where to intercept it, after learning this from launch vehicle the appropriate missile range is fired and engagement radar guides the launched missile to set its trajectory. The Russian missile defence system is better than Iron Dome and Patriot.
Israel’s missile defence system is in different layers. In which the first one is the arrow, its range is more than 2000 km but it is made to intercept long-range ballistic missiles, then David slings targets medium to long range and a range of 300 km then comes the Iron Dome which is capable of making to engage the short-range targets which have the range of upto 70 km. The S-400 missile defence system can detect and engage drones, missiles, and stealth fighter jets with different ranges. To operate different types of systems more manpower is needed as compared to the S-400 missile defence system. For different threats, the USA had different types of missile defence systems. For very long-range intercontinental callistic missiles US had a “Ground base defense midcourse system (GMD), but for medium-to-long range “Terminal high altitude air defense system” (THAAD) is present and its range is 200 km, while the Patriot defence system had a range of 160 km. This defence system is also in layers as Israel and is proved to be disadvantageous.
S-400 is an upgraded version of S-300, which had a range of 150 km. In the new defence system, working began in the 1980s while the USSR was still extant and the first successful test of the system happened in 1999 and in 2007 it was officially approved to be used.
Russia in 2021 developed an “Advance air defence system and inducted the S-500 into its service. It had an operational range of 500-600 km, but Russia claims that this system is capable of intercepting every type of hypersonic missile.
Other than Russia four other countries have S-400 missile defence systems installed. In 2014 China showed interest in purchasing this missile defence system and delivery started to China in 2018. The second one is Turkiye which purchased this defence system, India also purchased five squadrons and Belarus had the system.
KSA, Qatar, UAE. Iran. Egypt, Iraq, and Serbia had shown interest in purchasing the S-400 missile defense system. The USA disliked the purchasing of S-400 by other countries, and started to threaten sanctions on that particular country. It passed the CAATSA federal law, which gives the US president the right to sanctions on a country that country. The loss Turkiye made by purchasing the S-400 is that the USA kicked it out of purchasing F-35A planes. The USA adopted a similar behaviour to India, but India was saved from US sanctions. In the US the Indian American congressman, Ro Khanna presented the bill which suggests that neutralizing China’s aggressiveness in the region. The S-400 missile defence is very important so sanctions should not be imposed. Pakistan in 2021 had purchased a surface-to-air missile defence system from China, the HQ9P, which is specifically designed for Pakistan. It has a 125 km range to intercept any target.
