By Rohit Srivastava

Russian long-range surface-to-air missile S-400 is in the global lime light since the four-day India Pakistan conflict of May where it successfully intercepted Pakistan’s air assets well deep inside Pakistan territory, making its fighter jets inconsequential. The success of Indian layered air defence against Pakistan’s aerial aggression was primarily due to the protection umbrella that S-400 provides.

Indian layered air-defence system is built around S-400.

During the four-day conflict India breached through the Pakistan’s air defence and gave devastating blow to its air bases, military infrastructure and terror centers. In spite of visual evidences, defence analysts from China, Pakistan and West challenged Indian success for political and strategic reasons. Western experts were ready to accept success of Chinese systems but they were denying the success of Indian and Russian systems. Russia is West’s main adversary and India is their rising defence market.

Accepting success of Brahmos and S-400 against a nuclear power armed with western system raises many uncomfortable questions for West.

World Record of Aerial Kill

Clearing all doubts about the Indian success, Indian air chief Air Chief Marshal AP Singh, earlier this month informed that Indian Air Force shot down five Pakistani jets and one air borne early warning aircraft. “We have at least five fighters confirmed kills and one large aircraft, which could be either an ELINT aircraft or an AEW &C aircraft, which was taken on at a distance of about 300 kilometres,” the air chief informed. He claimed it to the world record in aerial kill. This was possible only through the S-400 40N6 missile which has the maximum range of 400 km. Western experts were suspicious of the radars ability to guide 40N6 to its maximum range.

With the interception at 300 km range, S-400 has cleared the suspicion.  With this S-400 has established itself as the unchallenged global leader among air-defence system. 40N6 missile also features in S-500 for anti-aircraft role. This success gives all the more reason to pursue a co-production and co-development route for India-Russia for S-500 and future systems. During a test in 2018, S-500 intercepted a target at a distance of 482 km, the world’s longest surface-to-air missile test.

SAM Interceptor

While the world is discussing the world record AEW&C kill, Russian ministry of defence has claimed, an unheard capability, that their S-400 batteries have been defending its fighter jets from Ukrainian anti-air missiles. This is an interesting information which makes S-400 probably the only surface-to-air system to intercept other surface-to-air missiles.

On August 15, Russian news agency TASS, in its report, quoting military source said, “The Ukrainian Armed Forces' attempts to limit strikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces using Western-made anti-aircraft missile systems are being thwarted by Russian air defense systems. During the special military operation, Russian air defense combat crews successfully intercept Western-made anti-aircraft guided missiles attacking the Russian Armed Forces' operational-tactical aviation while carrying out combat missions to destroy the enemy on the ground and in the air.”

The report further states that Ukrainian air defence systems- S-200, Aster (SAMP/T) and Patriot are being intercepted by Russian air defence systems to defend VKS Su-34 and Su-35 “since the end of 2023.”

“{o}ver the past year and a half, Russian air defense crews have intercepted nearly two dozen Western-made anti-aircraft guided missiles that attacked Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft at supersonic speeds - from 870 to 1,178 meters per second (up to 3.5 Mach)," the report added. Almost 50 per cent of such interception is of Patriot’s MIM-104D interceptor missile. The maximum speed of MIM-104D is mach 3.5.

Claiming no analogue for such operational capability, the report informs most interception has been done by S-400.

The recently demonstrated capabilities of S-400 make one wonders what else S-400 can do? The answer lies in the technology and range. A capable system with right system architecture can be tweaked for new and emerging operational requirements. The technical capability of the Russian developers also matters here who have been actively redesigning and reengineering systems for new roles.