The S-500 is designed to intercept short-to medium-range targets, including ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, according to Russian state-run media.
Less than two weeks in the field and the first S-500 has apparently already intercepted a ballistic missile of the sort it was designed to counter.
One imagines that additional S-500 systems would surely produce additional interceptions.
Shit-talking aside, though, Russia never claimed that the S-500 was actually done -- I assume that they just yanked their prototype onto the battlefield because the S-400 wasn't able to intercept ATACMS missiles either (which it's supposed to be able to -- the S-400 doesn't have an excuse). We rolled out the Patriot when it was still in a prototype, half-baked stage in Iraq, too -- just that it was all we had that might be able to intercept a ballistic missile, and we really needed the capability right then -- and it didn't fare well either.
So I suppose that the S-500 guys probably don't necessarily deserve quite the ribbing that the S-400 guys do. They were probably put in kind of the same place that our Patriot guys were.
We rolled out the Patriot when it was still in a prototype, half-baked stage in Iraq, too -- just that it was all we had that might be able to intercept a ballistic missile, and we really needed the capability right then -- and it didn't fare well either.
About 9% intercept ratio during Desert Storm, which was 30 years ago, but both the Patriot and the Al Hussain missiles were pretty much brand new. S400 is a decade and a half newer than ATACMS though.
Patriot did (a lot?) better in Iraqi Freedom, but the exact numbers are all over the place.
About 9% intercept ratio during Desert Storm, which was 30 years ago, but both the Patriot and the Al Hussain missiles were pretty much brand new.
Regarding being brand new, what I mean is that the Patriot existed for an anti-aircraft role, but its anti-ballistic-missile capability wasn't supposed to have been done by that point.
Sure, but in the 90s intercepting a ballistic missile was a new capability. The tech must be more mature now. Besides, the way Russian procurement works, prototypes are usually light years ahead of what eventually gets produced and issued.
