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Token said:
On social media there have been reports going back at least as far as July that the S300 has been used as a ground attack system or in a ground attack role. And that makes some sense, or at the very least it should not be a surprising capability. Assuming the S300 has either a helo mode or a manual forced launch mode, it should be possible to use those modes to launch on a fixed location.

It also has to be remembered that the S300 is a family of missiles and systems, not just one specific missile type. The S300P, S300PT, S300PS, S300PM, S300PMU, S300PMU1, and S300PMU2 (and how many others I may have missed) are all S300's, but of different ages and capabilities. And that does not even start to go into the S300V stuff (S300V is a different line, which also carries the "S300" designation).

Talking about Russian missiles can get confusing to the unfamiliar. The same missile or missile system can have multiple names or designations it is known by. The terms V500, S300Px, 5V55, and SA-10 may all be used to describe the same missile. And then you get into the variations of each missile, do we mean the 5V55K or the 5V55R? The S300PT or the S300PS?

The point I am trying to make (and thus far failing) is that there are a lot of different "S300" missile types. Some are essentially obsolete, if not in performance than in the fact it has been replaced by something else. The Russians might be using up the oldest first, getting rid of missiles they no longer consider to be first rate, to do a needed task. For example, the original 5V55K or 5V55KD was command guided ( Almaz S-300P/PT/PS/PMU/PMU1/PMU2 / Almaz-Antey S-400 Triumf / SA-10/20/21 Grumble / Gargoyle ) and would have had a much more limited range against maneuvering targets. But, against a non-maneuvering target, or a fixed target, you could push the range out to closer to the kinematics of the missile and still have a high probability of success.

It would tell a lot more about Russian issues / intent if we could get more detail on what is being done, i.e. are they just shooting up old original missiles to get them out of the inventory (most missiles have a limited shelf life, missile grain issues and such, they might even be using expired missiles), or are they shooting 48N6's that might indicate they are dipping into newer inventory in desperation? But we, at this level, are not likely to get that kind of information.

T!
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The S-300 family is all SAM or there is any SSM branch?
 
Token said:
The S300 was designed and is marketed as a SAM system. The missiles, and associated radars, are designed for executing airborne targets. That does not mean that it might not have been designed, from day one, to have an SS mode.

T!
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If I understand you, main role is AA but maybe could have some ground attack capability?
 
Admiral Beez said:
By the end of November Ukraine may have seven or eight different SAM systems. So far I've seen reports of NASAMS (USA/UK), Crotale (France), IRIS-T (Germany), Hawk (Spain), SAMP-T (Italy/France), plus their own S-300 and SA-11 systems originally from Russia. Ukraine is asking India for the Barak-8 Indo-Israeli Missile System. Britain has now deployed its Sky Sabre air defence system to Poland, so giving a few to Ukraine isn't out of the question. The NATO designs will have some interoperability, but will there be any issues coordinating all these disparate systems?
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Just a nit to pick, NASAMS is US/Norwegian, not US/UK
 
swampyankee said:
The two aren't mutually exclusive
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One might argue that when both qualities are found in one person the dangers are more likely to grow. In that sense, he may be our era's Howard Hughes, quixotic to a fault, full of shit and himself, and not in that order.

Musk's playground thinking has no place in international relations, imo.
 
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buffnut453 said:
The short answer is yes, but the accuracy is poor.
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The accuracy may not be that poor.

I can't speak specifically for the S300, since I do not know how it works in the SS mode. However, I can speak to how a generic command guided (CG) SAM might be used in an SS mode.

From open sources, including the Australian Airpower article I listed before, the original S300 missiles, the 5V55K and KD models, are described as CG. Later versions apparently added additional capability.

For those not familiar ( buffnut453 buffnut453 , I assume you know this, I am describing it for others that might not), CG missiles are basically radio controlled missiles. The radar tracks the target of interest, and then it uplinks (sends) commands to the missile to guide the missile to the position in space that the radar believes the target to be at. The missile does not guide itself, the radar on the ground tells the missile how to correct its path, and the ground radar guides the missile all the way to the target. It is, by design, accurate enough against a flying jet to get the missile within the kill radius of the warhead of the missile. For some CG missiles this might require putting the missile within ~25 feet of the moving target in order to be lethal.

Because the ground radar guides the missile, and radar track error naturally get larger with range, the CG system has practical accuracy limitations based on range. You don't use this technique for very long range shots, because at very long range the missile miss distance (based on track errors), on a moving target, might exceed the kill radius of the warhead.

Now lets apply this technique to a non-moving ground target. The radar does not even have to see, or be able to track, the target, all you need is surveyed numbers from the radar to the target, i.e., the target is 100.2 degrees azimuth true, 0.4 degrees elevation, and 50.4 km away. If the missile is launched in an up and over trajectory, the radar will provide guidance as if it was tracking that unmoving target at those coordinates. It will continue to guide the missile as long as it can see the missile. In an up and over it (the radar) might be able to see the missile until the missile is within a few thousand feet of the target, and the last command would arrive with the missile pointed right at the unmoving ground target.

For an unmoving ground target the accuracy might be better than for a moving flying target, particularly at longer ranges.

T!
 
After Syria severely criticised the S-300 system as an air defence weapon there weren't a lot of takers. With the S-400
system coming into play as well there are likely to be a lot of S-300's available so use against ground targets might as
well be done.

GPS have been attached to S-300's but accuracy is still not good. As they also fitted with a warhead designed to take
on aircraft there is little effect on protected targets as the S-300 is a wide area fragmentation device.

S-300's may also be in use to save what is left of the more important cruise type missiles (Iskandar ?).
 
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