Thread: The mighty S-300

Originally Posted by kuku

Why cant they just put the radar on a aerostat, there are early warning/survaillance radars that use aerostats?
Or put the radar in planes like the AEWs/AWACs?

I think that AWACs is the ultimate in air defense. If you look at the time line, we went from high altitude, high airspeed, to low altitude, high speed, culminating in the B1-B, but even that was at risk against the MIG-31, especially if combined with A-50 Mainstay AWACs. Only stealth has a chance.

Sams are point defense, regardless of their range, which is limited by the horizon in detection range. The US has been making, and still makes SAMS with much shorter range on average, for a reason I suspect. We certainly COULD make very much longer range SAMS if we wanted to. Even the Navy Standard has a longer range, probably because radar has a relatively flat surface with the surface of the ocean. So I suspect bragging rights for a SAM against an air breathing target are relatively meaningless. A high flying ballistic target is another matter.