Funny thing is, the Russians won't have the "codes" to disable the SAM. Our S-400s will be custom rigged and integrated with our IACCS.
Also, the Russians do not like the Chinese.
Funny thing is, the Russians won't have the "codes" to disable the SAM. Our S-400s will be custom rigged and integrated with our IACCS.
Also, the Russians do not like the Chinese.
Maybe your right but finding the positions of the platform won't be that difficult. If I'm not wrong they would be deployed in or around airbases. chinese can always provide Pakistan with their satellite feed if not that they can surely find it by paying off some commercial satellite company right?
There are a number of problems that have to be cleared before the S-400 can be targeted.
The S-400's long range missiles will prevent recce aircraft from picking up the S-400. Surveillance aircraft are range limited because targets are very small. For example, the Phalcon can pick up a tank from 50Km away, whereas the S-400 can kill a Phalcon up to 400Km away. So if you can't see the S-400, you can't attack it. So you need extensive satellite coverage, passive detection and other recce assets to be able to pinpoint the location of the S-400.
Even after that, most CMs are subsonic and take a long time to reach a target, as much as 30 min if you want to launch from outside the range of the S-400. So any S-400 battery that is under threat can pack up in under 3 minutes and relocate.
The best and only real option is to use passive detection and employment of supersonic anti-radiation missiles or ARMs. These missiles lock on to radar signals and home in on the S-400's radars. These missiles generally have lesser range, up to 100Km, and are employed by aircraft. That's where the S-400's 120+Km medium range missiles come into play. These missiles are dedicated to shooting down aircraft that come close enough to fire away ARMs, and can shoot down the ARMs themselves. And any ARMs that are missed by the 120Km SAM can be stopped by the smaller and more manoeuvrable 40Km SAMs.
A single S-400 battery with 6 launchers will be able to defeat 8 targets at long range and 32 targets at medium/short range. And a single SAM site may have 4 such batteries (it can even go up to 6 batteries). So one SAM site will be able to defeat 32 targets at long range and 128 targets at medium/short range with its inventory of 64 long range missiles and 256 short range missiles at any one time. And the SAMs will also have reloads capable of doubling or tripling the missile inventory as necessary.
Apart from the fact that the S-400 can protect itself from any kind of aerial threat, the S-400 SAM site can also be protected by other SAMs like the Barak 8/Buk M3/S-350 and SPYDER/Tor and even the Pantsir S1. These smaller SAMs can further protect the S-400 at medium and short ranges against ARMs, CMs and glide bombs in the hundreds. And when you count your own fighter aircraft flying over your SAM site, it becomes a big problem for the enemy to defeat such sites.
Jamming is very difficult to employ against modern radars. Most of the time it may not work at all. The most effective way to defeat SAMs is stealth. That's why the USAF has focused a lot on stealth and very little on jamming capabilities. And of course, speed is also effective, that's why the focus on hypersonic capabilities.
Will S-400 be used in base defence? I don't know. It depends upon how they deploy it and what tactics they are playing.
As far as satellite feeds go, those can help surely, but will they be enough for a fighter bomber to take a chance and dive for a platform that can kill it? i doubt. Plus if Indian side is any good, they will know places where to place this weapon so that it cann't be tracked by satelliets. Like foliage cover, under the bridge, in the tunnels and move it out as needed. The platform actually consists of a radar array, command and control vehicle and missile launchers. All can be spread around and hid. I guess this problem is not new or unique to any air-defence system.
For instance, a good commander can actually play these tactics against the enemy itself. Place inflatable replica of the system around the battlefield, let enemy fighters dive for it and then take them out. They to it with tanks, I dont see why it cann't be done with other things. If Pakistan commits its pilots to take out S-400, India can use their commitment against them.
Heck you may not even need to take S-400 out of storage to do the damage. If Pakistani side is prioritizing S-400 over other weapon systems, then the fear of a S-400 itself can be used as a weapon.
Last but not the least, the biggest utility of this system is to push Pakistan's AWACS and In-flight tankers away from battlefield. If one system can takeout 3 or 4 of Pakistani AWACS then it will suddenly tilt war in favor of IAF.
The S-400 may be a mobile version, but it's not the S-300V which comes on tank tracks. And the S-400 comes under the IAF, so it will be used for base defence, and it will be moved around every few hours over a sufficiently large area to keep the enemy guessing.
We only have to park them in and around air bases along the Pak border.
Let's not forget that the IAF actually wanted 12 of them, but have settled for 5 right now. It's possible DRDO will provide the requirement for the remaining 7 systems using indigenous tech.
Red = What I think will happen. Srinagar, Sirsa, Jailsalmer, Bhuj and Hasimara.
Blue = The holes in our defences that require something like the S-400. Bareilly, Gorakhpur, Chabua and Kharagpur.
I won't be surprised if we position all our S-400 near the Pak border while we depend on the XRSAM for the China border.
What's important to note is the army will be operating under the cover of the S-400. So even if we say base defence, it's basically wide area defence. The S-400s do not have to leave the vicinity of the air bases.
These are no defensive weapons. These are weapons of airspace control. They can essentially cause entire pakistan to submit to Indian control of their airspace. Any aircraft or missile going airborne can be taken out from within Indian territory.
Leaving all of this, this system can make Phalcons and Mid-Air refullers history in Pakistan. Essentially, it means absolutely no force multipliers for PAF. Coupled with short-legged JF-17s, there is no counter with PAF for these. The only thing which can do something against these are stealth fighters. PAF has none. They can try buying few from China or wait till TAI can come up something in 20 years. Meaning, for next 20 years they have nothing operate against IAF if these systems are deployed near border.
And the worst part for PAF? Even if PAF gets S-400s from some magic, against India they won't be as useful. Because of geography.
They do not have the scientific resources to work on hypersonic weapons and stealth yet. So, no, they have little to no chance of countering the Indian SAM network.
Apart from the 20 S-400 batteries, we will also have over 150 other SAM batteries in the region. We will have many times more missile launchers than they have fighter aircraft.
There is one flaw with the S-400 system. The long range missiles are really fast, but are less manoeuvrable against small targets like CMs and fighter jets.
So I'm looking forward to the IAF introducing the long range Desi Meteor as a SAM. This SAM will have a range of 250 to 400Km and will be extremely effective against fighter jets and CMs. It will be a perfect complement to the S-400's long range capability.
No offence but I think you are being overconfident. There will be something we might be missing out thats totally out of the box. I would seriously never put all our hopes in the s400 basket. If we really had the thing to neutralize them we wouldnt be loosing so many at LOC. I really dont care if we have s400's, Hypersonic missiles or su30mkis if we are really never going to use them while the other side is conveniently screwing with us. We should increase the price so high that they would dare not fire a bullet. I dont see that happening any time soon.
S-400 is only one part of puzzle. The great thing is that it lets us exploit the enemy's weakness. India was still quite strong against Pakistan even before this system was thought about. "Overconfidence" is not the right point here. It just enables a use-case which was never possible before. Sure, it is not the only tool in India's toolbox. But it is a tool which allows us to hit the weakest and non-fixable part of the Pakistan.
As far as unknown unknowns go. Who knows, what India is hiding too. I can claim Imran is on RAWs rolls and will supply us all the inside information in case of war. Its all unknown unknowns, right?
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This is why I am not even counting on them for attack CMs and fighter jets on long distance. I am only counting them to take out force multipliers. AWACS and Tankers. You remove them out of the game and suddenly PAFs forces are much much less potent and much much vulnerable to superior Indian numbers. You take away one major advantage PAF has over us, their AWACS. You exploit their vulnerability : their short legged fighters JF-17. They are left with only F-16 A/Bs, which are poorly supported and have a PNS Ghazi written all across them.
Dont worry about that part. he'll end up unanimously being labeled as a RAW agent and thrown under the bus within 3 years
. Just like his predecessor and his pre-predecessor before him 
Oh well, Pakistan is its own worst enemy. Just like us.Dont worry about that part. he'll end up unanimously being labeled as a RAW agent and thrown under the bus within 3 years
We haven't reached that level yet though.
But even without the S-400, we can dominate over the PAF in a very short time. Hellfire said 2 days to wipe out the PAF. The S-400 simply accelerates that since their force multipliers won't even enter the battlespace.
That means their AWACS cann't snoop inside Indian airspace and not to mention, they will have much tougher time supporting their fighters in their own airspace.
It's not just AWACS, EW, recce or even tankers that are in danger. Let's not forget the C-130s and other transports that they operate. The S-400 kills the ability to support their troops on the ground as well.
Thats what I was interested in. It basically rips away all the force multipliers and makes PAF and PA vulnerable.
They'll be able to jam them effectively since they designed them, there's probably a hidden kill code too. I wouldn't like to have to rely on them.