Multiple Israeli news outlets including Channel 13 reported on May 16 that 'Russian' S-300
SAM batteries had fired missiles at Israeli jets after they struck targets near Syria's
northwestern city of Masyaf last Friday.
The report said the Syrian military fired off dozens of anti-aircraft missiles, which
as viewers may note, have been ineffective at preventing Israeli strikes on Syria.
However, this time the S-300 batteries also opened fire as the jets were departing the
area, Channel 13 stated.
Though Channel 13 reported that S-300 batteries let loose at the Israeli aircraft, the outlet
said the missiles did not pose a threat to the Israeli jets, and there was no radar lock
on the planes.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes how Russian S-300 failed against Israel's American
made F-16 in Syria?
Lets's get started.
In 2015 Syria was at the risk of being overrun by ISIS.
President Putin had sent troops into Syria in 2015 to defend Bashar al Assad -- a long-time
ally.
The mission was to defend the strategic Khmeimim military base, which later turned into a full-blown
attack on ISIS.
Moscow has put its military might behind Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad to prevent the collapse
of the regime.
In 2018, Russia deployed S-300 in Syria in its quest to support the dictator and to protect
its own assets fielded in the country.
As is standard practice, the Israel Defense Forces have not commented one way or another
on the strikes.
A statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense's Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria had
said that Israeli F-16s fired 22 missiles targeting a 'Syrian scientific research center'
in the western Syrian city of Masyaf and the port of Baniyas on May 13.
S-300 is a long-range air defense system The surveillance radar of the S-300 tracks
objects over a range of 300 km or around 185 miles
It must be noted that the system has additional target acquisition radars and uses multiple
missiles to cover its strike envelope which includes Short-range 9M96E (40 km or 25 miles),
Medium-range 9M96E2 (120 km or 75 miles ), and Long-range 48N6 (250 km or 155 miles )
S-300 is designed to take on saturation attacks by having immense firepower at its disposal.
Each S-300 consists of a number of transporter erector launchers (TELs) and each TEL has
4 launch tubes.
In a standard configuration, a single battery has 4 TELs, but there could be up to 16 TELs
per battery.
So, depending on the number of TELs commanded by the S-300 it can launch up to 16* 4 that
is 64 missiles simultaneously.
The system is thought to be able to resist Electronic Jamming attacks.
Technically, as per Russia, the system can take down any aircraft that flies within its
range especially if they are non-stealthy like the F-16s used in this case.
The incident is the first apparent instance of a Russian-made S-300 firing on Israeli
jets as they conduct raids in Syria Exactly who operates the S-300 systems currently
in Syria, regardless of their official status, is unclear.
It is known that Russia does, or at least did, control the release of the missiles from
'Syrian' S-300 batteries in the country.
As per norms, Israel would inform Russia ahead of time that the former would be conducting
airstrikes or operations in Syria to avoid conflict with Russian forces in the area.
This is because Russia and Israel have agreed upon a deconfliction mechanism.
Essentially, that means Russia doesn’t attack Israelis conducting operations in Syria upon
informing the Russians, and the Israelis don’t attack them and vice-versa.
The timing aligns with Israel’s changing policy over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Notably, Israel has begun supplying some weaponry to Ukrainian forces in recent weeks to counter
Russian after dragging its feet for sometime.
Israel has also denounced Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s public assertion
that Adolf Hitler himself was of Jewish ancestry, a long-standing, but entirely unsubstantiated
conspiracy theory.
On paper the capabilities of Russia's S-300 are daunting.
S-300 systems are definitely threats to Israel's ability to access Syrian airspace at any given
time, but the Israeli Air Force has developed methods and technologies to counter these
systems, especially since they also entered service with arch-rival Iran.
These measures have included training in Greece, which operates variants of the S-300, and
in the U.S., which got hold of several examples to train against.
There are 2 possibilities.
1.
The missiles were just fired without a lock to send the message across.
This is not impossible but improbably since these missiles are costly.
2.
Israel's renowned electronic warfare systems made locking onto the jets with the S-300
system impossible.
This is more likely.
Israel is one of the world's leaders in aerial electronic warfare.
Viewers may note that the Israel Air force has been considerably successful against Syrian
short-range air defense systems which includes destruction Russian-made Pantsir-S1 air defense
system.
This came as a major embarrassment for the Russian military.
It seems they have inflicted another humiliation especially since F-16 is not a stealthy fighter
like the F-35 or F-22.