The Governor of the Mykolaiv Oblast, Vitaly Kim, said on his Twitter handle on July 8
that Russian forces are conducting frequent ‘rocket attacks’ and using repurposed
S-300 missiles equipped with GPS navigators to hit ground targets.
Kim further said that 12 missiles were fired by S-300s in a land attack role while noting
that despite the missiles being equipped with GPS, they are inaccurate.
This is interesting, to say the least since S-300 is essentially a SAM or Surface of Air
Missile system.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes why Russia is using the S-300 air defense system
for hitting ground targets in Ukraine?
Let's get started
S-300 is a long-range Anti Access Area Denial system designed to protect against aerial
threats.
The surveillance radar of the S-300 can track objects over a range of 300 km or around 185
miles
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 )
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.
While it is designed primarily to take out a rival's aerial assets, its ground attack
capabilities are relatively little known.
Though the system is capable of Surface to Surface strikes, it is not talked about much.
S-300 can inherently lob missiles in ballistic trajectory and hit ground targets at a distance
of more than 100 miles or 160 km depending on the type of missile.
The main issue is the accuracy but this problem didn't receive much attention since Russia
has a plethora of land attack options.
As the war in Ukraine drags on, the Russians have retrofitted the S-300 system including
certain percentage of the missiles in its inventory with the satellite guidance system.
The missiles are now capable of carrying out ground attacks with much better accuracy than
before though not good by modern standards.
GPS coordinates can be set before launch, updated using a Radio link and the missile
can use semi-active radar homing in the terminal phase.
This kind of dual-role missile is not unique to Russia.
For example, American SM-6 is primarily designed for extended-range anti-air warfare (ER-AAW)
purposes providing interception capability against fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, unmanned
aerial vehicles, anti-ship cruise missiles in flight, both over sea and land and terminal
ballistic missile defense.
But can also be used as a high-speed anti-ship missile.
There are mainly 3 reasons for using the S-300 for the ground attack role.
Let's check them one by one.
Initially, many strategists including non-Russians thought that Russian forces would overrun
Ukraine in a few weeks.
But obviously, this has not played out like that.
Months of fighting have taken a toll on Russian weapons stocks, especially the standoff precision
weapons.
Reports have emerged that due to the lack of Kalibr series land attack missiles, Russia
is using Kh-22 and Kh-32 Anti Ship missiles for attacking targets on land.
The country also seems to be running out of PGM or Precision Guided Munitions like KAB-250
and KAB-500 precision-guided bombs.
Russia has a large stock of S-300 missiles and given the situation, it is bringing them
to bear.
S-300 missiles can travel at 6 Mach which is 6x the speed of sound.
Kalibr series missiles have a subsonic speed with some variants being able to reach 3 Mach
in the Terminal phase.
Deploying Precision Guided Munition like KAB-250 or KAB-500 froth with risk since the Russian
Air Force has not gained air superiority over Ukraine
So, it makes sense to use S-300 missiles against time-sensitive targets.
Kalibr series missile has a High Explosive warhead of 500 kg or 1100 lbs
S-300 missiles have a direction fragmentation warhead of about 150 kg or 330 lbs which makes
them much less effective when used against ground targets especially if they are fortified.
But still, the S-300 missile brings in a different kind of value -it has a terror quotient, especially
when used against civilian targets.
Viewers may note that Hitler used this tactic in World War II when he unleashed so-called
Vengeance Weapons V1 and V2
A total of more than 22,000 V1s were fired and claimed a total of 11,000 victims.
About 4,000 of the V2s were launched and a total of more than 6,000 people were killed.
The purpose of the “flying bombs” was to spread terror among the civilian population.
A similar tactic is being used by Russia, we have all seen that several times purely
non-military targets have been hit.