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The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American air superiority fighter that Kyiv has begged for since the start of the full-scale invasion and is expected to finally start receiving this year. It’s a versatile workhorse of a jet that’s fought in dozens of wars and is
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“Ukrainian pilots flying F-16s, equipped with anti-radiation weapons, would have to fly well into the S-400’s engagement range to bait Russian operators into emitting,” said Grieco.
Well, maybe. Don’t necessarily have to fly an actual aircraft in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-160_MALD
The ADM-160 MALD (Miniature Air-Launched Decoy) is an air-launched, expendable decoy missile developed by the United States. It uses gradient-index optics to create a radar cross section that simulates allies’ airplane,[citation needed] in order to stimulate, confuse, and degrade the capability of missile defense systems.
Launch platform: …F-16…
Used by: …Ukrainian Air Force
Wars: 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine
I’d add that a similar “send in decoys” approach was used to bait SAMs into illuminating back during the early portion of Desert Storm, followed by a large anti-radiation missile attack.
Part of the intrinsic nature of SEAD/“Wild Weasel” missions is that you want enemy air defense to shoot at you, so that you can then target those defenses and kill them. Sure, sometimes you can localize air defense through intelligence and run strikes that way, but the intel may be out of date.
If an S-300 battery locks and fires on your Viper, you can lob an AGM-88 right back at it as you and your squadron work to spoof and defeat the missiles (which is precisely what pilots train for in the context of SEAD missions), and the radar will almost certainly not have time to re-pack and relocate before the counter-launch hits. This is how it’s been since the concept of SEAD missions was devised in the Vietnam war era.
you want enemy air defense to shoot at you,
Sure, sometimes you can localize air defense through intelligence
the radar will almost certainly not have time to re-pack and relocate before the counter-launch hits.
What I’m thinking of is locating the radar via its emissions.
Given that information, if one can locate the radar accurately-enough, it may be possible to both track it and find other, nearby components of the system via mechanisms that were not available in the past. We didn’t have the sort of satellite coverage that we do today in the past. And there are weapons that can be retargeted on the fly. I don’t know what kind of impact that that has had on counter-air-defense approaches.
I don’t know if it is viable. But it may be.
Modern IAD doctrine for contested battlespaces tends to emphasize protection of assets as a first-order concern - that is, the regional commander will probably set things up so that one early-warning asset (AWACS or ground/sea based, doesn’t really matter) acts as overwatch/a canary, which can then orchestrate activation and firing of SAM batteries. In that context, you very much want to avoid simply having the SAM battery radars (of any type) radiate, because that’s a great way to get a beam-riding HARM missile lobbed at you. SAM batteries tend to use their radars only when they’re confident they largely control the airspace, or when they know something’s incoming and have a rough direction to look towards.
OTOH radar is quite expensive and essential for any battery. Also S-400 has more than one radar, so anti radiation missiles could do quite a lot of damage.
