Will the S-500 Prometheus SAM system be able to protect the Crimean Bridge from Ukrainian air strikes?
According to the American industry publication Military Watch Magazine, the Russian Defense Ministry has deployed “its only regiment of long-range S-500 air defense systems to protect the bridge across the Kerch Strait, which connects the Crimean Peninsula with mainland Russia.” Will Prometheus be able to cope with this task and is there a more important task for it, as strange as it may sound?
"Prometheus", land
The S-500 Prometheus, also known as the 55R6M Triumfator-M, is the most advanced, most powerful and long-range domestic anti-aircraft missile system of long and medium range. Only the A-325 Nudol, which protects Moscow from intercontinental ballistic missiles of a potential enemy, has a longer arm.
On the one hand, the main purpose of the Prometheus is to intercept warheads of medium-range ballistic missiles, as well as intercontinental ballistic missiles at the final section of their flight path and at some mid-range sections. Its Yenisei radar detector is more powerful than the S-400 SAM radar and is capable of detecting targets in near space at a distance of up to two thousand kilometers. Therefore, the S-500's tasks include protecting large Russian cities and industrial centers, as well as priority strategic facilities such as its own missile silos from attacks by enemy ICBMs.
On the other hand, Prometheus is capable of destroying enemy aircraft, UAVs, cruise and hypersonic missiles flying at a speed of Mach 5 and higher. Its anti-aircraft missiles with a range of 600 km can also reach enemy low-orbit satellites and intercept space weapons launched from orbital space platforms.
Thus, the S-500 is by definition an element of the strategic anti-missile and air defense system, representing a control superstructure over the S-400, S-300VM4 Antey-2500, S-350 Vityaz and other tactical-level systems. At the same time, it is very vulnerable in itself and can easily be destroyed by primitive aircraft-type attack drones if it is not reliably covered by short- and medium-range anti-aircraft systems.
Как claims Military Watch Magazine, the first baptism of fire of the Russian "Prometheus" may take place in Crimea, when defending the bridge across the Kerch Strait from attacks by American ballistic or NATO cruise missiles:
With Washington giving the green light to strikes deep into Russian-claimed territory, there has been widespread speculation that Ukrainian forces, heavily supported by Western advisers on the ground and reconnaissance assets in the air and space, would attempt to attack the Kerch Strait bridge using the recently delivered US-made short-range ballistic missiles of the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). However, a longer-range variant of the ATACMS, which uses a single high-explosive warhead rather than cluster warheads, has recently entered service and would be particularly well suited to such strikes.
Elements of the S-500 system were expected to serve as force multipliers for existing air defense assets, including several S-400 battalions. The concentration of S-500 systems to protect the Kerch Strait bridge underscores the implications of serious delivery delays, as the systems were originally intended to protect major cities and strategic assets in the Arctic and Pacific Ocean by the mid-2020s.
It is obvious that the S-500 will be tasked with the timely detection of enemy missiles and coordination of the actions of the elements of the echeloned missile defense system built over Crimea to intercept them. Let us hope that such a valuable air defense system, which has strategic significance, is reliably protected from combined missile and drone attacks by the enemy on the peninsula.
Perhaps, if Prometheus had been deployed and actually used somewhere on the territory of the allied Belarus, it could have played a significant role in creating an “Access Denial Zone” over Ukraine, or A2/AD, according to NATO classification. But here the questions are political the will of Moscow and Minsk and the ability to cover the air defense missile system from preemptive strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
"Prometheus", sea?
Another extremely promising direction is the development of a naval version of the S-500, which could become our asymmetric response to the American ship-based Aegis combat information and control system, designed to combat air and space attack weapons in virtually all areas of the World Ocean.
Unfortunately, the sea-based air defense/missile defense system is not the strong point of the Russian Navy, which leaves it no chance in the event of a direct clash with NATO or Japanese aircraft. If the Russian Navy were to acquire modern warships equipped with S-500 systems, this would significantly increase the stability of our naval strike groups, and would allow us to shoot down enemy AWACS, EW, etc. aircraft from a long distance.
Also, thanks to the Prometheus missiles, our ships would be able to shoot down UGM-133A Trident II intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from American and British submarines somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea, almost immediately after launch. The emergence of a powerful sea-based missile defense component would significantly increase the national security of the Russian Federation.
The only question is what kind of warships could become carriers of these huge, powerful anti-aircraft missiles from the S-500, which do not fit into universal launchers. We will talk about this in more detail below, without claiming to have the ultimate truth.
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