Best Surface-to-air missile?
Glory to Ukraine
Well, I am a fanatic of SAM systems as ultimate fighters.
There’s no best cause, it depends on its purpose.
The Iron Dome
(made by Israeli and the US) was specifically designed to counter rockets from the Gaza Strip so it can’t 100% be classed as a SAM battery
The Patriot
(made by the US) has no integrated radar but can use multiple types of missiles so it is supposed to be used as an air defense weapon in an allied territory as its radar that follows it only can detect 180 degrees.
The S-400
(Made by Russia) In theory, is supposed to be a multi-role air defense weapon with anti-stealth capabilities, but I question its reliability and expected hit rate
The Sky Sabre
(made by the UK) is a bit complicated. It is the most accurate by far due to the missile being the most agile. It’s more of a point defense system. Sky Sabre is designed to work alongside systems like patriot which would struggle with low flying agile targets
It is like you are comparing F15, Su 27, and A10
The iron dome had proved to intercept more than 2,500 incoming targets with a success rate of over 90% in real combat. The rockets fired at the iron dome are extremely outdated, slow, and large. Easy to take out. The more interesting attribute is how many rockets can it intercept simultaneously. Hamas managed to saturate Israel’s air defense. According to Wikipedia S-400 can handle 36 targets simultaneously. The reason they use Iron Dome is that Hamas uses low altitude and old weapons, Israel also has long-range Defense systems like David’s Sling, which can take out advanced weapons, Note every weapon system, has its Pros and Cons. The most wanted to know fact is that the iron dome is only one of 3 layers in Israel’s defense. 1. Arrow for ICBM, 2. David’s sling for medium 3. Iron dome for mortars and small range. BTW Germany is Thinking of buying the Arrow.
S400 is very far from reliable under the optimal conditions it has a 40% hit rate and combat rarely happens under the optimal conditions if anyone wants proof show me some information on downed Israeli F15s, F16s, and F35s that operate at will in Syria where the Russian’s deployed two batteries of S400 which have to date fired over 40 missiles with no downed aircraft. Propaganda aside the reality with Russia is they haven’t researched or designed anything new since the soviet union times even T14 is a cold war design that was deemed too expensive and adequate technology didn’t exist at the time for the requirements. One of the biggest factors in modern high-tech weapon systems is a fully functioning material science infrastructure which Russia hasn’t had for the last 10 years after their last dedicated facility was destroyed by fire. That’s why Putin is concentrating on the so-called modernization of Russia’s strategic missile forces using up the last stock of material that they have and don’t have enough to replace all the older systems. What we’ve seen in Ukraine is a direct result of the under-investing of the basics under Putin and we will continue to see it as Russia has a vast amount of dumb firepower that can only be utilized on an enemy stupid enough to group large formations but is absolutely useless against small fast-moving strike teams. That’s why Russia targeted civilians it was frustration and desperation and why Putin has abandoned the multi-directional invasion switching to an eastern focus hoping that by limiting the conflict to a single area he will force Ukraine to group their forces. This is also why this invasion has happened now so much cash has been taken from the conventional forces to modernize a small part of Russia’s nuclear arsenal that Logistics, training, equipment, and professional officers were degrading increasingly more rapidly, without serious investment in the conventional force’s they will be irrelevant within a few year’s. Sorry, I went on a bit longer than I planned.
Patriot by a landslide, they integrated PAAC-4 (stunner) the 21" THAAD-ER, and THAAD into AN/TPY-2, Also the Iron Dome is just one small component of Israel’s incredibly badass system, and every last bit of its hate is completely unwarranted because they were just giving people it’s a max range, not effective range, it can hit slow subsonic targets from a lot further away, but it’s not fast enough to catch up to supersonic targets from that same distance. But THAAD could probably hit a stationary ground Target at over 500 km away it has an engagement altitude of 150 km and then an effective range of 200 km, THAAD-ER has an effective altitude of 600 km and a range of 900 km. PAAC-4 has more range than THAAD at 250km but it does not match the 150 km altitude but that’s understandable it’s only about a 110–150 kg missile, Russia’s 7,000kg+ S-500 missile has a Max ceiling height of 185 km which just outright does not even outclass the small 600kg 14.5" diameter missile. And the reason THAAD has sucky range is that it’s a single-stage missile that focus is 100% on acceleration and altitude. SM-3IB is 13.5" in diameter 900kg 1850km range and a 900km ceiling limit. The 21" diameter SM-3IIA intercepted a ballistic missile at Mach 29.6 250km in altitude and it’s not a 7, 000Kg behemoth, and it has massively more range at 2,500 km range 1200 km altitude ceiling.
All Russian military equipment is exaggerated.
In conclusion, the Sky Sabre, Iron dome, Buk missile, S200, S75 Davine(Dvina) are Medium-range missiles S400, S300, S350, Hq8, Patriot are long-range. None of it can really stop a nuclear ICBM 100%. I still waiting to see which country will be the first that can intercept ICBMs with a 90% hit rate or more, also I want to see which country will make the first defense system vs hypersonic missiles
Well, Grammarly corrected a bunch of typos, I appreciate that