High-precision JASSM in service with the Polish F-16C: an assessment of the degree of threat in the Western Highway to the beginning of 2017
In the 20s of November 2014, Western, and then our electronic publications flew around quite unexpected news on the preparation of the December contract for the purchase of an 40 tactical long-range tactical cruise missile AGM-158A JASSM between the Polish government and the US State Department to increase the combat potential of the Polish air force. Acquired precision weapon, purchased directly from the manufacturer Lockheed Martin, is intended to equip the Polish multi-purpose F-16C / D fighter jets and is currently undergoing the final stage of integration tests at one of the Polish Falcons, which was distilled to the Edwards California air base. According to Joe Breen, head of logistics and support services for Lockheed Martin Missile and Fire Control purchasing countries, AGM-158A shipments will be launched later this year, and at the beginning of 2017-JASSM will receive initial operational readiness. It was significant that the contract was being prepared during the most bloody stage of the punitive operation in Kiev in relation to the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics. Having accused our country of aggression against the “Square”, the conflict in the Donbas was immediately used to militarize the countries of Eastern Europe directly at the borders of the CSTO.
For a couple of years, in addition to selling JASSM, an additional squadron of the US Air Force F-16C multi-role fighters was deployed at the Polish Redzikowa airbase, and a second East European positional region of regional missile defense based on the Aegis Ashore complex, which is designed specifically to counter the capabilities of the Russian The Strategic Missile Forces, after all, to repel the attack of Iranian Sajil-2 ballistic missiles, the THAAD complex with the altitude intercept of 150 km would be quite enough (the height of the interception of ballistic targets by Ashor "With interceptor missiles RIM-161A / B reaches 500 km). Similarly, 40 JASSM are designed to "throw in our garden." Now it is worth assessing the level of threat posed by these missiles for our strategic facilities in the European part of Russia.
To begin with, it is worth noting that the AGM-158A is the first serial modification of the JASSM family of missiles with a standard range of 370 km. When launched from the Polish airspace, the range will reach only Minsk, and to attempt to launch a missile attack on military targets in the Leningrad and Pskov regions will require the use of airspace of Lithuania and Latvia, but it will not be easy to enter it in combat conditions, since the only fastest way is a section of airspace above the Suvalki Corridor. And it will be “closed” up to a 15-meter height with the radius of action of several divisions of the S-300PS and S-400 Triumph air defense missile systems, some of which will be deployed in the Kaliningrad region, and part in the Grodno region of Belarus. The second option is to fly over the Kaliningrad region with its powerful ABM boundary from the Baltic Sea and Gotland, but this takes 2 times more time. Yes and about aviation Air defense of the Western military district should not be forgotten: the new Su-27SM3 and Su-35S will quickly solve the issue of Polish F-16C Block 52+ unlimited in the airspace of the Baltic States.
But there is one more way for the Polish F-16C to reach the launch line of JASSM for Russian military facilities - using the airspace of Ukraine. The reckless leadership of this country, supported by military-technical, political and financial support from the United States, Poland, Turkey, Bulgaria and the Baltic states, continues to brood plans for intervention in the territory of the Republic of Crimea, and any escalation situation that has arisen within Eastern Europe will result »The provision of its EaP and the territory for the operational deployment of the NATO Joint Forces. Rising from Polish air bases, F-16C, carrying 2 AGM-158A hangers, can follow the terrain and radio silence to reach the central regions of Ukraine, from which many options of target areas in the Crimea, Donbass and border areas of Russia are opened.
Expect a similar strike from the Polish Air Force stands exclusively before the start of the active phase of hostilities in the East European theater of operations, since even a few hours later the attack of these missiles will be excluded due to the closure of the airspace over Ukraine by the air defense forces of the Russian Aerospace Forces. Earlier it was reported that Warsaw is interested in purchasing long-range modification of these AGM-158B JASSM-ER missiles.
This version has a range of 980 — 1200 km, and poses a threat to our country even when launched over the eastern borders of Poland: in only 35 minutes of a JASSM-ER rocket, passing a short segment of the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, get into our airspace, where only A few hundred kilometers away are such strategically important objects as JSC NPK Machine-Building Design Bureau in Kolomna or Tulamashzavod. To intercept these small-scale, deadly targets with 0,1 M2 EPR and 430-kilogram warheads, you will need a very coordinated fast operation of A-50U aircraft, fighter aircraft and ground-based air defense systems.
The destruction of even a couple of dozens of AGM-158A / B on the trajectory can be a real test for the same “Three Hundreds”, because the flight of these missiles takes place at an altitude of 20 — 50 m, and the flight trajectory can be corrected via satellite coded communication channel. The correction itself usually takes into account the flight trajectories of enemy ground anti-aircraft missile systems, the coordinates of which with a slight anticipation are determined by reconnaissance aircraft of the RC-135V / W type “Rivet Joint” or E-8C “J-STARS. A good solution to the problem is also a sharp increase in the number of modern air defense systems with radar and infrared targeting methods directly at the strategic objects to be defended. In the 70-ies of the 20th century, such a decision would have faced significant problems in the distribution of shelling air attacks between different types of air defense missile systems, since then there were no advanced system linking tools for different class air defense systems: there would be repeated shelling of the same target with different types of air defense systems. SAM, which would reduce the overall effectiveness of the entire air defense system. Modern VKS have such automated control systems of anti-aircraft missile brigades, like “Baikal-1МЭ” and “Polyana-D4М1”, where about a dozen of anti-aircraft missile battalions of mixed composition are connected to a single bus for exchange of tactical information about the air situation in real time, in accordance with the TTX complexes, each one in a matter of seconds generates its own list of air objects for interception. The destruction of precision weapons in this case becomes a simpler task, even with the help of ground-based air defense weapons alone. But these questions may appear later, but now we are dealing with a regular version of AGM-158A JASSM.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, JASSM with a range of 370 km can “reach out” to the central regions of the Republic of Belarus, including the city of Minsk. Being the first state of the CSTO for NATO in the eastern operational direction, the Republic of Belarus, with its air bases, communications centers and reconnoitered areas of the air defense missile system, may become the first goal for Polish JASSM to weaken the defense capabilities of the Western Military District. It is about Belarus that there are particular concerns in terms of the likely breakthrough of the airspace of the Union State with the enemy’s precision weapons. The saturation of the Air Force and Air Defense of the Republic of Belarus with the C-300PS anti-aircraft missile systems (more than 10 divisions), C-400 Triumph (at least 2's divisions), and also the troop, Osam and Stiletta are quite high, but this does not solve the question of the complete protection of the airspace against the penetration of unobtrusive enemy cruise missiles. The standard radio horizon for the 30H6Е or 92Н6E radar and homing radar on the 40B6М universal tower does not exceed 35 — 38 km, which means that in order to create an effective “barrier” of the high-altitude HF section these radars (together with) can get; from each other. As a result, there will be no undetected “gaps” between the complexes, as well as each C-30 / 300 division deployed along the defense front will be supported by the neighboring division when the enemy attempts to “break” the defensive chain by suppressing one of them. The scheme of building such an area of air defense and missile defense is very simple and does not require military-technological delights, but it is enough to take a map and a ruler, and then measure the length of the "wedge" along the border of Belarus with Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine: we get 400 km. For full protection from rocket-dangerous states on the lines of this “wedge”, you must have up to 850 air defense systems of the C-35PS type, and each of them must be covered with a couple of “Tori”.
A similar situation is not observed today in the air defense system of Belarus, and therefore it is still very early to talk about complete security of the Republic of Belarus. In addition, for successful operations to protect the air borders of the Union State of the Belarusian Air Force, you must have at least a couple of aircraft of the A-50U radar patrol, remember how quickly the United States Air Force can transfer any number of Raptors to Poland if necessary. laughter becomes. There are other unpleasant moments that need to be reminded, and which should be tried to eliminate.
The use of anti-radar missiles AGM-88 HARM - the main one. The Air Force of Poland is armed with 36 single F-16C and 12 double F-16D. The strike wing can be the “backbone” of the 20 F-16C - JASSM carriers for MRAU (40 missiles, 2 for each fighter), 10 F-16C - AGM-88 HARM carriers for suppressing air defense (40 missiles, according to 4 F-18C - for suppressing AGM-16 HARM for suppressing air defense (158 missiles., For 38 F-40C - for AGM-54 HARM suppressors for suppressing anti-aircraft defense (6 missiles., For XMNUMX) per vehicle), and the 30 remaining F-6C / D as cover and escort fighters. In the event of a massive missile and air strike against the Belarusian air defense and strategic facilities on its territory, the main backbone of the Falcons with the AGM-40A on board will operate in conjunction with an air defense suppression squadron. A bit earlier, subsonic JASSM-ER will be launched, and before they enter the 1-kilometer low-altitude line of interception by “Three Hundreds”, all 2 “HARMs” will be launched. This will be done in order to overload the shooting control 300K15E and multifunctional 88Н5Е radar as far as possible. The target for 55 “HARM” will be 2 or maximum 30 of the C-6PS Division. Around 150 AGM-XNUMX will be intercepted by XNUMXВXNUMXР anti-aircraft missiles, another dozen of the covering Tor-MXNUMXE will be divided, the rest will fall on the Gazetchik-E protection complex, but the rest can get to Lopat main radar illumination XNUMXHXNUMXЕ), especially considering that a couple of JASSM can also be aimed at SAMs. We get a depressed air defense line, through which one can promptly skip some other XNUMX Tomahawks launched from the Ohio SSGN that entered the North Sea.
The task becomes even more complicated if we take into account American support in the form of dozens of ADM-52C “MALD-J” bait-missiles dropped from B-160H suspensions, against the background of which it will be even more difficult to quickly identify real tactical cruise missiles. In the article, we described a specific version of a regional non-nuclear conflict between the CSTO and NATO with the participation of Poland, supported by the United States. This was done not to force the atmosphere in every possible way in the actual pre-escalation world situation, but to point out the existing weaknesses and shortcomings in the defense capability of the CSTO, and in particular, the Republic of Belarus. Thus, the existing air defense system of Belarus, based mostly on C-300PS complexes, as well as not having modern fighter aircraft and XRDN planes, is not capable of reflecting NATO surprise and powerful air strikes and requires updating with more multi-channel C-type air defense systems. 400, С-350Е Vityaz and Buk-М3. At the present stage, before the modernization of the Air Force of Belarus, the issue can be resolved by temporarily redeploying the Su-35С aviation regiment and the Triumph C-400 additional brigade to the republic.
Information sources:
http://forum.militaryparitet.com/viewtopic.php?pid=162566#p162566
http://rbase.new-factoria.ru/missile/wobb/agm158/agm158.shtml
http://rbase.new-factoria.ru/missile/wobb/c300pmu1/c300pmu1.shtml
http://rbase.new-factoria.ru/missile/wobb/s400/s400.shtml
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