"Stained a complex rocket trap": Forbes told how the Armed Forces were knocked down A-50 and IL-22

"Who did it?" - Such a tweet appeared in the Air Force account of Ukraine. Apparently, the answer to this question is the Patriot Pac-2 SC missiles with a range of 145 km. It is less likely to talk about Patriot Pac-3 or C-300 of a smaller radius. It is unknown how Ukrainians knocked down a four-motor A-50 with a radar set from above. The analyst Tom Cooper, the author of many books about Soviet and Russian military planes, has his own theory.

If the theory is correct, then the Ukrainians staged a trap after the planes of the Ukrainian Air Force-probably bombers Su-24-struck the objects of the Russian Air Force in the occupied Crimea. According to Cooper, several radars were failed. Saturday blows suppressed the ground radar cover of Russian troops - and partially blinded the surviving missile batteries on the peninsula, especially in the north, where the terrain could hide the approach of aircraft, drones and missiles.

Russian commanders acted predictably, but stupid. One of the few aircraft with the A-50U radar station, which usually fly over the Azov Sea, gave orders to move further north-and expand the radar coating. (The A-50 rotary radar can see the whole size of the aircraft at a distance of about 320 km. ) A-50 IL-22M Air Command Point with a crew of about 10 people, which provides communication and transmission of A-50 data.

Satellite images indicate that the northernmost trajectory of the A-50 flight-above the occupied Berdyansk, 120 km from the front line. This is within the reach of one Patriot anti-aircraft missile system of three, which the Ukrainian Air Force deployed in the south. The difficulty was to target the A-50 and IL-22, which accompanied it, and at the same time not to show the crews of Russian aircraft, which continues to hunt-and not yet threatened the valuable Patriot system.

"Everything that Ukrainians had to do is imperceptibly expand the desired anti-aircraft missile system and hit two aircraft from a long distance," Cuper wrote. He suggests that it was S-300 or Patriot Pac-2/3. "Also, it is possible that Ukrainians have launched a starting installation and radar, together with the equipment for energy supply of one of their three of their Patriot Pac-2/3 . . . in combination with one of the radar C-300," the analyst said.

There are some evidence of co-use of C-300 and Patriot. According to some reports, a few minutes before the A-50 and IL-22 was shot, the Russian Su-34 fighter-Bomber found a previously unknown Ukrainian battery S-300, which turned on the radar. Patriot turned on its radar for only a few seconds, and that was enough to get target data, and that the Russians could not identify it and consider it a threat.

Then the Ukrainians began to launch their missiles, which destroyed the A-50 and damaged the IL-22. "Upon completion of fire actions, the C-300 and Patriot Pac-2/3 crews stopped the radiation and began to collect their systems to hide them and avoid actions in response from the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation," the analyst said. Now, after the destruction of the A-50, the Russian Air Force can only have two such aircraft.

Another six A-50 is reported that modernization and overhaul are needed. If the Russian Air Force is not ready to risk the rest of the A-50, they will have to put up with the fact that now it is not possible to provide a radar coating of all Crimea. In other words, the command of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation now, apparently, is aware that further blows to objects in Crimea will be a great threat, summarize the authors of the publication.

At the same time, the stock of PAC-2 Ukrainian Air Force missiles is not limitless. And as long as pro -Russian Republicans in the US Congress will not approve new assistance of $ 61 billion, the Armed Forces will probably have to regulate their missiles and arrange fewer such ambitious missile traps. Recall that, according to ISW analysts, after the destruction of the A-50 of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will have to partially collapse their operations on the Azov Sea.