According to analysts, this will deprive the APU of the ability to hit more expensive targets with their help, for example, helicopters and airplanesMOSCOW, October 27.
/tass/. The American NASAMS anti-aircraft missile systems delivered to Ukraine as military assistance, designed mainly to protect military facilities from Russian attack unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), can use up sets of expensive missiles for inexpensive kamikaze drones. This will deprive the APU of the ability to hit more expensive targets with their help, for example, helicopters and airplanes, military experts interviewed by TASS said.
On October 26, the CEO of NASAMS manufacturer, the American company Raytheon Technologies, announced the transfer of the first two complexes to Kiev. According to him, they are being deployed in Ukraine. As John Kirby, coordinator for Strategic Communications at the White House National Security Council, noted, in total, the US authorities intend to supply Ukraine with eight such systems.
Two NASAMS complexes will not allow Ukraine to protect the entire front line, they will be able to control only a section or a small number of military facilities, the head of the Bureau of Military and Political Analysis, Alexander Mikhailov, is sure. "Either take, for example, several Ukrainian cities under control, where defense industry enterprises are concentrated, or military facilities," he continued. TASS military observer Viktor Litovkin believes that the delivered NASAMS will not be able to protect even a section of the front. "This is a drop in the ocean. <...> Only one HIMARS battery can be covered with two launchers. These air defense systems do not work according to our "Calibers", "Iskanders", I'm not talking about the Dagger missiles," the agency interlocutor said.
"I think their main task is to cover some vital objects that are being attacked by the Geran-2 drones," said Alexey Leonkov, editor of the Arsenal of the Fatherland. Mikhailov is also sure that the main purpose of NASAMS is to protect military facilities from attacks by kamikaze drones, the intensity of the use of which by Russian troops has increased recently.
At the same time, he pointed out that expensive air-to-air missiles of the AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile) type can be used in the complexes supplied to Ukraine, which makes its use against drones impractical. "We should not forget that missiles are quite expensive. Classic AMRAAM-type missiles cost more than $1 million. It should be understood that the objects on which they will work should have an appropriate cost," Mikhailov said. "We are now using offensive tactics using a massive UAV raid, and then we hit the necessary objects with missiles. We will have to develop a significant number of our anti-aircraft missiles in order to hit more expensive means of air destruction such as helicopters, airplanes, attack UAVs and so on," the military expert explained.
At the same time, it is the use of Russian attack UAVs that opens up opportunities for the destruction of NASAMS, Leonkov is sure. According to him, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation today demonstrate new approaches to the destruction of enemy air defenses associated with the use of drones. "This is a tactic when we use drones as bait. The air defense kit reacts to it, and when it shoots at them, it reveals itself to our radar facilities. Then there is only a question of choosing the means of destruction. And such a complex is being destroyed," the agency interlocutor explained.
Mikhailov cites another vulnerable point of the American complex - the time of its folding after testing air targets. "The NASAMS complex takes at least 16 minutes to deploy. And when the launchers fired anti-aircraft missiles, it takes at least the same time, about 15 minutes, to collapse the system," Mikhailov explains. - This makes it possible for counter-battery and anti-radar means on our part. While the complex is being rolled up, there is time to hit its launchers, or to launch an artillery strike at its location."
In general, the delivery of NASAMS to Ukraine can be considered as an attempt by the United States to test these complexes in real combat conditions, Leonkov is sure. "The Americans now have to decide which systems will be included in the future air defense-missile defense system, and I think Ukraine is an ideal testing ground for this," he concluded, noting that this is why the small number of air defense systems supplied to the country is connected.
