Recent S-400 engagement with ATACMS recreated

[olvie]

I'm sure some of you have seen the recent footage taken by a Ukrainian drone of an S-400 battery being engaged with ATACMS that resultet in the destruction of at least 2 TEL and a radar.

(I won't link the video here because I don't know the forum's policy on posting combat footage, but it's easy enough to find)

The video cuts a few times in the leadup to the strike, but it's clear that the S-400 is engaging targets before being hit. I loaded up CMO to see if an S-400 could be successfully hit like in the video and if so, how many missiles would be needed. I fired a voley of 5 missiles as a baseline number and to my surprise, one missile got through and caused major damage. I repeated this process three more times and in total, 3 times one missile got through and once every missile got defeated.

I was surprised by the results, because I wouldn't have thought the S-400 to be so vulnerable to ballistic missiles. I know BM are a difficult target to engage, still 5 ATACMS seems like a low cost to defeat an S-400.

I was expecting to find that Ukraine would have needed many more ATACMS than they could afford to fire in one engagement, and that the strike was probably supported by a large diversion effort in order to make up for that. It still probably was supported in some way, but it seems like a couple of ATACMS are very capable on their own already.

Did I have the wrong idea of how vulnerable modern AA systems are against BM? Is it an ATACMS speciality because of it's ability to manoeuvre in the terminal phase?

Or is it a Doctrine setting in CMO that led the S-400 to underperform? I left all settings for the S-400 on default.

Mind you, I am a relatively new player and not an expert in any of this.

Thank you for your insights!

[Nikel]

May you upload the scenario zipped?

[olvie]

Of course, there you go!

[Nikel]

There are 8 TELs, 2 radars and 3 MANPADs in this unit, do we know if all of this was on the site of the strike?

Perhaps it was not complete.


I got this with a volley of 10. Used Blk IA 275xM74 because not so many submunitions explosions in the video, I think.

S400.png (27.77 KiB) Viewed 1047 times

[Tcao]

A short answer, you will need to change WRA, assign more missile per "fireball".

I give this a try four times, one time all ATACMS destroyed before the impact, one time the whole S-400 battery got wiped out, two times S-400 got damaged and lost couple launchers.

S-400's search radar can detect incoming fireball at 50nm. However, due to insufficient radar reflection the interception won't happen until 20nm when the ATACMS are in the terminal phase. In this kind of situation, S-400 have 3 chance of interception before the impact.

Here is the root cause: S-400's warhead. It is ABM-optimized frag, a direct hit won't guarantee the BM's destruction.
As indicated on the combat log:

2024/4/25 17:57:16 - Weapon: SA-21a Growler [48N6DM] #18 is attacking MGM-140A ATACMS Blk I [950 x M74 Dual Purpose] #5 with a base PH of 90%. Intercept angle is 0 deg - hit probability adjusted to 90%.Final PH: 90%. Result: 56 - HIT

2024/4/25 17:57:16 - ABM-optimized fragmentation warhead: 30% chance of outright destruction, 60% chance of significant deviation. RESULT: 58. Significant trajectory deviation (CEP of target weapon tripled).

The same issue will bother Patriot PAC-2 and HQ-9

[Eboreg]

BMD is an incredibly hit-or-miss affair in Command. No matter what defenses you have, the best way to avoid getting hit is to pray to RNGesus.

[thewood1]

"RNGesus"

Also knows as the "Papal 10-sided Die"