Ukrainian ATACMS Rockets Are Blowing Up Russia’s Best S-400 Air Defenses As Fast As The S-400s Can Deploy To Crimea

Ironically, the S-400 was designed to have an anti-missile capability, but it obviously doesn’t work. Russia’s S-400s can’t defend nearby friendly forces—and they also can’t defend themselves.

Specifically, an anti-ballistic-missile capability. It's easier to shoot down cruise missiles than ballistic missiles.

Yeah, with the caveat that we don't actually know for sure that there's a 0% intercept rate, it does seem pretty clear that, even if the rate is non-zero, ATACMS is certainly having no problem taking out S-400 batteries, when the S-400 was designed as a counter for weapons like ATACMS.

I remember watching that video that someone in Ukraine put out a few weeks ago with the glowing-eye trollface overlay...

https://x.com/ukraine_map/status/1793897701194502337/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1793897701194502337&currentTweetUser=ukraine_map

...where Ukraine filmed a couple of cluster ATACMS shots obliterating an S-400 battery and thinking "well, that's about as bad as it gets for Russia. If it can't counter ATACMS missiles heading straight at the S-400 itself, Russia's only options are going to be destroying the ATACMS on the ground or just absorbing whatever damage Ukraine can do with them."

And absorbing them is gonna suck, because it's a pretty good bet that Ukraine is gonna use them to destroy defenses that could counter other weapons systems to permit those to operate.

So we've got a situation where Russia can't intercept Ukraine's ballistic missiles, but Ukraine can intercept Russia's ballistic missiles.

An awful lot of the footage that we've seen recently is of attacks on Russian air defenses. SAMs, early-warning radars, AEW&C aircraft. That means that it's a pretty good bet that Ukraine intends air attacks.

Some Russian observers are worried that much worse attacks are coming. If the Ukrainians are following American strike doctrine, attacks on air-defense batteries come first. After that, “aviation based on the F-16 comes into play, under the wings of which there is a wide range of ammunition,” one Russian blogger noted in a missive translated by Estonian analyst War Translated.

The Ukrainian air force is getting 85 ex-European Lockheed Martin F-16s—and already has radar-homing missiles and precision glide-bombs for the F-16s to employ in combat.

Yeah. And it seems likely that JASSM-ER is in the upcoming mix too.

https://en.defence-ua.com/news/what_are_the_300_500_km_range_missiles_ukraine_expects_alongside_the_f_16-9418.html

The AGM-158 JASSM is the most likely, but not the only option, when it comes to missiles with a range of 300-500 km

Ukraine may acquire F-16 fighter jets, and it is already a matter of the relatively short-term perspective, along with missiles with a range of 300-500 km.

"In the upcoming military aid packages, Ukraine expects to receive F-16 aircraft and missiles with a range of 300–500 kilometers, enabling the Armed Forces of Ukraine to achieve even greater success on the battlefield and liberate our territory from the enemy," as Lieutenant General Serhii Naiev, the Commander of the Joint Forces stated.

Early-on in the conflict, when Russia was doing mass missile strikes and dropping artillery across Mariupol and the like -- I remember images of one missile that targeted a field of Ukrainian solar panels, probably on a generic command to hit electrical infrastructure -- I remember commenting that yeah, it has an impact now, causes some damage, but Russia may regret not having those munitions later on if they need them for actual military targets. Same thing during the campaign against Ukraine's grain infrastructure later.

EDIT: If Ukraine's using F-16s against Russia, Russia is going to have to either defend against them in the air or be able to identify them and destroy them on the ground. Those ballistic missiles Russia used would have been a tool for the latter, and it's probably a good bet that Ukraine's going to be sticking their airbase under a Patriot umbrella. Russia may need a lot of ballistic missiles to get through that.

Ukraine's also explicitly stated that they're going to keep F-16 reserves in NATO countries, use them for training. Russia can't hit those, not without starting a war with NATO.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-f16s-39c72290915d9589e468be088769afca

Serhii Holubtsov, head of aviation within Ukraine’s air force, said that “a certain number of aircraft will be stored at secure air bases outside of Ukraine so that they are not targeted here.”

Holubtsov told the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that those F-16s could be used to replace damaged aircraft as they undergo repairs as well as for training Ukrainian pilots abroad.

So Ukraine's only exposing the aircraft that it's actively-employing at any one time. If Russia gets some, there's going to be time for Ukraine to adjust tactics and feed more in. Russia may want those ballistic missiles they expended back when.