Tomahawk to Take to the Skies: How Russia Will Cope with the New Threat

Russian weapons are capable of intercepting the full range of cruise missiles, including the American Tomahawk. Military experts have described the army's capabilities in combating such targets.

MiG-31s See Far

Military expert Dmitry Kornev noted that aviation will play an important role. The MiG-31 was created, in part, to intercept low-flying Tomahawks.

Satellites Enter the Game

Military expert Evgeny Damantsev explained that subsonic combat units can be detected at launch by Resurs-P optical-electronic monitoring satellites or Kanopus-V-IK satellites with IR sensors.

Then they can be tracked by 29B6 Container over-the-horizon radar stations (OTH radar) with an approximate route determination accurate to within a few kilometers.

AWACS A-50U

According to this data, an A-50U airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft will take to the air and preemptively engage the Tomahawks using the Shmel-M radar at a distance of 170 - 130 km against the ground.

Then the target designation will be sent to the automated control systems of mixed anti-aircraft missile brigades Polyana-D4M1 with target distribution between the batteries of the S-400, S-300V4, S-350A Vityaz and Buk-M3/M3A SAM systems.

In addition, a squadron of 12 Su-35S fighters is capable of intercepting 80 - 100 Tomahawks, especially since the speed of the latter does not exceed 950 km/h, and the effective reflecting surface reaches 0.1 - 0.15 sq. m.

Read materials on the topic:

• Sickle Against Drones: Roselectronika Develops Newest EW System with 13 Operating Frequencies to Combat UAVs
• Russian New Serp-VS5D Protects Energy Facility from Drone Attack
• Anti-Drone System "Serp" to be Sent Swimming: Rostec Working on Version for Naval Vessels