Could Russia’s S-400 Kill a F-22, F-35 or B-2?

What does the evidence tell us?

Dave Majumdar [2]

Kofman notes that advanced Russian-built air defenses like the S-300, S-400 and forthcoming S-500 family come with systems designed to detect and track the presence of low observable (LO) aircraft such as the F-22 and F-35. That’s just a function of physics, as I have noted before [3]**. The problem for Moscow is that while Russian early warning and acquisitions radars operating in the VHF, UHF, L and S bands can detect and even track a tactical fighter-sized stealth aircraft, those systems don’t deliver a weapons quality track. “Russia has invested in low-band early warning radars, with some great variants out there, but can it use these to put a good picture together, and process it to develop a track against low-observation aircraft?” Kofman asked rhetorically.

Russian air defenses may appear formidable as part of Moscow’s increasingly sophisticated anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capability [4], but areas protected by these systems are far from impenetrable bubbles or ‘Iron Domes’ as some analysts have called them.

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Recommended: Stealth vs. North Korea’s Air Defenses: Who Wins? [6]

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While it is true that a layered and integrated air defense may effectively render large swaths of airspace too costly—in terms of men and materiel—to attack using conventional fourth generation warplanes such as the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet [8] or Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon, these systems have an Achilles’ Heel. Russian air defenses will still struggle to effectively engage fifth-generation stealth aircraft such as the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor or F-35 Joint Strike Fighter [9].