India Today – August 13, 2018

34 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 13, 2018

working on ways to assuage these concerns. Apart from the
game changer it is perceived to be, the IAF sees the S-400
‘Triumf’ as an absolute necessity and part of its offensive-
defence strategy of maintaining a credible deterrence along
two fronts with China and Pakistan.
The S-400 is an integrated, highly-mobile system of
radars and missiles of different ranges to address multiple
threats. “Deploying one weapon system allows you to
cover an entire spectrum of aerial threats,” a senior IAF
officer explains. Its ‘Tombstone’ radar can acquire up to
300 targets nearly 600 km away. Which means, from
their locations in India, the system can peer deep inside
Pakistani territory and pick up aircraft as soon as they are
airborne. Deployed along the eastern border with China,
the missile system can easily monitor fighter jets taking off
from airfields along the Tibetan plateau.
The system has four different missiles, from the
400-km range 40N6 which can knock out early warning
aircraft, fighter jets and tactical ballistic missiles, to the
100-km range 9M96E which can neutralise manoeuvring
targets like air-launched cruise missiles and smart bombs.
It is a missile system that is frequently used by Moscow to
make a geopolitical statement.
In the mid ’90s, the DRDO had briefly considered
acquiring the long-range radars of an earlier version, the S-
300V. (It finally got the Israeli Swordfish long-range radar.)

T

he IAF sees in the S-400 an answer to its
shrinking fighter strength. It has 33
squadrons against a sanctioned strength of
39.squadrons and even this number is
likely to shrink to 19 by 2027 when 14
squadrons of MiG-21, MiG-27 and MiG-29 aircraft are
retired. The last batch of 18 Su-30 MKI fighters are rolling
off the production lines of HAL’s Nashik factory. The only
acquisition on the horizon in the short term are 36 Rafales
from France to be delivered by 2021. “That’s what makes the
deployment of the S-400 an absolute necessity,” a senior
IAF officer says. “The missile will free up our multi-role
fighters to do other tasks like air-to-ground missions
instead of being tied up in the air superiority role.”
A parliamentary standing committee on defence report
tabled in the Lok Sabha in March this year called the long-
range system a ‘high priority requirement’ for the IAF.
In his deposition before the standing committee chair-
man, the IAF’s Vice Chief of Air Staff Air Vice Marshal
S.B. Deo said the system would ‘substantially change our
posture, both towards the adversary in the Northern Front
as well as the one on the Western Front’.
The S-400 will sit atop the IAF’s pan-India Integrated
Command and Control System (IACCS) which aims, for
the first time, to provide a comprehensive picture of Indian
airspace by linking all ground and airborne sensors and air
defence assets into a single grid. An upgrade of IACCS-2
costing some Rs 8,000 crore adding four more nodes in
the grid was approved in July 2018. The system will give

a composite air situation picture integrating all air force,

navy, army and civilian radars. It augments critical gaps

in the IAF’s air defence umbrella which, after decades of

neglect, has acquired a lethal edge. In the 12th plan, the

IAF has inducted Akash missile systems, medium- and

high-powered radars, low-level lightweight radars, low-

level tracking radars, AEW&C and AWACS and Ground-

Based Mobile Electronic Intelligence Systems (GBMES)

and balloon-based Aerostat radars.

2021 Terror attack*

in Delhi by heavily

armed LeT terrorists

sees IAF launching drone

strikes to destroy LeT

headquarters in

Muzaffarabad, Pakistan-

occupied Kashmir.

Intelligence indicates PAF

planning retaliatory air

strikes by aircraft

launching missiles

without crossing the Line

of Control. IAF’s Western

Air Command places all

its S-400 units on high

state of alert

1 Two F-16 jets

armed with

Ra’ad cruise

missiles take off

from Chaklala

airbase

2

FIRING ON

ALL FRONTS

THE S-400 IS A FORMIDABLE MISSILE

SYSTEM CAPABLE OF HANDLING

MULTIPLE AERIAL THREATS

BIG BIRD/

TOMBSTONE

ACQUISITION/

TARGET

MANAGEMENT

RADAR

Range: 600 km

Fully digital. Can track

300 targets

simultaneously

92N6E GRAVE

STONE MULTIMODE

ENGAGEMENT RADAR

Can track 100 targets in

track-while-scan mode and

concurrently track six

targets. Prioritises targets,

computes launch regions,

provides mid-course

guidance and command

update for missiles

THE BIG STORY S-400