Hey everyone, welcome back to My Weird Prompts. I am Corn, and I am sitting here in our living room in Jerusalem with my brother.
Herman Poppleberry, at your service. It is a beautiful day outside, but we are about to talk about some very high-stakes technology that has been making a lot of noise lately, both literally and figuratively.
Yeah, our housemate Daniel sent us a fascinating prompt today. He was listening to our recent episode about the Growler, that amazing electronic warfare aircraft, and it got him thinking about the other side of the equation. He specifically mentioned the reports of the Israeli Air Force establishing aerial supremacy over Iranian S-three hundred systems. It is a topic that feels very immediate to us here, but it also opens up this massive window into how modern warfare has changed in the last few years.
It really does. Daniel is touching on what is arguably the most complex game of cat and mouse in human history. We are talking about billions of dollars in research, the most advanced physics we can weaponize, and a constant evolutionary race where a breakthrough on one side can render an entire nation's defense strategy obsolete overnight.
So, let's dive into this. Daniel wanted to know about the other anti-aircraft systems currently deployed in modern warfare, and more importantly, how pilots and commanders actually deal with them. Is it about jamming? Is it about blowing them up? Or is it just about being invisible?
It is actually all of the above, often happening simultaneously. But to understand the evasion, we have to understand what they are evading. When we talk about the S-three hundred that Daniel mentioned, we are talking about a Russian-made system that was, for a long time, considered the gold standard of long-range surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs. It is what we call a long-range, high-altitude system. But it is not just one truck with a missile on it.
Right, and that is a common misconception, isn't it? People see a picture of a missile launcher and think that is the system. But it is really a whole architecture.
Exactly. A modern SAM system like the S-three hundred, or its more advanced successor the S-four hundred Triumf, is a network. You have the long-range surveillance radar that scans the horizon for hundreds of kilometers. You have the command and control vehicle that processes that data. You have the engagement radar, which is the one that actually tracks a specific target and guides the missile. And then you have the actual launchers. These components can be spread out over a large area, connected by data links.
And that is why taking them out is so hard. You can't just hit one thing and call it a day. But Daniel brought up the S-three hundred specifically in the context of the Israeli Air Force. There were these significant strikes where it seemed like the S-three hundred barely put up a fight. What happened there? Was it a failure of the tech, or just a superior strategy?
It was likely a combination of extremely high-end electronic warfare and the use of stand-off weapons. In the specific incidents Daniel is referring to, reports suggest that the Israeli Air Force used a mix of stealth aircraft, like the F-thirty-five-I Adir, and long-range precision missiles that were fired from outside the S-three hundred's effective engagement range. If you can see the radar before it sees you, and you have a missile that can fly further than the radar can effectively track you, you have a massive advantage.
So, it's like a sniper taking out someone with a handgun before they even know the sniper is in the building.
That is a great analogy. But let's look at the broader landscape. Beyond the S-three hundred and S-four hundred, there are several other major players. On the Western side, the big name everyone knows is the Patriot system. The Patriot Advanced Capability Three, or PAC-three, is the current backbone for the United States and many of its allies. Unlike the older versions that were designed to shoot down planes, the PAC-three is heavily optimized for ballistic missile defense. It uses what we call hit-to-kill technology.
Hit-to-kill. That sounds exactly like what it is. No explosive warhead, just a kinetic slug?
Exactly. It is like hitting a bullet with a bullet. At those speeds, the sheer kinetic energy of the impact is enough to vaporize the target. Then you have systems like THAAD, which stands for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. That is for even higher, faster targets, often engaging them as they are re-entering the atmosphere.
Okay, so we have these massive, long-range systems. But what about the stuff closer to the ground? We have seen so much footage lately of smaller drones and low-flying missiles. The S-four hundred isn't going to waste a million-dollar missile on a five-thousand-dollar drone, right?
You hit the nail on the head, Corn. This is where we get into the layered defense concept. A modern military doesn't just rely on the long-range stuff. They use SHORAD, or Short-Range Air Defense. These are systems like the Russian Pantsir or the Tor. The Pantsir is interesting because it combines surface-to-air missiles with rapid-fire autocannons. It is designed to be the last line of defense for the big S-four hundred batteries.
It’s the bodyguard for the big guy.
Exactly. And on the Western side, you have things like the NASAMS, which uses the same missiles that fighter jets carry, but launched from the ground. Or the IRIS-T from Germany, which has proven incredibly effective in recent conflicts. And of course, we can't talk about this without mentioning our own neighborhood's Iron Dome. That is a very specialized SHORAD system designed for short-range rockets and artillery shells.
It is fascinating how specialized they become. But let's get to the second part of Daniel's question, because this is where the real drama happens. If I am a pilot, or a commander planning an air strike, and I know there is an S-four hundred or a Patriot battery waiting for me, how do I deal with it? Daniel asked if it is jamming, taking them out, or evading.
The answer is a very carefully choreographed dance of all three. In military terms, this is called SEAD, or Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses. If you want to actually destroy them, it becomes DEAD, which is Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses.
I love how the military always has an acronym that sounds slightly ominous. SEAD and DEAD. So, let's start with jamming. We talked about the Growler before, but how does it actually work in a high-threat environment?
Think of a radar like a person standing in a dark field with a flashlight, looking for you. Jamming is like shining a thousand much brighter flashlights directly into their eyes. They know you are out there somewhere, but they can't see exactly where. This is what we call noise jamming. You just flood their receiver with radio frequency energy so they can't distinguish the return signal of your aircraft from the background noise.
But isn't there a downside to that? If you are screaming on the radio spectrum, doesn't that tell the enemy exactly where the jammer is?
It does! That is the great irony of electronic warfare. A jammer is the loudest thing in the sky. That is why modern jamming is moving toward what we call deceptive jamming or spoofing. Instead of just making noise, you take the radar's own signal, manipulate it, and send it back. You make the radar think you are five miles to the left, or that there are ten of you, or that you are moving at a different speed.
That is incredible. It’s like digital illusions. So, while the radar is chasing a ghost, the real plane is slipping through.
Precisely. Now, let's talk about the kinetic side, the taking them out part. This is where the HARM comes in. The High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile. This is a weapon that literally hunts radar signals. A pilot can fire a HARM, and the missile's seeker head looks for the specific frequency of an enemy radar. It then flies down the throat of that radar beam.
That sounds like a terrifying prospect for the radar operator.
It is. In fact, it creates this psychological battle. If you are a SAM operator and you see a HARM headed your way, your only real defense is to turn your radar off. But if you turn your radar off, you can't see the planes you were trying to shoot down. So, even if the missile misses, it has achieved its goal of suppression. You have forced the enemy to go blind.
That is the suppression part of SEAD. You don't necessarily have to blow it up; you just have to make it stop working for long enough to get your mission done. But then there is the third option Daniel mentioned: evasion. Which I assume mostly means stealth.
Stealth is the big one, but it is also the most misunderstood. People think stealth makes you invisible. It doesn't. It just makes your radar cross-section, or RCS, very small. Instead of looking like a giant flying bus on a radar screen, an F-thirty-five or a B-two bomber might look like a small bird or even a large insect.
And if you look like a bird, the computer logic of the SAM system might just filter you out as clutter, right?
Exactly. Radar computers have to filter out all sorts of things: birds, rain, clouds, even the terrain. Stealth works by reducing the amount of energy reflected back to the source. You do this through the shape of the plane, which bounces the waves away in different directions, and through radar-absorbent materials that literally soak up the energy.
But there is a catch here, isn't there? I have read that some radars, especially older ones or ones that use very long wavelengths, can still see stealth planes.
You are talking about low-frequency radars, like V-H-F or U-H-F. And you are right. Physics is a harsh mistress. Stealth is usually optimized against high-frequency radars, the ones used for targeting and tracking, because those need to be precise. Low-frequency radars are great at detecting that something is there, but they aren't precise enough to guide a missile to a target.
So, it's like knowing there is a fly in the room, but you can't quite swat it because you can't tell exactly where it is in three-dimensional space.
That is exactly it. So, a modern mission against a sophisticated anti-aircraft system looks like this: You have stealth planes like the F-thirty-five leading the way. They are using their own advanced sensors to find where the radars are without turning on their own radars, which would give them away. Then you have the electronic warfare planes, like the Growlers, loitering further back, providing a blanket of jamming to confuse the enemy.
And while all this is happening, you are probably firing those stand-off weapons Daniel mentioned.
Right. Why fly into the dragon's mouth if you can shoot it from across the valley? We are seeing the rise of long-range cruise missiles and even glide bombs. The S-D-B, or Small Diameter Bomb, is a great example. It is a small, guided bomb with wings. A plane can drop it from eighty miles away. It is very hard to shoot down because it is small and doesn't have a hot engine for a heat-seeker to find.
This really paints a picture of why Daniel noted the I-A-F's success. If you have the F-thirty-five, the electronic warfare capability, and the precision stand-off weapons, an older system like the S-three hundred is just outclassed. It is trying to play a game where the rules have changed.
It really has. But we shouldn't get too comfortable. The other side is always adapting. We are now seeing the development of multi-static radars. Instead of having one transmitter and one receiver, you have multiple receivers spread out over a huge area. They look for the distortions in the ambient radio waves caused by a stealth plane passing through. It’s like seeing the shadow of a fish in a pond even if the fish itself is camouflaged.
That is a brilliant way to think about it. It’s not about the reflection; it’s about the absence of signal. This cat and mouse game just never ends, does it?
Never. And now we have to talk about the newest player on the field, which is changing the economics of the whole thing. Drones.
I was going to ask about that. We have seen these massive SAM systems, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, getting taken out by drones that cost less than a used car. How does that happen?
It is a problem of saturation and cost-exchange ratios. If I send one hundred cheap, slow drones at your S-four hundred battery, you have a problem. Your radar can see them, sure. But you only have so many missiles in your launchers. If you fire all your million-dollar missiles at my five-thousand-dollar drones, you are empty. And then my real strike package flies in and destroys you.
It’s the Zerg rush strategy from StarCraft, but in real life.
It really is. And the radar systems themselves can get overwhelmed. Every radar has a limit on how many targets it can track and engage at once. If you flood the sky with decoys, the system's computer might just freeze up, or the operators might make a mistake and target the wrong thing.
So, when Daniel asks about evading these systems, sometimes the answer is just "send so much stuff that they can't possibly hit it all."
Exactly. It is a brutal form of evasion. You are not hiding; you are just overwhelming the system's capacity to respond. This is why we are seeing a massive push back toward gun-based systems and directed energy weapons, like lasers.
Lasers! We have talked about this before, but it feels like it is finally becoming a reality.
It is. Israel's Iron Beam is a great example. It is now being integrated into the multi-tier defense. If you can shoot down a drone or a rocket with a laser, your cost per shot drops from tens of thousands of dollars to basically the price of the electricity. And you never run out of ammunition as long as you have power. That is the only way to beat the drone saturation problem.
I want to circle back to something Herman. We mentioned the S-four hundred as being this big, scary successor to the S-three hundred. Has it lived up to the hype? Because we have seen some reports of S-four hundred systems being hit as well.
That is a great question, and it is a matter of some debate among analysts. On paper, the S-four hundred is incredible. It has a range of up to four hundred kilometers and can supposedly track stealth targets. But in practice, we have seen that it is still vulnerable to the same SEAD tactics we discussed. In fact, in recent years, we have seen S-four hundred batteries successfully targeted by A-T-A-C-M-S missiles and low-flying cruise missiles. If you can get a high-speed drone to fly low, using the terrain to hide from the radar, you can get close enough to strike.
So, even the most advanced radar can't see through a mountain.
Exactly. This is why "nap-of-the-earth" flying is still a thing. Even with all the satellites and advanced sensors, if you stay fifty feet off the ground, the curvature of the earth and the hills around you will mask your signature until you are very close.
It’s amazing that in an age of space-age tech, the best way to hide is still just staying behind a big rock.
Sometimes the old ways are the best. But let's look at the other side. The Patriot system has had a bit of a renaissance lately. For years, people criticized it as being overpriced and unreliable, based on its performance way back in the first Gulf War. But the modern versions, especially what we have seen in recent conflicts in Eastern Europe, have been incredibly effective, even against advanced Russian hypersonic missiles like the Kinzhal.
Wait, I thought hypersonic missiles were supposed to be "unstoppable." That was the big headline for years.
That was the marketing, certainly. But the Patriot PAC-three proved that if you have good enough radar and a fast enough interceptor with a kinetic warhead, you can still hit a target moving at Mach five or six. It turns out that physics still applies to hypersonics. They are fast, but they are also incredibly hot because of the friction with the air, which makes them light up like a Christmas tree on infrared sensors.
That is a classic Herman insight. The very thing that makes them fast also makes them easier to find.
It is always a trade-off. You want speed? You get heat. You want stealth? You lose maneuverability or payload. There is no perfect weapon.
So, if we are looking at the future of this aerial warfare, where does it go from here? If I am Daniel, and I am watching these developments, what is the next big shift?
I think the next big shift is A-I-driven autonomous SEAD. Imagine a swarm of small drones that can communicate with each other. They fly into enemy airspace. One drone acts as a decoy to make the radar turn on. Another drone hears that signal and immediately maps exactly where it is coming from. A third drone then dives into that location. No human pilot involved, no risk to expensive aircraft.
That sounds like it would make traditional SAM systems almost useless if they can't distinguish between a decoy and a threat instantly.
It would certainly force them to change. We might see a return to more mobile, camouflaged systems that only turn on for seconds at a time. The "pop-up" defense. But then, the attackers will use persistent satellite surveillance to track the launchers even when their radars are off.
It’s a game of hide and seek where everyone has X-ray vision.
And the stakes are absolute. If you lose control of your skies, you lose the war. That is the fundamental lesson of the last eighty years of conflict.
It’s why countries like Iran and Russia invest so much in these SAM systems. If they can't match the West in terms of high-end fighter jets, they try to make their airspace too dangerous to enter. It’s a strategy of denial.
Exactly. Anti-Access Area Denial, or A-two A-D. It’s about creating a "no-go" zone. But as Daniel pointed out, that zone is only as good as the technology behind it. And if your opponent finds a way to jam your sensors, or sneak a stealth plane through a gap in your coverage, or just overwhelm you with cheap drones, your multi-billion dollar defense becomes a liability.
I think one of the most interesting things for me in all of this is the human element. We talk about these systems as if they are automatic, but there is still a person in a trailer somewhere looking at a screen, right?
There is, and that is often the weakest link. In high-stress environments, operators make mistakes. They might misidentify a civilian airliner as a threat, which we have seen happen tragically several times. Or they might get fixated on a decoy and miss the real missile coming from a different direction. Electronic warfare is as much about attacking the human mind as it is about attacking the radar.
That is a deep point. You are trying to induce "information overload."
Precisely. If I can make your screen look so confusing that you hesitate for ten seconds, I have won. In modern aerial warfare, ten seconds is an eternity. A missile can travel fifteen miles in ten seconds.
Wow. When you put it that way, the pressure on those operators is unimaginable.
It really is. And that is why we are seeing more and more of the decision-making being handed over to computers. But that opens up a whole other can of worms regarding autonomous weapons and the ethics of letting an algorithm decide when to fire a missile.
We could do a whole episode just on that. But to get back to Daniel's specific question about evasion: in practice, is it jamming, taking them out, or evading? The answer Daniel, is that it is a "kill web."
I like that term. A kill web. It’s not a single line of action. It’s a coordinated effort where the stealth plane provides the data, the jammer provides the cover, and the stand-off missile provides the punch. If any one of those fails, the whole mission is at risk.
And the I-A-F's supremacy over those S-three hundred systems was likely a masterclass in weaving that web. They used every tool in the shed: intelligence to know exactly where the batteries were, stealth to get close, electronic warfare to blind them, and precision strikes to finish the job.
It’s a high-wire act. And for the people living under those skies, it is the difference between security and vulnerability.
Well, Herman, I think we have covered a lot of ground here. From the S-four hundred to the Patriot, from noise jamming to hit-to-kill kinetic interceptors. It is a fascinating, if somewhat terrifying, field of study.
It really is. And it’s constantly changing. By the time this episode airs, there might be a new system or a new tactic that changes everything again.
That is the nature of the beast. But for now, I hope that gives Daniel and our listeners a better sense of what is actually happening when we hear those headlines about air defenses and aerial supremacy.
Absolutely. It’s never just about the missile. It’s about the information.
Well said. And hey, if you are enjoying these deep dives into the tech that shapes our world, we would really appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your podcast app or on Spotify. It genuinely helps other people find the show and keeps us going.
It really does. We love hearing from you all, and your support means the world to us.
You can find all our past episodes, including the one on the Growler that Daniel mentioned, at our website, myweirdprompts dot com. We have a full archive there, and you can even send us your own prompts through the contact form.
We are always looking for new rabbit holes to jump down, so don't be shy.
Thanks again to Daniel for sending this in. It was a great excuse to dig into some heavy-duty physics and military strategy.
Always a pleasure, Corn.
Alright, this has been My Weird Prompts. I'm Corn.
And I'm Herman Poppleberry.
We will see you next time.
Goodbye everyone!
