By Claude Salhani - Trend:
Military experts from both East and West tend to agree that Russia's S-300 anti-missile system first developed by the Soviets and now continued by the Russians is better than the American made Patriot system.
Some experts seem to think that the Patriot is not as powerful as the S-300. They cite range, as the S-300 seems to have almost three times more reach than a Patriot.
These comparisons and statistics are great for statisticians who will devote much time in noting the various differences between the two systems. Time in flight, size of the warhead, killing range, fuel needs, difficulty or ease of staff training required to operate the missile system.
However, in a real war the two systems are not about to come face to face. The patriot will remain behind its troops, defending the territory assigned to it, as will the S-300.
The characteristics of the two systems are relatively the same, especially in conflicts involving countries of relatively equal power such as Iran - Iraq, India - Pakistan.
However, when it comes to a possible attack by the U.S. or Israel against the "third world" countries, such as Iran, Syria and others, Russia's S-300 will certainly fail. Why?
Once again we need to turn to our history books in order to learn about the future.
If we look at the two Iraq wars, the war in Yugoslavia, and other conflicts, they showed the United States was striving for absolute predominance in both the control of air power as well as to maintain the upper hand in the electronic aspect of warfare.
When they deploy, the Americans do so massively. The Americans will deploy dozens of AWACS and 30-40 spacecraft of all types.
Is Russia's S-300 better than USA's Patriot? Yes, many say, but....
As one Russian official confided, "Do I have to explain that a division or two of S-300 (S-400) can not act alone against such an armada?
Claude Salhani is senior editor at Trend Agency and a political analyst. You can follow Claude on Twitter @ClaudeSalhani. Edited by CN