This is simply a super big oolong, the most expensive strategic asset of the Russian Air Force, this one is worth 3The $300 million A-50U AWACS aircraft was actually shot down by the Russian army itself?
On February 23, the Ukrainian side claimed to have shot down a Russian A-50U AWACS aircraft, which was the second A-50U AWACS lost by the Russian army in a month.
According to the current route signals and ** released by the two sides, the A-50U AWACS aircraft was conducting a warning patrol flight in the Kra**dar Krai near the Sea of Azov, and the patrol route was a figure of 8 about 200 kilometers long.
The Ukrainian army launched S-200 surface-to-air missiles from Zaporizhzhia and Donbass near the front line in an attempt to attack A-50U AWACS aircraft, or use ballistic means to strike ground targets. In short, the S-270 surface-to-air missile with a range of 200 km is theoretically capable of threatening the A-50U AWACS aircraft.
The subsequent attack of the S-200 surface-to-air missile was detected by the Russian radar. The Russian anti-aircraft missile unit intercepted and fired 2 S-300 400 surface-to-air missiles, the first hit the S-200 missile, and the second hit the AWACS aircraft. Before being shot down, the Russian A-50U AWACS aircraft had already found itself under attack and released a large number of decoy bombs to avoid the attack, but in the end it did not dodge and was shot down.
It seems to be a super big oolong. The S-200 surface-to-air missile launched by the Ukrainian army failed to hit the A-50U AWACS aircraft, and then the S-300 400 surface-to-air missile of the Russian army helped the Ukrainian army complete the combat mission.
It's just a big "Rashomon", doesn't it feel a little incredible?
In fact, as early as January 15, when the A-50U early warning aircraft was shot down, there were voices on the Russian social media that it was likely to be a mistake, believing that the Russian army's S-400 missile shot down the A-50U early warning aircraft.
On the Internet, there has been a heated discussion about the Russian air defense forces accidentally hitting their own fighters, and a large number of Russian Telegram channel bloggers complained: "Due to the lack of coordinated operations and the failure of the identification system, since the outbreak of the war, many Su-34, Su-35 and Su-30 aircraft, as well as Ka-52*** and so on, have been shot down by our own air defense missile forces." “
Many netizens pointed out that the air defense forces and air force units of such a large army as the Russian army have a perfect identification system for friend or foe, and it is unlikely that they will shoot down their own planes by themselves. However, judging from the practice of the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield in the past two years, the so-called identification system of the Russian army is also like that, and it is an indisputable fact that the Russian army itself mistakenly shot a large number of aircraft on the other side.
At present, the Russian army's AWACS aircraft are no longer enough to maintain a 24-hour air alert in Ukraine. In the two years since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Russian army's early warning aircraft have been very busy, and at present, the Russian army has 2 3 A-50U deployed at Taganrog Airport in Rostov, 1 2 A-50U early warning deployed in the Belgorod direction, and 1 2 A-50U early warning deployed along the Belarusian border, which is only more than 100 kilometers away from Kyiv, which can reconnoiter and indicate targets for the combat units of the Russian army.
The A-50U is the most advanced and top-notch airborne early warning command aircraft that Russia can produce at present, and its technical level is about 20 years behind China. The Air Police-2000 AWACS aircraft using active phased array radar made its maiden flight in November 2003, ahead of the A-50U by an era.
The A-50U AWACS aircraft is equipped with a new generation of digital signal processing computers, which obsolete the previous analog computers, although the radar antenna is still the same as that of the older A-50 AWACS. The Chinese Air Police-2000 AWACS aircraft uses an active phased array radar.
There are almost a dozen A-50s in the Russian army, of which six or seven are in good condition, but those are the oldest A-50s, and the radar equipment on them is from the Stone Age, and they need to be modified to A-50U one after another before they can be used.
Of course, the A-50U AWACS aircraft is basically enough to deal with the weak Ukrainian Air Force. After suffering battle injuries and being shot down continuously, the Russian army now has 6 A-50U AWACS aircraft left, and according to the combination of 2 air missions + 2 airfield maintenance, the Russian army is no longer able to maintain 3 4 AWACS aircraft on the battlefield in Ukraine for 24-hour rotation on duty. List of high-quality authors