Everything he said makes sense to me, and I'm just a lowly software engineer with a single unit of RF background back at uni.
What part are you confused about?
There is no such thing as a perfectly directional antenna. Radiation profiles consist of multiple lobes which generally point towards a single direction on 3 axes, but there are always side lobes, like so: [1]. You can't hide these, therefore they can be detected and targeted.
There's a whole class of missiles that simply look for RF sources and head that way. The only way to avoid such missiles is to stop being an RF source. But if you do that, you're also unable to target the attackers or defend against those missiles. You also have to turn off your data link and lose situational awareness.
The S-400 is the best air defence currently fielded, but it is by no means magical or invulnerable.
All this makes the assumption that S400 is a sitting duck with no countermeasures. Which is far from reality. The entire point of a decentralized and mobile/distributed system like s400 is to make it difficult to target. It is ground based, therefore has much better detection capability than anything in the air. Its long range missiles have a greater flight envelope than any surface to air missile.
You don't think the s400 has any jamming capability and protection of its own? You don't think the system can detect when it's being targeted and locked on?
It can definitely be defeated but not without suffering heavy casualties. That's _why_ it's called anti-access/area denial technology.
What part are you confused about?
There is no such thing as a perfectly directional antenna. Radiation profiles consist of multiple lobes which generally point towards a single direction on 3 axes, but there are always side lobes, like so: [1]. You can't hide these, therefore they can be detected and targeted.
There's a whole class of missiles that simply look for RF sources and head that way. The only way to avoid such missiles is to stop being an RF source. But if you do that, you're also unable to target the attackers or defend against those missiles. You also have to turn off your data link and lose situational awareness.
The S-400 is the best air defence currently fielded, but it is by no means magical or invulnerable.
https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/wirele...