Hold your horses.. it's not useless trash! LOL
In combination with other air defense assets, especially interceptors the systems like PAC-3, S-300, S-400, etc become very effective..
I'm talking about the scenario where everyone seems to be fixated on:"air assets vs ground to air assets"
The air assets especially the stealthy ones rule the skies then..
Simple drones can already take out s-300/S-400 if they're just there without any backup from their own air force..
That's proven in field btw, drones of Azerbaijan without problems taking out modern Russian radar systems in Armenia.. Cheap drones taking out air defense sites that cost up to a billion USD.
Because of course on paper a few dozen S-300/S-400 battalions can easily destroy the whole of NATO and Russian air force combined LOL
But the reality is, if you put all of Russian+American ground based air defenses together against both USAF and Russian Air Force..
Rest assure all these ground based systems are vapor!
Russia/Turkey/China/USA/Israel use these systems, without air support, against low-tech adversaries.. then these systems have some effectiveness..
Against modern air forces, the ground based systems alone are sitting ducks!
Russia/US/China/Israel would therefore never deploy these units outside of their own air coverage.. because against a technological advanced opponent only the ground
systems would indeed be, trash, not instantly but they'd be trashed very quickly.
But if your air battles are out there, and your air force is covering you, then these systems add greatly to the performance of your own air force..
Enemy fighter pilots get a very complex battle field where they have enemy warships with anti air capabilities, land based anti air and enemy air force..
That's where these systems add to the complexity and lethality of the air war.
air vs air is very potent..
ground vs air is only potent against technological backwards adversaries
a modern stealth plane can detect the radar signals of air defense sites long before any air defense radar can detect the stealth plane.
And guess who has a higher capability to outrun/outmaneuver a missile coming in at mach 2-3? the fighter jet that can do mach 1.5 and more
or the truck, that first needs a few minutes to pack it up and then drive away with mach 0.01?
But in the scenario air vs air AND at the same time on the ground are installations sending up those ground to air missiles..
basically these systems allow you in an air vs air where both partners are evenly matched, the fighter pilots who
have their ground to air to assist them will be victorious.. that's the whole concept of these systems.. they make the air battlefield
for the opponent so complex, pilots start to make mistakes.. there are areas ranges up to 50km where US F-35 and up to 30km where US F-22
will be shot down by a hidden S-300/S-400 .. so while the F-35/22 are fighting Su-35 all of the sudden out of nowhere comes a 48N6E2 or an 48N6DM
now where the F-35/22 had a slight edge over the Su-35 seeing them a bit earlier than the Su-35 could see them, and thus initiate the fight, first
shot by the F-35/22 all of the sudden there's incoming 48N6xx missiles coming in at mach 5+ (not this is a maximum for the missile, it doesn't
perform this speed of course over the whole trajectory) so pilots have a fair set of options here to counter the threat..
it says for instance range 200km, but it doesn't do mach 5 over 200km.. over that trajectory the average is closer to mach 2.
Anyway for the armies around these countries that deploy S-300/S-400 against low tech adversaries they on their own are very potent..
Against high-tech adversaries these systems alone are indeed basically trash, or will be trashed very quickly..
But in an air war, where air force vs air force, the ground systems add to the complexity and risk and tactics of the air war and greatly
boost the survivability of the air force that has support of their own ground forces.
Basically what I'm saying is, it's about tactics..
The tactic everyone is focused on:" ground vs air" then the ground based air defense is sitting ducks against a technological advanced opponent.
but the tactic where you intercept the enemy over your own territory with your own air force AND deploy the ground to air in this battle field, those 2 together are lethal even to an
enemy air force that's technological superior to your own air force.
So it's not trash.. but in the scenario where it's deployed in a 1 on 1 scenario against USAF it will be trashed very quickly..
That's the mistake the Armenians made. They made the mistake to deploy these systems against cheap drones without own air force covering their air defense sites..
Then you're sitting ducks.. game over..