U.S. analysts are beginning to address the question of why the Israeli Air Force was able to penetrate Syria’s Russian-made air defenses, while the Russian Air Force was not able to finesse Georgia’s Russian-made air defenses.

That Russian-built and designed air defenses are exploitable was shown in the Israeli Air Force’s total shutdown of Syrian air defenses prior to bombing a suspected nuclear site last year (Aerospace DAILY, May 2). But Russia apparently didn’t have or didn’t use the digital keys to unlock the Georgians’ network.

There are indications from U.S. analysts that the relative simplicity – meaning far less networking – of the Georgian air defenses made it tougher to knock out the system all at once.

Nevertheless, theories abound about the apparent effectiveness of Georgia’s air defense (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 12) that run from incompetence on the part of the Russians to links to Israel’s sophisticated electronics companies and their aggressive military export goals.

During the months before the conflict, the Russians claimed to have shot down several Hermes 450 drones (supplied by Israeli-based Elbit) with fighter aircraft stationed, at least temporarily, in South Ossetia. Israeli companies also supported Georgia’s Su-25 modernization program. The same companies – Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit – are renowned for their radar, electronic warfare and electronic attack capabilities.

Wartime operating frequencies for the comparatively formidable SA-11/Buk-1M and Tor-M1 can be changed, thus making them hard for Russian electronic warfare systems to defeat, U.S. aerospace industry specialists note.

Simplicity

Another reason why the Russians would have difficulty affecting the whole Georgian air defense system lies in its simplicity, according to a senior U.S. Air Force officer with combat flying experience in two wars and long experience in the stealth community.

“The Georgian air defense system is much less networked than that of the Syrians and [therefore relies on] autonomous sector operations,” he says. So there’s no way for tactical electronic warfare systems to create massive blind spots.

A Washington-based analyst also pointed to the fog of war and the likelihood of fratricide of Russian aircraft by Russian surface-to-air missiles.

“I think it’s probably something much more simple [that also was at work],” he says. “If you look at some of the videos of Russian equipment pouring into the conflict zone, you’ll note a couple SA-11 surface-to-air missile systems included. Quite possibly, it could be a case of the [Russian] air defenses not realizing the aircraft were Russian systems or something silly like that. Or, it could be simply that they just didn’t factor [friendly aircraft] into the mission planning like they should have.”

In a similar situation during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, U.S. air defenses shot down both British and U.S. aircraft.

SA-11 photo: Finnish Defense Forces