After the unintentional downing of a Russian spy plane by Syrian anti-aircraft missiles, the Russians have announced that they will be selling their S-300 system to the Assad regime. According to Aviation Week the S-300 system:
fully mobile search radar, updated engagement radar and TELs and a new missile with far greater range. It could engage aerodynamic targets at altitudes down to 10 meters and intercept ballistic missiles with ranges up to 1,000 km, traveling at speeds up to 2,800 m/s at distances up to 40 km from the battery.
Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has been quoted in the past declaring, “One thing needs to be clear: If someone shoots at our planes, we will destroy them. It doesn’t matter if it’s an S-300 or an S-700.” More
It sounds like what they were using was good enough.
so … the whole thing was a set-up so the Ruskies could ‘aid’ Syria … hmmmm
So I guess now the Syrians will be even MORE capable of shooting down a Russian plane by mistake.
The whole point is to put Russian SAM operators on the ground w/ the Syrians so that (in the Russian mind) the Israeli’s will be hesitant to attack the SAM sites and therefore the Iranian arms depots.