08-23-2025, 07:31 PM
I don't understand why the Flamingo was publicly announced. Sure, release the info privately to US and allies (to show Ukraine will continue to defend, but with more offense), but send a volley of them to announce the new capability to Russia and the public.
The 3-hour flight time to the longest range would seem to allow vectoring Russian aircraft to cover large areas to shoot these down. So the main thing for Russia is to find and track them via airborne assets. Shmel-M radar on an A-50 could track 300 targets within 400 miles (the horizon at max altitude of 15km is 270 miles away; ie, a diameter of 540 miles). The Ukraine-Russia border is about 1200 miles but you have to take into account the routes over the Black Sea). A handful of the Russian A-50 should be able to watch for these entering into Russia. (It isn't clear to me how many A-50 aircraft are available.) Position aircraft or S-400 launchers to defend close targets quickly. Scramble & vector aircraft for further targets.
For example, Moscow is about 45 minutes flight time for one of these. That should allow a scrambled fighter to take care of several on a direct path if Russia can detect them entering their airspace and track them after that. (For Moscow, there must be plenty of S-400 missiles to take it out, but Moscow was just an example here.)
In the description, I didn't see if the routing of the missiles can be changed in-flight by ground control. Additionally, would such missiles be able to maneuver if they detected they were being targeted?
The 3-hour flight time to the longest range would seem to allow vectoring Russian aircraft to cover large areas to shoot these down. So the main thing for Russia is to find and track them via airborne assets. Shmel-M radar on an A-50 could track 300 targets within 400 miles (the horizon at max altitude of 15km is 270 miles away; ie, a diameter of 540 miles). The Ukraine-Russia border is about 1200 miles but you have to take into account the routes over the Black Sea). A handful of the Russian A-50 should be able to watch for these entering into Russia. (It isn't clear to me how many A-50 aircraft are available.) Position aircraft or S-400 launchers to defend close targets quickly. Scramble & vector aircraft for further targets.
For example, Moscow is about 45 minutes flight time for one of these. That should allow a scrambled fighter to take care of several on a direct path if Russia can detect them entering their airspace and track them after that. (For Moscow, there must be plenty of S-400 missiles to take it out, but Moscow was just an example here.)
In the description, I didn't see if the routing of the missiles can be changed in-flight by ground control. Additionally, would such missiles be able to maneuver if they detected they were being targeted?