The beginning of December can be called truly historic for US aviation and the world in general: Northrop Grumman demonstrated the new B-21 Raider stealth bomber.
Although not much is known about it at the moment, the russian federation has already started thinking about whether they will be able to oppose this sixth-generation aircraft with the already existing systems that the russian defense industry has in stock.
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So, the first question that russians want to answer is how the latest russian S-500 air defense system will cope with the modern B-21 Raider. However, assessing the newest B-21, the occupiers decided for some reason to downplay the capabilities of the newest bomber compared to the previous generation aircraft.
"The version that will begin testing in a year's time is at the level of the B-2 stealth bomber aircraft, which is already in service with the Americans. Until now, the S-400 and S-500 complexes have dealt with them in normal mode", says the ex-head of the Air Defense Troops of the Special Purpose Command, Sergey Khatylyov.
He believes that the main weapon against the B-21 will be the S-500, and its locator will allegedly be able to detect the sixth-generation stealth bomber at a range of up to 600 km, claiming that "from the point of view of radar visibility, there will not be any particular difficulties for detection."
In general, it is difficult to answer this question, since it is still unclear what "tools" and what "know-how" in terms of weapons and systems the B-21 Raider will receive. Also, keep in mind that the B-21 will be able to launch missiles far beyond the russian anti-aircraft range.
Therefore, in a broader dimension beyond the S-300 alone, russians dream of "a long-range interceptor fighter that we are currently developing", but in fact they say that there is only one way out against the B-21: "the construction of an echeloned, integrated, under unified control and in on a real-time scale, the air defense system, both with long-range interception by fighter aircraft, and the interaction of anti-aircraft missile systems, systems of all types and classes, as well as modern intelligence on long-range approaches using anti-missile detection stations such as "Voronezh" or "Container".
However, the question is how exactly such a complex system, which russians imagine, will show itself in practice and whether it will be able to withstand the latest technologies of the 21st century.
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