These are reflectarray radars, not AESA. No crazy specialist components are really required, just a lot of PIN diodes. I'm sure those can be made in Russia.
not sure where the proclivity to underestimate Russian military technology comes from. it certainly was a sterling hallmark of US leadership at the time of the cold war.
Russia has been making in-house AESA for a decade. they started with APAR radar in 1963, just a few years off from the US.
> not sure where the proclivity to underestimate Russian military technology comes from
They've been turned into bumbling idiots on Twitter and Reddit. It's a shame, but in my mind it is quite dangerous because sooner or later some president/general is going to make a very bad decision based on that meme. "How could their nukes possibly work?"
It’s enough to launch a retaliation. So the expected value of launching a hypersonic missile is still very negative because you will get inundated with nukes yourself. It’s the old MAD doctrine, not perfect, but better than nothing.
I didn't realise it was possible to detect a hypersonic. What I read is that the missle creates a ball of plasma before it, which is opaque to radar. I thought this was the main strength of hypersonics, over raw speed.
Very useful. Hypersonics shorten the window for defensive engagement but don't completely eliminate it. For example in surface naval warfare anti missile defense is layers of counter systems / munitions. The innermost layers of this "onion" of protection are fast reaction systems that function essentially at line of sight (SeaRAM and similar missiles, CIWS). That an incoming hypersonic is trying to shorten the detection window is all the more reason that detecting one quickly after it comes above the horizon is valuable.
