First of all, I’m no expert so I have no knowledge about the inner workings of such systems.
I have an interesting argument, or rather a question about our current and upcoming air defence systems:
The American, French, Russian and Chinese air defence systems have been in the market for a very long time now. Their radar signatures have been broadcasted millions of times. I‘m sure they can be changed at the press of a button but these countries must have intricate knowledge of how the radars and launchers and rockets etc. of their enemies, or let’s say counterparts, are working. They must have studied these systems behind closed doors and they must have gone over different scenarios numerous times. Their pilots must have trained possible strategies to avoid, detect and destroy all the crucial machines within these systems. Even more so, they must have trained numerous agents to seek and sabotage these systems in case of an all-out war. Wikipedia tells me that Russia has been manufacturing the S-300 as well as its ensuing models and the US has been manufacturing the Patriot since the 70s. Although these are not the same machines that were made in the 70s, they have been developed on top of the platforms created over 50 years ago.
So, what I’m asking is this: with a new system architecture in a completely new language and designed according to a brand new approach, do our systems constitute a new “force” or a new “player” among these, perhaps not outdated but already leaked yet proven systems? In all-out war or even a small-scale conflict, do we have the advantage of surprise? I feel like neither Greece nor any of our neighbors had a real chance to study our new systems. So, do they even know the capacity of our weapons? They have obviously trained their pilots, soldiers, generals and engineers against our older NATO weapons and systems. But new weapons means completely unforeseeable tactics. Where previous systems acted in a certain way in conflicts, our systems may act in a completely unexpected way for the enemy. That could be the deciding factor for an entire war.
