Can Venezuela’s Long Range Air Defences Block an American Attack?

Defence affairs - Def-Geopolitics

uring the 2000s the Venezuelan Armed Forces began to rapidly modernise its training and equipment at a time of heightened tensions with the United States, resulting in the country quickly coming to field by far the most capable air force and air defence arsenal in Latin America.

 

Venezuela’s aerial warfare capabilities have recent gained growing attention as the United States has escalated military pressure on the country, with Washington having significantly increased force deployments in the Caribbean including multiple F-35 fifth generation fighter squadrons and a sizeable Navy flotilla with multiple destroyers and a nuclear powered attack submarine. Two types of assets in the Venezuelan inventory in particular set its air defence capabilities apart from other countries in the region, including four small squadrons of Su-30MK2 long range fighters, and multiple battalions of S-300VM long range air defence systems. 

The S-300VM’s particularly high suitability to providing an asymmetric defence against a large scale air assault have resulted in growing interest being paid to its capabilities. At a time of high tensions with the United States in mid-2019, when alleged Western-funded mercenaries were apprehended during sabotage operations and assassination attempts, S-300VM systems were conspicuously deployed to protect the capital Caracas. The deployment was made in response to concerns that the United States would escalate to launch air or missile strikes. Unlike the S-300P series of systems, S-300V series systems were developed to accompany the Soviet and Russian ground forces, and place a much greater emphasis on mobility as a result. The S-300VM uses tracked MT-T launch vehicles allowing for off-road operations, with all parts of the system including its command centre, radars, and missile launchers all able to redeploy in under 10 minutes. This is expected to make them particularly difficult to neutralise even for advanced air defence suppression assets with sophisticated electronic intelligence capabilities. 

Operationalised in 2012, the S-300VM is capable of engaging up to 24 targets simultaneously, can engage low observable targets at medium ranges, and uses new computer systems with data processing methods that were considered state of the art at the time. Compared to preceding models in the S-300V series, the system benefits from new radar systems, new command posts, improved electronic warfare countermeasures and new missiles for a longer engagement range of 250km. The missiles fired from the system have speeds of over Mach 14, allowing them to intercept high speed targets including ballistic missiles. 

The S-300VM benefits from a high level of automation and low maintenance requirements, making it relatively straightforward to operate. The system was developed with a particular focus on providing a defence against ballistic and cruise missile attacks, and is capable of engaging both kinds of targets simultaneously. While the system is expected to pose a major challenge should the United States launch an attack on Venezuela, a major shortcoming remains the limited size of its air defence arsenal, as procurement plans for both air defence systems and aircraft were cut short after the death of former president Hugo Chavez in 2013. As a result, the systems are not fielded as part of a much wider network with similarly high end complementary systems such as S-400s, or with greater numbers of more advanced fighters, as original plans to procure Su-35 fighters were terminated. The systems are thus more likely to be used for ambushes and ‘hit and run’ attacks on American aviation assets should a full scale assault be launched, much as was done by Yugoslavia against NATO air assets in 1999, as the small numbers in service will otherwise leave them prone to being overwhelmed.