UPSC Mains 2021 · GS III · Q5 · 10 marks · 150 words

How is S-400 air defence system technically superior to any other system presently available in the world ?

हिन्दी में

S-400 हवाई रक्षा प्रणाली, विश्व में इस समय उपलब्ध अन्य किसी प्रणाली की तुलना में किस प्रकार से तकनीकी रूप से श्रेष्ठ है ?

Indigenisation and Defence Technology

How a topper answered the closest question

Toppers wrote this one in a test series: “How do Air Defence systems work? What are the various air-defense systems that India currently possesses?”

Pakshal SecretryAIR 8 · CSE 2025 · 149 wordsTheir whole copy

Opening · a recent event

Recently, air force in Press Briefing on Operation Sudoor, highlighted 100% interception rate of India's Air Defense which tackled >1000 enemy attach at one time.

Body · points and prose

Working of Air Defense

  1. Drone Based System → Air Defense drone target incoming object
  2. Gun Based system → Mannual targeting of enemy objects
  3. Energy guided AD → use of lasers of high power to disable air object
  4. Complex AD system (Ballistic/Missle AD)
Diagram
Enemy object → Attack → Blast ↑ Missile ← 5400 ↑ Radar → info

→ Radar sense object, sends info to battery, which release missile to kill enemy missile

Air Defense System of India

Integrated & layered AD

Diagram
(S400) (S300) (Akashteer) (ADguns/guns) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
  1. for Missile Defense → S400 and S300 system.
  2. for Ballastic Defense → Aswin & Prithvi AD system
  3. for Drones / Small missile → Akashteer and Akash AD system
  4. Swarm Attack → Mannual AD guns

Close · a summary

II) Recent interception rates and success have improved visibility and Demand of Indian system across world.

1 more topper’s answer to this question, part by part, and how they all approached it: open the question.

Source: UPSC, Civil Services (Main) Examination 2021, General Studies Paper III, Q5. The paper on upsc.gov.in. Themes and links to toppers’ answers are by UPSC Grade, not by UPSC.