Such is the case of the special decoys, or Penetration Aids (PENAIDS), used by the 9K720 Iskander-M/SS-26 Stone Short-Ranged Ballistic Missile (SRBM) to deceive air defense systems and make the job of intercepting them difficult.
The Iskander-M/Stone SRBM is an unique missile that can be armed with both conventional and nuclear warheads. The conventional version is actively being employed in the Ukraine theater.
The system was exported to Armenia and used in their 2020 war against Azerbaijan. But the export version didn’t have the PENAIDS unique to the Russian version.
The 9B899 decoys are launched out the base of the missile as it files on a ballistic path and serve to make it harder for air defense radars to determine which is the actual missile.
Such PENAIDS are employed on strategic ICBM’s and SLBM’s such as the since retired British Chevaline system used on the British Royal Navy version of the Polaris SLBM.
As is something of a common occurrence in the Ukraine War, this previously secret and unknown to the West capability was exposed after the system, or parts of it in this case the decoys themselves, were captured by the Ukrainians and revealed to the world.
It repeatedly proves the point that if you employed your latest technology in a war, expect to lose some of your precious secrets.
As previously said, this war with numerous new weapons being employed is a major intelligence windfall for the West which will result in lessened effectiveness for Russian weapons in future conflicts as the lessons are absorbed and new countermeasures based on those lessons are developed to blunt the effectiveness of their systems.
The same would also apply to any new Western equipment being employed in any conflict such as the Javelin ATGM of which working examples have been captured by the Russians.
