Almaz S-300: China's "Offensive" Air Defense

[crazyinsane105]

Almaz S-300 – China's “Offensive” Air Defense

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by Dr. Carlo Kopp
Published on February 25th, 2006
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The most capable air defence system currently in PLA service are derivatives of the Russian Almaz S-300PMU/SA-10 Grumble family of Surface to Air Missiles. The S-300 SAM systems remain one of the most lethal, if not the most lethal, all altitude area defence SAM systems in service, with a range of more capable derivatives entering service in Russia, or in development. Over the Taiwan Strait the later versions of the S-300 become "offensive" weapons in that they can attack targets in Taiwanese airspace, severely challenging that nation’s air defense. Moreover, these missiles threaten all U.S. combat aircraft that may be called upon to assist Taiwan other than the stealthy B-2A and F-22A, the latter which is just entering service in diminished numbers.

China remains the single substantial export client for the S-300PMU/SA-10 Grumble, with other export sales having been sporadic and small. Until the advent of the S-300PMU/SA-10, the PLA's primary area defence SAM was the HQ-2, a reverse engineered derivative of the 1960s Soviet S-75 Dvina/Volkhov/Volga or SA-2 Guideline. With mobile tracked TELs and conventional launchers, the HQ-2 was not a credible weapon due to the vulnerability of its Fan Song series engagement radars to jamming and anti-radiation missile attack.

The S-300PMU/SA-10 family of SAMs are true analogues to the US MIM-104 Patriot, providing similar capabilities against aircraft targets at all altitudes, as well as ballistic missiles. With later variants offering genuine 'shoot and scoot' capabilities, the S-300PMU/SA-10 systems are both highly lethal, and highly survivable.

Evolution of the SA-10/SA-20

The origins of the S-300PMU/SA-10 system date to the late 1960s, when the Soviets opted to develop a much more effective SAM system to replace the S-75/SA-2 and S-200/SA-5, neither of which proved effective operationally. The intended 'common' S-300 was to be used by the Voyska PVO (Air Defence Forces), PVO SV (Army Air Defence) and Voenno-Morskii Flot (Navy), but the program soon unravelled and resulted in the very much unique V-PVO S-300P and PVO-SV S-300V systems.

The first production model was the S-300PT or SA-10A, with a towed 5P85 TEL, the V-500/5V55 SAM, a towed 5N63S Flap Lid A engagement radar, a towed 36D6 Tin Shield 3D acquisition radar, and the unique LEMZ 5N66/76N6 Clam Shell continuous wave low altitude acquisition radar, typically mast mounted. An important innovation was the family of semi-mobile 75 ft 40V6, 40V6M and 120 ft 40V6MD mast systems, available for the Flap Lid, Tin Shield and Clam Shell to provide much extended low altitude coverage.

The label 'Patriot-ski' is a reasonable one. The 5N63S and later 30N6 engagement radar is like the Patriot's MPQ-53 a space fed passive phased array design, built to concurrently track and engage multiple targets, and inherently difficult to jam with low sidelobe performance and high peak power. The command link guided 5V55K SAM could engage targets between 80 ft and 80 kft, to 25 nmi range.

With the advent of the F-4G Wild Weasel IV and EF-111A Raven during the late seventies, the Soviets responded in 1982 with the highly mobile S-300PS/SA-10B (S -Samokhodniy – Self Propelled), which saw the improved Flap Lid B and 5P85 TEL integrated on a 8x8 MAZ-7910, based on the MAZ 543 Scud TEL. The S-300PS is the forerunner of most current S-300PMU/SA-10 variants and a true 'shoot and scoot' system, unlike the Patriot. A key innovation was the new 5V55KD SAM, which introduced a Track Via Missile (TVM) terminal guidance scheme similar to the Patriot, and highly jam resistant.

The first export variant appeared in 1989, the S-300PMU/SA-10C, based on the S-300PS/SA-10B. The S-300PMU/SA-10C introduced the semitrailer based 5P85T road mobile TEL, cheaper and faster than the SA-10B's 5P85D/S TELs, but unable to negotiate rough terrain.

By 1993 Almaz developed a further evolution, in the S-300PM and S-300PMU-1 or SA-10D, the latter the export variant. Incremental and deep improvements were made to the 30N6E1 Flap Lid D, the 54K6E1 command post, and the Clam Shell was the retained. Two key innovations were the new 48N6 SAM, and the new NIIIP 64N6E Big Bird phased array acquisition radar, designed to acquire aircraft and ballistic missiles. The Mach 6 48N6 missile expanded the engagement envelope down to 25 ft AGL, out to 80 nmi, and added an Anti-Ballistic Missile capability comparable to the Patriot PAC-1/PAC-2 configuration. Almaz claim capability to 21.5 nmi and 2.8 km/sec.

The 64N6 was however the bigger advance. It is a large 2 GHz band reflective phased array, with boom mounted feeds, in a dual sector 'Janus-faced' arrangement. In terms of capabilities the 64N6 is best described as a 'land based Aegis analogue', with an aperture size similar to the SPY-1A Aegis system. It is fully mobile and can be deployed or stowed in five minutes.

While the SA-10D is formidable, Almaz continued with enhancements, releasing the further improved S-300PMU-2/SA-10E Favorit during the late 1990s. The Favorit introduced incremental improvements to the 30N6E2, 64N6E2, 54K6E2, and introduced the new all altitude LEMZ 96N6E Tombstone acquisition radar, replacing the Tin Shield, and the extended range 48N6E2 SAM. The Favorit retains compatitibility with the earlier 48N6/48N6E1 missiles, but also introduced software and interfaces allowing it to control legacy S-200VE/SA-5 Gammon batteries, and their 5N62VE Square Pair illuminators. In 2002 the Russians stated that existing S-300PM systems could be block upgraded to the Favorit-S configuration.[1]

The next evolutionary step was the Almaz/Antey S-400 Triumf or SA-20, which is to achieve initial operational capability in Russia this year. The Triumf introduces further incremental improvements to the systems, and adds three entirely new SAM types to the weapons package.

The first two are the 96M6E and extended range 96M6E2. These are Russian equivalents to the US ERINT/PAC-3 interceptor, with both missiles using a combination of thrust vector control and canard surfaces to achieve agility, analogous in design to a short range air to air missile. Both weapons have active radar seekers and directional shaped charge warheads with a smart fusing system. Four of these missiles can be carried in tubes, within the footprint of a single 48N6 missile, allowing a single TEL to deploy 16 weapons.

A third missile type has been reported, with a cited range of 215 nmi against a high altitude target, since identified as the 48N6DM (Dal'naya – long range). This missile was developed to defeat AWACS, JSTARS, Rivet Joint, U-2, Global Hawk and other standoff ISR capabilities, as well as EA-6B or EF-18G support jammers. The Kolchuga long range ESM system is cited as a passive targeting adjunct for the Triumf system.

The Triumf thus provides a layered air defence capability within a single highly mobile system, with the 96M6 family missiles providing an organic self-defence engagement capability against smart weapons such as the Tomahawk, ALCM, JASSM, JSOW, HARM, JDAM-ER and SLAM-ER.

At least one report claims that funding for the development of the Triumf was provided in part by the PLA.

The recently announced 'Samodyerzhets' system is the latest evolution in the S-300PMU family of missiles. It is a fusion of technologies from the S-400 and PVO-SV S-300VM systems, designed as a dual role SAM/ABM system.

Russian sources claimed in 2003 that the system 'combine[s] the far range of the S-300VM missile and the advanced electronics of the S-400 missile'. Jane's identified, in 2004, the use of the extended range 9M82M Giant B round from the S-300VM, in an enhanced S-400 system. The TELAR configuration has yet to be disclosed.

http://www.strategycenter.net/imgLib/20060213_01.JPG

S-300 and S-400 Missiles: The larger 48N6E “Favorit,” which arms later models of the S-300 system, and the more compact 9M96E and 9M96E2 missiles of the S-400 system. Photo: RD Fisher

The S-300V/SA-12 and S-300VM/Antey-2500, despite sharing designations with the S-300PMU systems, are entirely unique weapons produced originally by Antey, prior to the forced merger of Antey and Almaz. Fully mobile, on tracked chassis based on the MT-TM utility vehicle, the S-300V system was intended to replace the cumbersome 2K11/3M8 Krug/1S12 Long Track/1S32 Pat Hand/SA-4 Ganef system, and provide divisional SAM and ABM capabilities. Design objectives were air defence, defeat of Pershing ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and supersonic standoff missiles like the AGM-69 SRAM.

The large 9S32 Grill Pan engagement radar is a large X-band phased array with extensive ECCM capabilities, it is supplemented by the 9S15 Obzor 3 / Bill Board acquisition radar and 9S19 Imbir / High Screen ABM acquisition radar. The system uses two hypersonic SAM types, the Novator designed 9M82 Giant long range weapon, and shorter 9M83 Gladiator. Both SAMs use command link and inertial midcourse control with terminal continuous wave semi-active homing, using large illuminator/command link antennas on the 9A82 and 9A83 TELARs. To date the Russians have been claiming the high ground in the ABM market, with the 9M82 and enhanced 9M82M missiles, the latter cited at 108 nmi range. Performance is claimed to be good enough to defeat IRBMs with velocities of 4.5 km/sec.

China and the S-300PMU

Russian sources claim that the PLA now operates 12 batteries of S-300PMU, eight delivered during the 1990s and four very recently. A deal for an additional four to eight batteries was being negotiated in 2003, ostensibly to cover sites facing Taiwan, with earlier buys providing cover for Beijing and Shanghai. Available photographs suggest a mix of S-300PMU-1 and PMU-2, the configuration of the latest buy is unknown.

http://www.strategycenter.net/imgLib/20060213_02.jpg

S-300 Coverage of Taiwan Strait: This map from the 2005 issue of the U.S. Department of Defense’s annual report on PLA modernization shows that new S-300s can cover air routes used by international airliners landing on Taiwan, as well as illustrating the PLA’s ability to deny the air-defense buffer of the Taiwan Strait to the Taiwan Air Force. Source: U.S. Department of Defense

It is unclear just how many of these missiles China is buying, but for Russia, a battery may contain 36 to 48 missiles. If the PLA is replicating Russia’s battery structure, then it could be buying 700 to over 1,000 of these missiles, assuming that spare and practice missiles will be part of the total.

Janes claim that China is manufacturing an SA-10 variant under the designation HQ-15, but do not specify the configuration or variant of the weapon system. More is known about the HQ-12 or FT-2000, which appears to be a derivative of the SA-10 design.

The HQ-12/FT-2000 was developed to destroy Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance assets with active radar systems such as the E-3 AWACS, E-8 JSTARS and E-2C Hawkeye.

It employs a broadband passive anti-radiation seeker with coverage cited between 2 GHz and 18 GHz, with inertial midcourse guidance and memory capability to retain the location of an emitter which shuts down. CPMIEC released images of the antenna array, which used a two axis gimbal and platform with multiple antenna elements, a technique also used in the Russian Kh-31P missile's L-111E passive seeker. The seeker is claimed to include a home-on-jam capability.

Mockups of the missile show the addition of strakes to increase glide range and turn rate during terminal homing. Missiles are carried on an 8x8 WS2400 TEL, and a battery uses four vehicles with ESM receivers used to triangulate the target.

What the S-300PMU and HQ-12 provide the PLA with is the capability to deny airspace to most regional air forces, including that of Taiwan, and to present the US Navy with genuine difficulty in penetrating Chinese airspace. The S-300PMU series is less than effective when confronted with highly stealthy types like the US Air Force B-2A and F-22A Raptor, the latter expected to be used extensively for lethal suppression of S-300PMU based air defences.

http://www.strategycenter.net/imgLib/20060213_03.jpg
S-300 Firing: The PLA may be purchasing up to 1,000 of the S-300 SAM series. Source: Internet

Of particular concern is the long range of the later missile types deployed by S-300PMU variants, as batteries located along the Taiwan Straight could be used to produce an effect not unlike that seen in 1973, when Egyptian 9M9/SA-6 batteries were able to extend a protective umbrella across the Suez Canal, allowing Egyptian forces to perform an amphibious assault against fortified Israeli positions in the Sinai. The 80 nmi range of the baseline 48N6 missile allows a high altitude target over Taiwan's eastern coast to be engaged by a mainland shore based battery. Should the PLA deploy the S-400 with the 108 nmi range 48N6E2 missile, or longer ranging weapons like the 48N6DM, it gains the capability to deny airspace over Taiwan proper.

With SAMs which have range performance well in excess of 100 nmi, the PLA acquires the means of effecting a partial airspace blockade over Taiwan, forcing all air traffic into Taiwanese airfields via eastern approaches at low altitude, to avoid entering the envelope of the SAM systems. Most of Taiwan’s international and domestic air traffic travels along its Western coast, which would be covered by the longer-range S-300 weapons.

In addition, such a missile blockade also affects the rest of Asia, insofar as major air transport corridors critical to commerce between Northeast and Southeast Asia transit the Taiwan Strait. In times of tension it is not inconceivable that accidental launches could replicate the September 1983 KAL 007 disaster, in which Soviet fighters shot down a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 airliner killing 269 people, or the unfortunate USS Vincennes incident in 1988, which killed 290 people.

The high mobility of the SA-10/20 and their high jam resistance force engagement techniques using stealthy fighters and hard kill weapons, as conventional SEAD and EW techniques become exceptionally risky.

In conclusion, the PLA now has a significant air defence capability in its regiments of SA-10 systems, sufficient to effectively deny Chinese airspace to the Taiwanese and indeed other regional air forces. Should it deploy later variants such as the S-400, it will gain further breadth, depth and capabilities.

If the United States wishes to have a credible capability to decisively defeat the PLA's developing SAM force, it will need many more than just 183 F-22A fighters.

[Su-34]

S-300PMU-1 and S-300PMU-2 is good for Chinese Air Defences. Next step, China should buy Russia's S-400 system, which can engage missiles and aircraft at ranges of 400 kilometres.

[vincelee]

ohhhhhhh Carlo Kopp....at least he has a back ground in this kind of stuff, unlike Bill Gertz, who only has a high school diploma.

Some things to clearify, S-300's PAPER specs can cover the strait and some parts of the island, but realistically speaking, it would have bled quite a bit of energy getting into Taiwanese airspace, so it most likely cannot destroy an agile target doing evasives. I'm even doubtful of its chance to hit larger targets because of inadaquate radar coverage.

[Totoro]

Radar coverage is indeed the biggest issue here. Can those s300 use guidance data from other sources other than their mother radar stations?

Even at sea, with no ground clutter, the radar placed at, say, 25 m above sea level will have range against targets flying at 10 m of something like 25 km. Same radar against a target flying at 100 m altitude would have range of little over 40 km. If one wants to use the max range of the missile of 150km, while still relying just on the said radar it'd mean the target would have to fly at altitude of at least over 1300 m. And with such small war theater, not much range is needed, meaning taiwanese planes could afford to fly in low flight profile pretty much all the time.

That clearly shows the need for alternative targeting and guidance sources, most obviously various awacs aircraft. I do not know if chinese s300 are linked that way with chinese awacs (nor if can they be linked with original russian ones, for that matter) but to fully use the capability of s300 missiles one simply MUST strive for such capability. Longer ranges like the proposed s400 system offers are even harder to bear when one knows they can't be used to their fullest extent. So, if anyone has some proof that the s300 dont have to rely solely on their accompanying ground radar vehicles i'd ask them to please provide it.

[Vlad Plasmius]

China would take several Taiwanese islands in the Straits before Taiwan can respond and that would mean they could put batteries only around 30 miles from Taiwanese shores. If S-400s were placed on these islands it would give them effective control over at least half of Taiwan's airspace.

[vincelee]

and what makes you so confident that the PLA/PLAAF/PLAN can effectively surpress OPFOR counterattacks? When you're sitting this close, you're within land based artillery range. Not to mention OPFOR battlefield air interdictions. In all seriousness, once Chinese forces can effectively surpress Taiwanese activity 30km from the main island, it's already over for Taiwan, because whatever they have that can be used offensively is gone, unless USN starts doing carrier strikes and CAP on the mainland that is.

[Vlad Plasmius]

When you're sitting this close, you're within land based artillery range.

No they aren't. The islands I'm talking about are 30 miles from the shore, the farthest Taiwanese artillery can reach is 30 kilometers. 30 miles would be 48 kilometers away. That's well out of artillery range. 30 miles distance would allow China to supress Taiwanese air power well towards the middle and ease the activity of bombers attacking air defenses. Taiwan is simply incapable of preventing China from winning by themselves, perhaps even with us supporting them.

[vincelee]

What about the Taiwanese cruise missile then?

and let's assume that the missiles are placed where you say they are without incident, Taiwan still has mountainous regions-infact, Taiwan's major airbase is based there. What makes you so sure that the radar has a low enough radar horizon to be........effective? Mainly, just how high are these islands above sea level?

[Vlad Plasmius]

What about the Taiwanese cruise missile then?

They're called air defense missiles for a reason.

and let's assume that the missiles are placed where you say they are without incident, Taiwan still has mountainous regions-infact, Taiwan's major airbase is based there.

The mountains are on the eastern side of Taiwan whereas the SAMs would be facing the western side.

[vincelee]

it's called RADAR HORIZON.

[Totoro]

Hey vincelee, since thankfully you understand the importance of radar horizon, can you answer the question i posed here earlier? Do you have any information that would prove or disprove that china has the capability to guide their s300 batteries via awacs or similar platforms?

[vincelee]

I don't. My personal opinion is that they can't. Why? Because this would require quite a bit of combined arm experience. Also, S-300 is a SARH missile, and I'm not aware of ANY, and I mean ANY, airborne system in the world that can guide a ground launched SARH missile when the primary guidance unit is a ground based radar. It may sound simple, but I don't think it is, at all.....just like the monopoly similation I'm doing right now, total pain in the ass.

[Vlad Plasmius]

it's called RADAR HORIZON.

Yeah, uhhhh, what is your point?

[vincelee]

my point is, you can't just take specs from paper and toss it around. Practical engagement range of the radar against low flying targets is limited by radar horizon, which isn't very low in the S-300's case.

[Totoro]

Point is that, due to curvature of the earth, any plane/missile keeping under some 100 m of altitude can't be detected by the sam battery until its some 40 km away from the said battery. So while the theoretical range of the system, limited by the missile i imagine, is 150 km, the actual range in the case where taiwanese know they have to keep low, is much lower. But hey, that's not so bad either. Flying low has its drawbacks. Bigger drag meaning lower top speed, bigger fuel consumption, a danger for inexperienced pilot, etc...

Didn't see vince's post until i posted this. but just to add, its not really a limitation of s300, but radar tech in general. Patriot batteries would fare no better in the same scenario. (PAC3 with active radar terminal guidance might have an edge, though)

[vincelee]

PAC3's range is what? 15-20 KM? It's used in the terminal defense role only. Cough Cough.

I've always wanted to know if AD radars can use ionosphere bouncing to acquire targets.....probably not since the precision won't be there.

[Totoro]

I know, PAC3 should be short ranged, but i can not find a credible source stating its range, anywhere on the net. And i like to think of myself as a decent googler. :( Figures i've seen range from 30-70 km, and even some ridiculous 200 km plus claims, which are probably mixed up with standards or something.

Speaking of standards... why would they give them such long range, especially in the sm-2 block IV version if USN didn't have means to guide those missiles to its target? I would think E-2 are capable of providing illumination of the targets, instead of ship based illuminators. They have been tested on guiding phoenixes to the target back in their days.

Bouncing off ionosphere, as far as i know, requires huge arrays. Up to 100 m long, or something like that. And, yeah, precision isn't there, but if the missile had some independent terminal guidance - it could probably be done.

[vincelee]

well, SM-2 can theoretically be used to hit bombers. I guess that's where the requirement came in-as the Soviet naval arm employed more and more standoff munition, a requirement came up to counter these by making them...non-standoff.

And of course there is the inherent anti ship role of all SM-2s.

[Vlad Plasmius]

my point is, you can't just take specs from paper and toss it around. Practical engagement range of the radar against low flying targets is limited by radar horizon, which isn't very low in the S-300's case.

Naturally, but the curvature of the Earth isn't that big of a factor from that far off. It is a factor, but certainly not big enough to act like my point is horribly flawed. It would severely limit Taiwanese airpoower regardless. To stay under the radar would severely limit the Taiwanese as far as offensive and defensive action. Chinese fighters will be able to safely fly through some parts of Taiwanese airspace as any attempt at interception would be an interceptor into air defense range.

The point is denial of airspace.

[RedMercury]

Taking those islands close to the mainland may not be so easy. They're very defendable, being quite mountainous/forrested, with lots of defensive fortifications, though not heavily manned. And such an action would take away any surprise.

But, they're also mountainous. Putting a battery on the mountain would help increase its horizon range, probably. I wonder if you can see the coast of Taiwan from their peaks...

[vincelee]

S-300 uses command guidance. What's the use when all you have to do to break lock is to dip below the radar horizon? Fuel certainly is not a problem for the Islanders. Sure it's one more monkey range, but it's a pretty small one. Besides, what makes you so sure there won't be a fratercide problem? PLA's C4I isn't that advanced, and even the US vector off fighters when the battle space becomes too crowded.

[RedMercury]

I assume you mean mountain range. :) Do you have any numbers, like height in meters? From wikipedia, the visible horizon (to objects on the ground) is roughly sqrt(13h) where h is height of observer in meters and result is in kilometers.

standing on a 100 meter tall hill, one could potentially see 36 km.
standing on a 1000 meter tall mountain, one could potentially see 113 km.

For example, for line of sight to a significant part of Taiwan island, say, from Haitan Island, it requires about 250 km range or ~5000 meters high vantage point, which is quite a big mountain! That little bump on the relief map where Haitan Island probably won't cut it :D Tried finding actual numbers, but nothing in the first few pages of google :P

But for objects near the ground, like airplanes, you can add their elevation to h. So, from 1000 m tall mountain, looking for 100m high objects, would be about sqrt(13*(1000+100)) ~= 120 km.:nana:

[Totoro]

Using google earth i'd say haitan's highest peak is just under 400 m. That'd give a true line of sight of 73 km. Thing is, radio waves propagate through atmosphere in not completely straight way, and with sea surface one can as a rule of thumb add bit over 15% to that line of sight for radar range. radar range would then be 87 km against a target at sea level. equation i've been using is: NM= 1.3 * sqroot (h) with h being in feet. nm is nautical miles. For true line of sight just replace the 1.3 value with 1.09 one. Analguous to your equation i've come up with km= sqroot (18.8 * H in meters)

One has to keep in mind, however, its not that easy to manouver half a dozen s300 batteres with their huge trucks on top of a hill covered with a forest.

[sandyj]

Military Convoy of S-300PMU1 Air Defense Missiles

http://www.centurychina.com/plaboard/uploads/1_S300-3.JPG

[sandyj]

http://www.centurychina.com/plaboard/uploads/S-300_convoy3.JPG

[sandyj]

deleted per poster

[Delbert]

I don't think it would be a wise idea to use S-300PMU-S-300PMU2's as an offensive missiles... Remember China still weren't able to protect the whole nation with these kind of latest and modern SAM's.

I just wonder if the HQ-9 is better than S-300PMU? Can anybody give an answer? Or is it as good as S-300PMU?

If it was not atleast as good as S-300PMU's I think China should aquire more or aquire the latest versions to provide more defense coverage for the whole country... (160 launchers currently wasn't enough)

[Totoro]

One interesting thing to note is that we can't see any targeting radars on 052c destroyer, which allegedly has hq9 missiles. There are two answers to that questions. A) its phased arrays work in dual bands, one for long range air surveillance, but can also quickly switch to narrow beams of higer precision wavelengths for targeting. That is something no country has implemented yet, though i've read next version of US Spy radars will have precisely that ability.

B) HQ9 guidance is active. Most probably active radar. While it raises the cost of each missile a bit, technologically it is perfectly doable and within reach for PLA. Taiwanese skybow 2 SAM is reported to have active guidance.

So, with active guidance and much newer electronics it seems safe to assume (sadly, we can only assume) HQ9 is superior to old s-300pmu. As far as later variants go... its too hard to tell. But then again, we can't even quantify the effecitveness of pmu as its never been used in combat, let alone its younger brothers.

BTW, one doesnt need defense coverage for the whole country. Having a SAM umbrella over empty fields or forests or small villages is a waste of resources. That being said, current number of around 20 s300 batteries plus handful (around 4?) hq9 batteries is still not enough. As long as hq2 needs to be used, i dont think the number will be enough.

[planeman]

Military Convoy of S-300PMU1 Air Defense Missiles

http://www.centurychina.com/plaboard/uploads/1_S300-3.JPG

Awesome pic, that correlates closely with Google Earth analysis by Sean O'Connor

[Delbert]

BTW, one doesnt need defense coverage for the whole country. Having a SAM umbrella over empty fields or forests or small villages is a waste of resources. That being said, current number of around 20 s300 batteries plus handful (around 4?) hq9 batteries is still not enough. As long as hq2 needs to be used, i dont think the number will be enough.

Not necessarily, all corners of the country...

But at least there must be batteries stationed along all the border provinces. So that those provinces will not be used as attacking point for enemy aircrafts, etc. Since undefended provinces, can be weak points.

At the same time also installing batteries on strategic and important areas for additional defense. :)

[Totoro]

such approach is not really viable. China is too large and its borders are too long for something like that. Plus, strategic targets could all be covered with a far smaller number of SAMs, instead of 'wasting' them along the borders. I've actually done a count, using a map of china and 400 km diameter circles. It takes 47 such circles to surround all od china's borders, while maintaining half decent overlapping. (that does not include additional sams to be placed in the interior of the country) One has to note that most of chinese sams have a shorter range, and even s300pmu2, which does have theoretical 200 km range would in practice, against realistic targets have an effective range of less than that stated figure.

[Totoro]

such approach is not really viable. China is too large and its borders are too long for something like that. Plus, strategic targets could all be covered with a far smaller number of SAMs, instead of 'wasting' them along the borders. I've actually done a count, using a map of china and 400 km diameter circles. It takes 47 such circles to surround all od china's borders, while maintaining half decent overlapping. (that does not include additional sams to be placed in the interior of the country) One has to note that most of chinese sams have a shorter range, and even s300pmu2, which does have theoretical 200 km range would in practice, against realistic targets have an effective range of less than that stated figure.

[Delbert]

I know its costly, but that is the best way to fully 100% protect the entire country.

If I am not mistaken, the whole USA borders, sea and land are all protected by radar systems, to track any possible incoming enemy and targets right?

[crobato]

One interesting thing to note is that we can't see any targeting radars on 052c destroyer, which allegedly has hq9 missiles. There are two answers to that questions. A) its phased arrays work in dual bands, one for long range air surveillance, but can also quickly switch to narrow beams of higer precision wavelengths for targeting. That is something no country has implemented yet, though i've read next version of US Spy radars will have precisely that ability.

I think the MPQ-53 set used on the Patriots would do exactly just that, though the vulnerability is the window where the radars are in fire control mode, they won't be in search mode. That's the reasons why the Russians maintain a separate set to do the search mode, although they're also progressing to the same state with the 30N6E? the radar unit on the S-300PMU2, which was also exported to China. But that was already long after China made the HT-233 and H-200 sets, which suspiciously made have been modeled after the MPQ-53.

On the 052C, when the main PARs are in fire control tracking and locking, it may leave the Yagi, which are long wave volume search radars---an old design that you can see even in the Ludas---to do just that, as well as the much newer SR64 radar on top of the mast, to spot and cue for sea skimmers coming up the radar horizon. While the Yagi sounds old and obsolete, its long wave can better catch flying objects that are "stealthed" against the X and S bands but you have to put up with the low refresh rate. In the future, I think another PAR like the Sea-Eagle-Fregat-alikes seen on top of the 054A, might be an alternative to partner with the main PARs.

On Russian vessels with the RIF-M, and including the 051C, the Fregat would do the air search with the RIF-M PAR is doing fire control. Note that the Fregat used here is actually more advanced than the Fregats associated with the Shtil systems. The Fregat that works with the RIF-M is the MA-710 model which appears to be a full phase array with electronic shifting in both elevation and azimuth. This Fregat also equips the 051C, and so yes, the Fregat on the 051C is a step above than the models used on the 052B and 956EM.


B) HQ9 guidance is active. Most probably active radar. While it raises the cost of each missile a bit, technologically it is perfectly doable and within reach for PLA. Taiwanese skybow 2 SAM is reported to have active guidance.

Going active guidance may make the cost of the missile go up a bit, but lessens the cost and complexity of the SAM radar.

HQ-9 also has passive variant known as the FT-2000 which was once offered for export. It was because of the FT-2000 the world has its first glimpse of the HQ-9.

[adeptitus]

I know its costly, but that is the best way to fully 100% protect the entire country.

If I am not mistaken, the whole USA borders, sea and land are all protected by radar systems, to track any possible incoming enemy and targets right?

If you're referring to NORAD, it's still there and it's a mix of short-range radar, long-range radar, and assorted combat aircraft.

During Soviet times the Soviet Union's Air Defense Forces manned over 10,000 radar stations, 1,200 interceptor aircraft, & had an inventory of ~8,500 surface to air missiles deployed in over 1,000 SAM sites.

For the PRC to emulate such a network with S-300's, by the time that the deployment is complete, the system is probably obsolete.

[man overbored]

I know, PAC3 should be short ranged, but i can not find a credible source stating its range, anywhere on the net. And i like to think of myself as a decent googler. :( Figures i've seen range from 30-70 km, and even some ridiculous 200 km plus claims, which are probably mixed up with standards or something.

Speaking of standards... why would they give them such long range, especially in the sm-2 block IV version if USN didn't have means to guide those missiles to its target? I would think E-2 are capable of providing illumination of the targets, instead of ship based illuminators. They have been tested on guiding phoenixes to the target back in their days.

Bouncing off ionosphere, as far as i know, requires huge arrays. Up to 100 m long, or something like that. And, yeah, precision isn't there, but if the missile had some independent terminal guidance - it could probably be done.

The long range of Standard derives from a humongous rocket and from it's direct route of flight. No fuel is wasted in a proportional navigation engagement. If you follow a SARH missile in flight it flies around inside the cone of the signal from the guidance radar and needs a big fragmentation warhead to assure a kill when all you can assume is a near miss, not a direct hit. SM-2 is launched to a point in space guided by an on board INS unit. It flies directly to this point with no wasted energy. The AN-SPY-1 radars can function to provide mid-course guidance instructions to each missile as necessary. For the final second or less of the engagement the SPG illuminates the target to provide final semi-active guidance. The SPG's are multi-plexed in such a way that several final engagements may be accomplished similtaneously, the number depends on how closely grouped these intercepts are. In a saturation missile attack such as the Soviets envisioned there would be a veritable cloud of targets to engage, hence the need for VLS and something like Aegis with the ability to engage over 300 targets all at one time.
S-300 uses Track Via Missile guidance, not semi-active homing. It does not require a fire control radar as such, but does require multiple missile guidance channels, one per missile per engagement. S-300 and it's radars have nothing like the capability of Aegis to engage multiple targets similtaneoulsy.
If you examine Patriot PAC 3 you will notice that TVM guidance has been replaced with active radar homing. The same is true of Standard. SM-6 is due in the fleet in two years. It uses the same guidance package as AMRAAM with the control laws modified for the properties of the Standard airframe. AMRAAM itself has become an outstanding surface to air missile. The Norwegians were the first to recognize this capability, now the US Army and Marines are replacing Hawk with the surface to air version of AMRAAM called SLAMRAAM. Active radar homing frees the fire control from the limits of the number of guidance channels available or the number of fire control radars necessary to guide missiles to their targets. Now every missile will be fire and forget. Standard SM-6 will leave the launcher headed for an INS waypoint then conduct it's own search. Ditto SLAMRAAM. Russia and China have no answer for these. Not even close.
By the way, the whole article assumes these Chinese S-300 batteries even last two days. If you haven't noticed the first thing western air forces do when engaging a determined enemy is to destroy the air defense radar network. Since Kosovo the US has developed AARGM, which can track and engage enemy radars that have shut down to prevent a HARM attack, and it can track and kill moving targets. Coupled with the advanced jamming of the F/A-18G China might not have too many opportunities to use these S-300's before they are silenced.

[crobato]

I'm not sure if that is correct. Both the S-300 and the Aegis SPY require fire control radars and channels for missile guidance. The Aegis, like everything else, is limited by the number of channels you have for each missile.

First, lets clarify the term fire control radar vs. illuminators. Both terms tend to be used interchangeably, but FCR is more of a broad term that includes a radar that is capable of giving fire control quality tracking information. Basically that means the radar is illuminating the target rapidly to get a stream of returns. An illuminator is in effect, a radar flashlight. For the target, both are in fact similar, the target is getting illuminated so frequently it may appear continuous.

The S-300 needs to keep its main phase array at the targets so it can provide the missile with FQ information. Only when the missile is at terminal range will the ground unit get the relayed responses from the seeker.

The interesting thing about this is that it can be decoy proof, because ground computers are much more powerful than whatever you can put inside the missile, and they can sort out the radar returns and determine better which is the real target and which are the decoys. The ground computers can also compare data between those received from the seeker and from the ground radar.

As for AEGIS, its a basic that any missile requires a seperate channel on each own, especially if you're multiplexing at the terminal basket.

Let us say you're engaging 8 targets. You got four illuminators, and 8 missiles on the air, with 8 channels on the ship. Before each missile reaches terminal seeker range, they each have to be guided via datalink, and for each missile you must have a separate datalink channel, otherwise you don't want them to jam each other or have Missile A get instructions that were meant for Missile B.

4 missiles have reached the terminal point, and at this moment, the illuminators are fired up lighting the targets. At this point, these four missiles can leave their channels, which can leave the channels open for four new missiles to be launched. 4 targets are destroyed, another four has reached terminal range, and the illuminators switched their targets to the next four. At this point the second set of four missiles that were being midguided now go into terminal and leaves their channels.

For actively guided missiles, the principle is the same. You need datalink channels for each and every missile, and the channels are maintained until the target is at the seeker terminal range. The real difference is what is illuminating at the terminal range. The radar on the seeker does not have the same emitting power and resolving aperture compared to ship radars by magnitudes. Thus ARH missiles like SARH, require midphase help and guidance via datalink channels.

The real difference between S-300/PAC and AEGIS is that the S-300 needs to keep the channel all the way until it hits the target, where a SARH or ARH missile can leave the channel sooner so that you can rotate different missiles on the same channel faster. Now the question is whether which method, SARH or ARH, can allow the missile to leave the channels sooner.

At minimum range engagements where targets are too close, you can set the seekers to go active or start illuminating as soon as the missile bends over. At these ranges you don't need mid phase guidance since the targets are already at seeker range.

[King_Comm]

By the way, the whole article assumes these Chinese S-300 batteries even last two days. If you haven't noticed the first thing western air forces do when engaging a determined enemy is to destroy the air defense radar network. Since Kosovo the US has developed AARGM, which can track and engage enemy radars that have shut down to prevent a HARM attack, and it can track and kill moving targets. Coupled with the advanced jamming of the F/A-18G China might not have too many opportunities to use these S-300's before they are silenced.
Air defence systems can be preserved by simply not switching them on while their existence still limits freedom of action of enemy aircrafts. During Kosovar war, federal Yugoslav army did exactly that, their air defence system suffered minimal damage by remain hidden throughout the conflict, but their presence forced NATO air crafts to fly above 5000m, significantly reducing the accuracy of the bombings. And that was just small calibre AAA and legacy SAM's, for weapons like S-300, they can easily make the attackers avoid certain areas all together, and force the enemy to accompany every mission with SEAD aircrafts, limiting the frequency and scale of air strikes, while SEAD aircraft themselves may be targeted by passive guided weapons.

[man overbored]

Aegis does not use dedicated data link channels for missile guidance. TVM uses a data link to feed steering commands to each missle from the fire control unit. Aegis is nothing like this. Each missile is given a waypoint prior to launch. Once launched the missile flies to this waypoint using it's inertial navigation system. The Aegis shooter does not need to feed it steering instructions for the missile to reach this waypoint. Aegis may use link 16 to communicate a waypoint to a missile on another ship in the force however. Aegis was designed to allow non-Aegis ships to fire missiles that will be guided by the Aegis ship, thus the Aegis ship becomes more than just a guided missile platform, it is a battle management platform, and non-Aegis ships are in essence missile barges or outboard magazines for the Aegis ship. This is the reason a lot of Spruance class DD's were outfitted with VLS cells. They became magazines for the Aegis cruisers.
Aegis will then track both the targets coming in and the missiles outbound on their intercept tracks. If necessary, the AN/SPY-1 radar, not a data link but the actual radar transmitter, can communicate an updated waypoint to a missile. This is nothing like the data links necessary to send steering commands to a missile like S-300 or Patriot PAC 1 and PAC 2 which use TVM. On those the missile's antenna reads the reflections of the ground radar off the target much as a semi-active radar does but then relays this information to the ground fire control unit, which in turn reads this data and sends each missile it's steering commands. Aegis is noting like this. Each missile flies autonomously to an inertial waypoint navigating from it's on-board INS.
Only for the final fraction of a second does a fire control radar ( the SPG ) illuminate the target so the missile can complete it's intercept. On Aegis ships the illuminators can illuminate several targets at once, allowing several intercepts per illuminator. Since the illuminators are not used for the duration of each engagement but rapidly switched from target to target, several hundred engagements may be managed ( and that is the term ) at the same time since they won't all complete at exactly the same moment.
As for AARGM, it is a new seeker on the old HARM airframe that can find a radar than has been secured, even a mobile radar, and destroy it. The old tactic of shutting off the radar to avoid the anti-radiation missile will be useless. HARM in fact can hit the last known position of a radar after it has been secured, AARGM expands this to find and nail moving radars or radars that were never turned on. By the way, the Serbs lost almost all of their search radars to HARM, their air defense system was completely disabled. Nato could fly all over Serbia with impunity and lost only two aircraft in that conflict. Credit HARM shooters and the EA-6B working together as a team. Today it would be the E/F/A-18G and AARGM.

[King_Comm]

As for AARGM, it is a new seeker on the old HARM airframe that can find a radar than has been secured, even a mobile radar, and destroy it. The old tactic of shutting off the radar to avoid the anti-radiation missile will be useless. HARM in fact can hit the last known position of a radar after it has been secured, AARGM expands this to find and nail moving radars or radars that were never turned on.
And how is the AARGM suppose to know whether the radar even existed if it has never been switched on? I am not talking about switching the air defence systems on and then switch them off to avoid attacks, I am talking about not switching them on at all to keep the enemy in the dark about their number, location and technical characteristics.

By the way, the Serbs lost almost all of their search radars to HARM, their air defense system was completely disabled. Nato could fly all over Serbia with impunity and lost only two aircraft in that conflict. Credit HARM shooters and the EA-6B working together as a team. Today it would be the E/F/A-18G and AARGM.
The Serbs were forced to sacrifice some of their search radars to provide early warning inorder to protect vital targets as they did not have any passive detection systems and they did not have any home-on-jam weapons to engage SEAD aircrafts.

[crobato]

Aegis does not use dedicated data link channels for missile guidance. TVM uses a data link to feed steering commands to each missle from the fire control unit. Aegis is nothing like this. Each missile is given a waypoint prior to launch. Once launched the missile flies to this waypoint using it's inertial navigation system. The Aegis shooter does not need to feed it steering instructions for the missile to reach this waypoint.

Look, if a missile is to get an optimal flight path during midphase flight, it needs a datalink. Anything from the AMRAAM to the late model Sparrows uses a datalink. If you rely on INS alone, the CEP at terminal range would have been much larger and prone to error.

Aegis may use link 16 to communicate a waypoint to a missile on another ship in the force however. Aegis was designed to allow non-Aegis ships to fire missiles that will be guided by the Aegis ship, thus the Aegis ship becomes more than just a guided missile platform, it is a battle management platform, and non-Aegis ships are in essence missile barges or outboard magazines for the Aegis ship. This is the reason a lot of Spruance class DD's were outfitted with VLS cells. They became magazines for the Aegis cruisers.


This does not change that each missile also requires dedicated channels for illumination. You don't want all the missiles up in the air to be steered into one single illuminated target, don't you?


Aegis will then track both the targets coming in and the missiles outbound on their intercept tracks. If necessary, the AN/SPY-1 radar, not a data link but the actual radar transmitter, can communicate an updated waypoint to a missile.

This is kind of dubious, since you would have problems when you have many missiles in the air. How can the radar transmitter serve all of them? If you are dedicating one radar transmitter per missile, the bottleneck would even be more severe. If one radar transmitter has to serve all the missiles in the air, you're back to square one, since each missile needs to know which and which is really meant for each particular missile, and that means channels.


This is nothing like the data links necessary to send steering commands to a missile like S-300 or Patriot PAC 1 and PAC 2 which use TVM. On those the missile's antenna reads the reflections of the ground radar off the target much as a semi-active radar does but then relays this information to the ground fire control unit, which in turn reads this data and sends each missile it's steering commands. Aegis is noting like this. Each missile flies autonomously to an inertial waypoint navigating from it's on-board INS.

Datalink guided midphase > pure INS in terms of accuracy. This is not to mention datalink control provides for more optimum flight paths.



Only for the final fraction of a second does a fire control radar ( the SPG ) illuminate the target so the missile can complete it's intercept. On Aegis ships the illuminators can illuminate several targets at once, allowing several intercepts per illuminator.

No, the illuminator actually juggles between targets. The illuminator used in the AEGIS vessels is surprisingly simple in design, like a parabolic reflector. That means it only emits one beam at a time. That is enough because all SARH illumination only works one beam and one missile at a time regardless of what type of array you use.


Since the illuminators are not used for the duration of each engagement but rapidly switched from target to target, several hundred engagements may be managed ( and that is the term ) at the same time since they won't all complete at exactly the same moment.

Yes, that would be juggling between targets. Nonetheless you can do it with TVM too, just not as many.

[man overbored]

One interesting thing to note is that we can't see any targeting radars on 052c destroyer, which allegedly has hq9 missiles. There are two answers to that questions. A) its phased arrays work in dual bands, one for long range air surveillance, but can also quickly switch to narrow beams of higer precision wavelengths for targeting. That is something no country has implemented yet, though i've read next version of US Spy radars will have precisely that ability.

B) HQ9 guidance is active. Most probably active radar. While it raises the cost of each missile a bit, technologically it is perfectly doable and within reach for PLA. Taiwanese skybow 2 SAM is reported to have active guidance.

So, with active guidance and much newer electronics it seems safe to assume (sadly, we can only assume) HQ9 is superior to old s-300pmu. As far as later variants go... its too hard to tell. But then again, we can't even quantify the effecitveness of pmu as its never been used in combat, let alone its younger brothers.

BTW, one doesnt need defense coverage for the whole country. Having a SAM umbrella over empty fields or forests or small villages is a waste of resources. That being said, current number of around 20 s300 batteries plus handful (around 4?) hq9 batteries is still not enough. As long as hq2 needs to be used, i dont think the number will be enough.

HQ-9 doesn't have an active seeker as far as is known. The best information is that it uses Track Via Missile as with Patriot PAC-1/2 or S-300.

AN/SPY-1 can definitely beam shape. Since sweeps occur basically at the speed of light, succeeding sweeps can use different beam shapes for specific purposes. There is even a scan that can pick up artillery shells over the beach to facilitate counter battery fire ( the Marines pressed for this one after the debacle in Lebanon ), which was mainly a software development of a scan built into the original Aegis system to sweep the horizon for sea skimming missiles.

[Totoro]

Well, whatever current gen of spy radars does, next gen will do better. What i have read is that it will be able to provide continuous target illumination, so dedicated illumination radar dishes wont be needed anymore.

As for HQ9, no one knows for sure, but like i said, how do we explain its guidance on 052c destroyers? There is no visible targeting radar, whatsoever. To assume its main phased arrays are used for it is a bit too much, as it requires tech that isn't fully matured yet anywhere in the world.

[balance]

As for AARGM, it is a new seeker on the old HARM airframe that can find a radar than has been secured, even a mobile radar, and destroy it. The old tactic of shutting off the radar to avoid the anti-radiation missile will be useless. HARM in fact can hit the last known position of a radar after it has been secured, AARGM expands this to find and nail moving radars or radars that were never turned on. By the way, the Serbs lost almost all of their search radars to HARM, their air defense system was completely disabled. Nato could fly all over Serbia with impunity and lost only two aircraft in that conflict. Credit HARM shooters and the EA-6B working together as a team. Today it would be the E/F/A-18G and AARGM.[/QUOTE]

If the fighter can pick up air-defense radar signal, (except for stealth), it means that the fighter is also picked-up by the radar. When the fighter launch the anti-radiation missiles, the air-defense unit will launch their SAM. It's still anybody's game. What do you think?

[man overbored]

As for AARGM, it is a new seeker on the old HARM airframe that can find a radar than has been secured, even a mobile radar, and destroy it. The old tactic of shutting off the radar to avoid the anti-radiation missile will be useless. HARM in fact can hit the last known position of a radar after it has been secured, AARGM expands this to find and nail moving radars or radars that were never turned on. By the way, the Serbs lost almost all of their search radars to HARM, their air defense system was completely disabled. Nato could fly all over Serbia with impunity and lost only two aircraft in that conflict. Credit HARM shooters and the EA-6B working together as a team. Today it would be the E/F/A-18G and AARGM.

If the fighter can pick up air-defense radar signal, (except for stealth), it means that the fighter is also picked-up by the radar. When the fighter launch the anti-radiation missiles, the air-defense unit will launch their SAM. It's still anybody's game. What do you think?[/QUOTE]

No my friend, the amount of energy returning to a radar is always much lower than the energy of the signal striking the target. The target always has the advantage this way. It will be able, assuming the correct RWR is fitted, to detect an enemy radar long before the enemy radar detects the target.
Regarding Aegis, the SPG's can split their beam. Are you familiar with a rosette scan? The technique resembles this, a single dish can create multiple lobes, each lobe illuminating a different target. Since the actual time the SPG needs to illuminate the target is minimal, it is switched rapidly ( under a second ) from target to target, as long as their are targets available on the azimuth it is pointing. In a saturation missile attack this is assumed.
I repeat, Aegis does not use a data link. The inertial nav is more than sufficient to get the missle close enough to the target for semi active terminal homing to work. You have to keep in mind this radar scans at almost the speed of light, meaning each panel can complete literally thousands of task in a single second, as fast as the on board electronics can process data and operate the radar system. No data link is needed and the Aegis battle management system can guide several hundred missiles at one time this way. This is absolutely nothing like TVM.

[balance]

No my friend, the amount of energy returning to a radar is always much lower than the energy of the signal striking the target. The target always has the advantage this way. It will be able, assuming the correct RWR is fitted, to detect an enemy radar long before the enemy radar detects the target. Quote

The Anti-radiation missile, once launched, will be detected by the radar. And the SAM will be launched, but instead of hitting the plane, it hits the missile. I don't think that the missile will be faster than the supersonic fighter itself.

[man overbored]

The missile is much faster than any fighter. Phoenix for example was a mach 5 plus missile. HARM and AARGM are very large and fast missiles. As for the missile battery detecting and firing at the incoming anti-radiation missile, this so far has never happened. Such missions are accompanied by jamming aircraft such as a Rivet Joint or EA-6. The enemy radars are thoroughly disrupted during SEAD missions. It really isn't pretty what happens. If you look back in history, in the 1982 Bekka Valley campaign the Israeli's destroyed all but two Syrian radars in two days of combat over Lebanon. The Syrians did not even launch their aircraft the first day so certain were they of the capabilities of their systems ( after all, they had Soviet Army personnel operating these ). They were shocked how the Israeli's were able to demolish their radars. Once the radar was down, an F-16 soon appeared to bomb the actual missile batteries. The second day the Syrian Air Force took to the skies and quickly lost around 52 aircraft in a single day. Some of these had Soviet pilots, at least the recordings of them talking with their controllers was in good Russian. The Israeli method was clever. Send a small drone over the radar to get it's attention. This located the missile site. The Israeli's then ground launched Standard ARM missiles which homed in on the radiation of the SA-6's guidance radar destroying the radar site. Then the F-16 swooped in for the kill on the missiles themselves.
The US/Nato practice is to use specialized EW aircraft to jam the crap out of enemy radars so they do not see our incoming aircraft. Wild Weasel fighters can then launch anti-radiation missiles at the radar sites. If they shut off HARM remembers the last location of the emitter and homes on that, usually doing enough damage to disable the radar. AARGM will actually find radars even when turned off, and will take out moving targets as well. SEAD is one of the great strengths of our tactics. If you look at wars after 1973 there are few occasions were modern ground based air defenses have succeeded in deterring our air forces. Integrated ground based air defense systems are not very useful against a well equipped modern air force.

[crobato]

I repeat, Aegis does not use a data link. The inertial nav is more than sufficient to get the missle close enough to the target for semi active terminal homing to work. You have to keep in mind this radar scans at almost the speed of light, meaning each panel can complete literally thousands of task in a single second, as fast as the on board electronics can process data and operate the radar system. No data link is needed and the Aegis battle management system can guide several hundred missiles at one time this way. This is absolutely nothing like TVM.

Only in close range. The farther the missile goes, the more you need a datalink which provides the midrange updates. Anytime you talk about midcourse updates, you need a datalink. A datalink does not necessarily mean a continuous data feed but you do need a digital radio channel that is open all times so it can receive the updates anytime in flight. Keep in mind that no matter how capable your radar is and what it is doing, as long as the missile is blind it does not mean anything. INS is just blind preset navigation, it does not compensate for evasive targets.

In fact, future plans for the Standard missile include hand offs to other platforms like AWACS or to other ships. That requires a datalink or a radio channel. So will if the Standard will use the AMRAAM seeker for future ARH guided variants.


http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=2200&tid=1200&ct=2

US Navy Fact File Logo
Standard Missile

Description
Medium-long range shipboard surface-to-air missile.

Background
STANDARD Missile 2 (SM-2) is the world's premier surface-to-air air defense weapon. It is an integral part of the AEGIS Weapon System (AWS) aboard Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and is launched from the MK 41 Vertical Launcher System (VLS) in US service. Its primary mission is fleet area air defense and ship self defense, but it also has demonstrated an extended area air defense projection capability and it has a secondary anti-surface ship mission. SM-2s use tail controls and a solid fuel rocket motor for propulsion and maneuverability and, in addition, extended range missiles have a booster with thrust vector controls. All are guided by inertial navigation and mid-course commands from AWS, and semi-active radar or an IR sensor for terminal homing.

SM-2 Blocks III, IIIA, IIIB, and IV are in service with the U.S. Navy; these and other variants of Standard Missile are also in service with thirteen allied navies.

SM-6, the Extended Range Active Missile, will provide a transformational enabler to the U.S. Navy to revolutionize Naval Warfare. Combining an AMRAAM active seeker onto the proven STANDARD Missile airframe, SM-6 will provide an extended range anti-air warfare capability both over sea and overland. This low-risk approach relying on Non-Developmental Items will support a FY 2010 IOC. With integrated fire control, SM-6 will provide the surface Navy with an increased battlespace against AAW threats over-the-horizon, taking full advantage of the kinematics available to STANDARD Missile.

[crobato]

If the fighter can pick up air-defense radar signal, (except for stealth), it means that the fighter is also picked-up by the radar. When the fighter launch the anti-radiation missiles, the air-defense unit will launch their SAM. It's still anybody's game. What do you think?

What is anyone's game is when ground search radars and SAM radars start to use LPI techniques like frequency agile spread spectrum and pulse compression on the search radar, as well as very tight beam patterns with very little sidelobes or active sidelobe cancellation on the fire control radar. To explain the latter, SEAD aircraft depends on the target radar's sidelobs in order to detect the target. The HARM also depends on these sidelobs to gain a seek on.

Now the only time the radar is detected by the hunting aircraft is when a tight beam is already directly illuminating the aircraft. That's the good news---it can still be ultimately detected. The bad news is that a SAM is already on its way.

When it comes to the next generation of radars, the SEAD tactics have to seriously change.

[balance]

The missile is much faster than any fighter. Phoenix for example was a mach 5 plus missile. HARM and AARGM are very large and fast missiles. As for the missile battery detecting and firing at the incoming anti-radiation missile, this so far has never happened. Such missions are accompanied by jamming aircraft such as a Rivet Joint or EA-6. The enemy radars are thoroughly disrupted during SEAD missions. It really isn't pretty what happens. If you look back in history, in the 1982 Bekka Valley campaign the Israeli's destroyed all but two Syrian radars in two days of combat over Lebanon. The Syrians did not even launch their aircraft the first day so certain were they of the capabilities of their systems ( after all, they had Soviet Army personnel operating these ). They were shocked how the Israeli's were able to demolish their radars. Once the radar was down, an F-16 soon appeared to bomb the actual missile batteries. The second day the Syrian Air Force took to the skies and quickly lost around 52 aircraft in a single day. Some of these had Soviet pilots, at least the recordings of them talking with their controllers was in good Russian. The Israeli method was clever. Send a small drone over the radar to get it's attention. This located the missile site. The Israeli's then ground launched Standard ARM missiles which homed in on the radiation of the SA-6's guidance radar destroying the radar site. Then the F-16 swooped in for the kill on the missiles themselves.
The US/Nato practice is to use specialized EW aircraft to jam the crap out of enemy radars so they do not see our incoming aircraft. Wild Weasel fighters can then launch anti-radiation missiles at the radar sites. If they shut off HARM remembers the last location of the emitter and homes on that, usually doing enough damage to disable the radar. AARGM will actually find radars even when turned off, and will take out moving targets as well. SEAD is one of the great strengths of our tactics. If you look at wars after 1973 there are few occasions were modern ground based air defenses have succeeded in deterring our air forces. Integrated ground based air defense systems are not very useful against a well equipped modern air force.

Good information. But if we take radars such as JY-11, YLC-8 (as found in sinodefence.com) which has anti-jamming capability, does it make difference?

[Pointblank]

If the fighter can pick up air-defense radar signal, (except for stealth), it means that the fighter is also picked-up by the radar. When the fighter launch the anti-radiation missiles, the air-defense unit will launch their SAM. It's still anybody's game. What do you think?

No, because the air-launched missile has more energy through the virtue it was launched from a fast moving launcher, imparting speed, and from a higher altitude. A SAM is launched from zero-zero; it starts not moving and on the ground and has to power its way up to gain speed and altitude, while the air-launched missile is just picking up speed through trading altitude for velocity, and gaining speed with a engine itself.

[man overbored]

Ok, several points to make. First there is still a misunderstanding about the difference between the data link used for TVM and how Aegis communicates mid course guidance. TVM uses a discrete channel for each missile. To guide S-300 to it's target, the missile senses the reflected energy off the target and relays this information to the fire control unit via a data link. The fire control unit takes this data and data on target course and speed from the fire control radar and computes the intercept solution, then relays steering commands back to the missile. Aegis does do this. Each SM-2 flies to coordinates loaded into it's INS by the Aegis system. It is not receiving continuous communication. Also you have to remember that each AN/SPY-1 panel scans at very close to the speed of light, allowing each panel to accomplish literally thousands of tasks per second. Each scan used can be shaped differently to accomplish different things, such as an air scan for the anti-air engagement, sensing both the incoming aircraft and the outgoing missiles followed by a differently shaped scan to find sea skimming missiles. All of this data is sensed and correlated into an integrated battle space picture. If the Aegis decides the outgoing SM-2 needs some mid course guidance correction the AN/SPY-1 antenna, not a data link, but the actual radar antenna, accomplishes the communication to the missile of the mid course correction mentioned in the Navy Factfile. This is not a data link in the traditional sense, it is a discrete burst of data sent to one missile, not a two way communication as in a TVM scheme or CLOS like HQ-7, Crotale or Barak. Since the AN/SPY-1 is so fast, it can perform many different scans and communicate mid course guidance commands to hundreds of outgoing missiles at one time, literally doing a thousand tasks each second. It is an amazing system that even after thirty years of service has no close analog anywhere else.
Whew, ok now on to SEAD missions. SEAD, now renamed DEAD for Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses does not go after the fire control radars. DEAD attacks the area search radars. Consider this, a fire control radar cannot find it's own target. If the search radar is take out, the missile battery is blind, it cannot find a target to illuminate. DEAD missions destroy search radars. Ergo, the comment that by the time the HARM senses the enemy radar the missile is on the way is invalid. The fire control radar is never in play. A DEAD mission with Wild Weasel strike aircraft and EW aircraft like the EA-6B will sense the emissions of an enemy search radar at some distance before the enemy radar senses the incoming strike. This is an unaviodable consequence of physics. The energy reaching the aircraft is always greater than the energy reflected back to the radar. A rough rule of thumb is that an aircraft will sense a radar with it's RWR at about a 50% greater range than the radar will detect the incoming aircraft. A DEAD mission exploits this. Once a radar is located we jam the crap out of it while the Wild Weasel aircraft goes in for the kill. By then it is too late for the radar because even if the radar operator senses the jamming and shuts down ( a common tactic as far back as the Vietnam war and used routinely by the Serbs ) the HARM already knows the location of the site and flies there. It is accurate enough that the big warhead on HARM does disabling damage to the search radar. Now, with the seach radar down other aircraft take out the missile battery and fire control system with more conventional oridinance. The EW aircraft is more than capable of dealing with any of the forms of frequency agility and spread spectrum schemes used by threat radars.
This brings up my last point. Our Elint and intel is so good we have for many decades built duplicates of threat systems and used these both for very high fidelity training and to test new systems and tactics out by our R&D people. I am going to show you a couple of web pages that describe Echo Range out a China Lake. Out here we have installed exact copies we built of the many threat systems we have faced over the decades. This is accomplished using high quality photos of threat systems, careful analysis of the emissions profiles of these systems from data obtained by careful Elint using the Rivet Joint, EP-3, submarines, satellites and some ground monitoring. Scientists can correlate this data and knowing the physics and engineering of radars can basically reverse engineer a copy of an enemy system. As far back as the early 1980's there was a ridge out at China Lake were we had exact duplicates of Soviet naval radars. This was not equipment stolen from the Egyptians as with SA-6, but our own back engineered copies. If you look closely at this photo, now in the public domain, you can see from right to left a Peel Group SA-N-1 fire control radar, a Head Lights ( facing away, you are seeing the back side ) SA-N-3 fire control radar , Bass Tilt fire control radar on a tall pedestal, and a Head Net C air search radar on the tripod. A little later we added a Top Steer to the collection, and you know we didn't swipe one from a Soviet cruiser, it is our own copy.

http://www.nawcwpns.navy.mil/clmf/echo.html

Next up is a little early history of Echo Range just to give you a flavor of how we accomplish these things.

http://techdigest.jhuapl.edu/td2104/williamson.pdf

You have no idea just how good we are at this. Oh, btw, since the Greek Army, a Nato allie own about two dozen Tor-1M batteries and the Cypriot Army has S-300 both of these systems must be considered thoroughly compromised. We know all of their properties by now.

[balance]

Does the defending army just have one radar around the site? Suppose that the defender turn on one radar and it is destroyed by HARM, then you know that the enemy is within your territory. So, when the second radar is turned on, and searching the perimeter, chances are they will find something in return. Since the attacker use hardened method like electronic warfare craft and fighters, then the defender should have hardened defense, such as: anti-jamming radar, dummy SAM, multiple radars with not all of them turned on at the same time.
Do these hardened increase the survivability of the defender's air-defense equipments?
Anyway, in real battle situation, it's not just HARM vs SAM because you also add electronic counter-measure and other things. When you factor in these things, then our conversation becomes broader and more comprehensive, and it should spill into other areas of warfare as well.

[man overbored]

In actual combat these tactics have not improved the surviveability of Russian built systems. Nato/US use heavy area wide jamming, so even if a previously secured radar is lit off it is of limited value to the defender. Some anti-radiation missiles and I won't say which can loiter and attack new emitters as they emerge. Jamming is not a problem, there are "home on jam" modes built in to allow the missile to home directly on the jamming emission ( the same has been true of certain air to air missiles as well ). The latest anti-radiation missiles carry multiple sensors to find and home on enemy radars. Anyway, it is not HARM or AARGM vs the SAM, it is HARM or AARGM vs the search radars. With the search radars silenced the SAM's are useless. The Serbs didn't loose every single search radar, but they lost so many they stopped using their remaining radars except in very brief and ineffective bursts. The reality was Nato was free to use all of the sky over Serbia above 12,000 ft ( out of the Manpad envelope ) and Nato lost only two aircraft during that campaign. That is a more than acceptable trade off.

[balance]

If we factor in anti-jamming radar, how does it play against the HARM?

[man overbored]

If the radar is on, HARM will find it. If it was on and is secured, HARM flies to the last spot the radar was detected. AARGM has seekers that allow it to find even a moving radar, secured or not. Most missiles have some feature to allow home on jam. As for enemy radars being immune from jamming, so far none has been developed. We or the Israeli's have been successful in jamming every radar we encounter. Keep in mind my earlier post on Echo Range. This is a big deal for the US military, being able to keep up on emerging threat systems. If you know the characteristics of a radar you can develop a jammer. If a previously unknown system emerges during combat it will not be able to be jammed for a period of time, usually only months however, as the scientists and engineers design and build the necessary jammers. Keep in mind that as soon as a radar is used, it can be studied by Elint. The only way to prevent a radar's properties from being collected by an Elint platform is to never use the radar. Back in the 1950's we used to fly aircraft right up to the edges of Soviet airspace to get them to light us up so we could study the emissions. The EP-3 that was bumped by the PLAAF fighter was observing the PLAN's new Sovremmeny and one must assume studying it's emissions to see if the PLAN received any interesting new equipment. This is part of how you confirm the equipment fit on an adversary's combat ship.

[lilzz]

I repeat, Aegis does not use a data link. The inertial nav is more than sufficient to get the missle close enough to the target for semi active terminal homing to work. .


inertial guidance without updating through datalink?? by the time your interceptor missile launched and traveled and reached the original point where your radar first spot the target, the target is long past that point already especially against hypersonic missiles like Brahmos. Man ,those puppies are traveling close to Mach4.


well, the space availability inside a small missile like SeaRAM is going small therefore all you can have is limited radar inside your missile.
/w such weak radar how you suppose to chase down a stealth missle?

[Scratch]

well, the space availability inside a small missile like SeaRAM is going small therefore all you can have is limited radar inside your missile.
/w such weak radar how you suppose to chase down a stealth missle?

The RAM does not use an active radar seeker at all, (in SeaRAM it's cued by the radar that you also find on the Phalanx) so it does not need to have a big radar, since it doesn't have to emitt radar energy.
It only homes in on the radar signal of the AShMs seeker (I'm not sure if it can also home in on relfected signals from shipboard radars) or from block I on uses an additional IR seeker if the target is "silent".

[balance]

What is anyone's game is when ground search radars and SAM radars start to use LPI techniques like frequency agile spread spectrum and pulse compression on the search radar, as well as very tight beam patterns with very little sidelobes or active sidelobe cancellation on the fire control radar. To explain the latter, SEAD aircraft depends on the target radar's sidelobs in order to detect the target. The HARM also depends on these sidelobs to gain a seek on.

Now the only time the radar is detected by the hunting aircraft is when a tight beam is already directly illuminating the aircraft. That's the good news---it can still be ultimately detected. The bad news is that a SAM is already on its way.

When it comes to the next generation of radars, the SEAD tactics have to seriously change.

Now, do both NATO and China have LPI radar in operation?

[crobato]

Ok, several points to make. First there is still a misunderstanding about the difference between the data link used for TVM and how Aegis communicates mid course guidance. TVM uses a discrete channel for each missile. To guide S-300 to it's target, the missile senses the reflected energy off the target and relays this information to the fire control unit via a data link. The fire control unit takes this data and data on target course and speed from the fire control radar and computes the intercept solution, then relays steering commands back to the missile. Aegis does do this. Each SM-2 flies to coordinates loaded into it's INS by the Aegis system. It is not receiving continuous communication. Also you have to remember that each AN/SPY-1 panel scans at very close to the speed of light, allowing each panel to accomplish literally thousands of tasks per second. Each scan used can be shaped differently to accomplish different things, such as an air scan for the anti-air engagement, sensing both the incoming aircraft and the outgoing missiles followed by a differently shaped scan to find sea skimming missiles. All of this data is sensed and correlated into an integrated battle space picture. If the Aegis decides the outgoing SM-2 needs some mid course guidance correction the AN/SPY-1 antenna, not a data link, but the actual radar antenna, accomplishes the communication to the missile of the mid course correction mentioned in the Navy Factfile. This is not a data link in the traditional sense, it is a discrete burst of data sent to one missile, not a two way communication as in a TVM scheme or CLOS like HQ-7, Crotale or Barak. Since the AN/SPY-1 is so fast, it can perform many different scans and communicate mid course guidance commands to hundreds of outgoing missiles at one time, literally doing a thousand tasks each second. It is an amazing system that even after thirty years of service has no close analog anywhere else.

Thank you I'm quite happy with this explanation. I helps clarify many things. Still even a discrete burst should have a unique channel or ID on its own, so only the right missile will get it.

[crobato]

Now, do both NATO and China have LPI radar in operation?

Some of the Chinese warning radars being marketed for export are not outrightly saying they are LPI but they have mentioned frequency agility, which is another way to say spread spectrum, pulse compression and low sidelobes, in their brochures.

[man overbored]

RAM uses a dual mode seeker. It has a passive RF sensor that can track the emissions of an active homing seeker, and it has an IR seeker that is extremely good at discriminating a low flier from surface reflections. Very very good.
Brahmos and all the other high mach surface skimmers are way over rated. For one thing they are not as fast on the deck as they are at 40,000 feet. Any missile at 40,000 ft will be nailed by a Standard SM-2. On the deck these same missiles are far slower, maybe mach 1.5 and their fuel burn at such low altitudes is hideous. Keep in mind the USN operated Kh-31 Kryptons we bought from the Russians without warheads and converted these to target drones ( the Russians do exactly the same thing ). We also bought their launch rails. The launch rails had to go, they were unsafe. If you tried to jettison the missile in an emergency the pigtail would not disconnect, causing a whole bunch of potentially fatal damage to the airplane. If you watch in flight videos of them the rails and the missile wobbles on the F/A-18's wing. In our experience we could not get more than 15nm out of them when launched at low altitude. By then RAM would have engaged the launch aircraft!
Two other problems with these high mach missiles. Number one, "sea skimming" for MA-31 ( as the drone was called ) and 3M80 Moskit is 15 meters. No, not 15 feet but 15 meters. That really isn't very low. Exocet and Harpoon manage a two meter cruise. The second weakness of high mach missiles is that they glow like the sun to an IR seeker. Ever wonder why we put an outboard IR sensor on CIWS? Ever wonder why most BMD kill vehicles use IR seekers? Fast missiles are hot. RAM is more than capable of dealing with modern high mach sea skimmers.
Just in case you are wondering, the USN replaced Krypton with something actually faster and lower flying for our training. it's made in Sacramento California by Orbital Sciences and is called Coyote ( like Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, it always gets blown up ).

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-163.html

This is a tough target. Any resemblance to 3M80 is entirely deliberate.


You can see some photo's of this system fired from a QF-4 Phantom out of Point Mugu, and see the real thing on genuine US Navy yellow gear. We had 'em, they were not very good. Boeing offered to make some mods to bring them up to our needs but the Russian Navy people who came to California to hear Boeing's were in no mood to hear some Americans tell them how to improve their missile.

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/ma-31.html

The 27nm range figure is for a high altitude launch. A low altitude launch ate into fuel so much that the best we could obtain was 16nm. Such short ranges would force the attacking aircraft to fly through literally hundreds of miles of USN air defense to reach it's launch point. Russian missiles are over rated.
Now a subsonic small sea skimmer with little IR signature and a very low altitude that allows the missile to be lost in surface clutter, one that navigates to it's target area on it inertial nav, one that doesn't turn on it's search radar until the final seconds of the attack, something like Harpoon is a completely different story. This missile is very hard to find and shoot down.

[crobato]

This is a tough target. Any resemblance to 3M80 is entirely deliberate.

The design is entirely functional, it does not matter how it looks, so long as it works.

Take a look at the ROC's HF-3 supersonic missile. There are also similarities of this design to the Kh-31 and 3M80. Its all function deciding form.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsiung_Feng_III

Here is a drone that predates Kh-31 and the Coyotes. Note the similarities once again.

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/alvrj.html

Here is an interesting PDF that shows the evolution of ramjet missiles.

http://www.jhuapl.edu/techdigest/td1802/waltrup.pdf

Note Figure 3 and Figure 7.

Of course the other school of ramjet design wants a circular nose, like the Talos missile shown here. Brahmos has gone to this form too.

[man overbored]

ACIMD almost replaced Phoenix but the USAF wasn't interested in it. One example sits at the Naval Ordinance Museum at China Lake. I knew about the ALVRJ but never saw a photo of it. That is very interesting indeed. I wonder if the development of that spooked the Soviet Navy into building Sunburn?
There is a funny story in that museum about the AA-11 missile and Agile. Agile was a 1970's program to develop a thrust vectored IR missile that used a helmet mounted sight. Sound familiar? Well the program was cancelled but the Soviets didn't believe it. They thought the program went black. Fearing the potential of this missile they developed AA-11. This never raised an eyebrow over here until Germany reunified. The Luftwaffe received AA-11's with the MiG-29's that came with East Germany. After testing them the Germans called to tell us we have a problem. AA-11 was outstanding. The result was the rapid development of AIM-9X with thrust vectoring and a helmet mounted sight.

http://www.ronintv.com/USAF%CE%E2%80%98%CE%E2%84%A2%CE%C5%939%CE%A7Sidewi derthenextgenerationmissile__1LxhLMiRklQ.html

[Roger604]

The US/Nato practice is to use specialized EW aircraft to jam the crap out of enemy radars so they do not see our incoming aircraft. Wild Weasel fighters can then launch anti-radiation missiles at the radar sites. If they shut off HARM remembers the last location of the emitter and homes on that, usually doing enough damage to disable the radar. AARGM will actually find radars even when turned off, and will take out moving targets as well. SEAD is one of the great strengths of our tactics. If you look at wars after 1973 there are few occasions were modern ground based air defenses have succeeded in deterring our air forces. Integrated ground based air defense systems are not very useful against a well equipped modern air force.

This is clearly influenced by a lot of propaganda. Even if the attacking aircraft can detect the presence of search radars, they cannot know precisely where they are until they are close enough for SAMs to hit them.

And how are EW and wild weasel aircraft any use against any opponent with home-on-jam missiles? It's as if you think the US can simply flip a switch on an EW aircraft and turn enemy radars non-functional. This is such a silly and childish view.

Clearly, a robust ground-based air defense can easily detect, track and engage any aircraft in the US inventory (although F-22 would be quite difficult). Slow moving EW aircraft would simply be easy pickings for home-on-jam SAM's. This is why in the real world, the US is quite wary of regional powers like China building robust, multi-layered air defenses -- they can't take it down with air power alone.

[Scratch]

Through triangulation by EW/ECR aircraft, you get a pretty precise location of a radar, even though it's still some distance away.
And you don't need to exactly pinpoint it, an anti-radiation missile "just" needs to be in range and have a rough fix.
If the radar doesn't turn off short after launch, it's pretty hard to evade that missile.
Also, if you have two or more EW aircraft, wich jam alternatingly, the HoJ missile will jump back and forth between those and might pretty well get confused.

Of course modern SAMs are dangerous assets to all modern aricraft and SEAD/ DEAD is a difficoult and dangerous job. But HoJ e.g. doesn't make wild weasel helpless.

[man overbored]

This is clearly influenced by a lot of propaganda. Even if the attacking aircraft can detect the presence of search radars, they cannot know precisely where they are until they are close enough for SAMs to hit them.

And how are EW and wild weasel aircraft any use against any opponent with home-on-jam missiles? It's as if you think the US can simply flip a switch on an EW aircraft and turn enemy radars non-functional. This is such a silly and childish view.

Clearly, a robust ground-based air defense can easily detect, track and engage any aircraft in the US inventory (although F-22 would be quite difficult). Slow moving EW aircraft would simply be easy pickings for home-on-jam SAM's. This is why in the real world, the US is quite wary of regional powers like China building robust, multi-layered air defenses -- they can't take it down with air power alone.


It's a team effort. The E-8 and Rivet Joint can loiter well outside the battle space, and beyond any SAM threat to identify and classify threat radars. They can be located well enough to bring an F-16J into contact with the radar site. This is not propaganda, but how it was actually done over Kosovo. The Serbs did not illuminate very often since they knew that if they stayed on more than 20 seconds they risked eating a HARM. This forced Nato to fly HARMS on the wings of certain strike aircraft instead of strike ordinance in case there was a "pop up" target that illuminated the strike. Do not forget it takes time for the radar system to acquire and lock a strike aircraft. The seeker on the HARM missile tells the pilot there is a threat and locks on that threat. All the pilot needs to do once he or she has the indication is to launch. If the radar stayed on long enough HARM will fly to that point in space and explode. AARGM can locate and follow a moving target even when the radar is off, it has several seekers built into it. It is a game of cat and mouse however. If the radar is not on long enough then HARM many not obtain a lock, but then the SAM site cannot obtain a lock either. In general, a HARM can be fired before a SAM site can lock and fire. Now once the SAM is in the air it becomes a game of chicken. For a SAHR or TVM missile like S-300, the radar site must remain on for the duration of the engagement, making for an easy target for the HARM. Does the SAM site shut off and loose this engagement or continue and guarantee a HARM hit? Generally the SAM site shuts down, but now the HARM will fly to the last known location of that emitter. Boom. Usually this is close enough to disable the radar antenna if nothing else. The site will be down for repairs but this may be an opportunity for a bombing run if such an asset is readily available. Sometimes there is no bomb equipped aircraft available and the F-16J doesn't carry the LANTRIN pod to do that mission itself. Once the radar shuts off the SAM they launched lacks guidance and goes astray.
The Serb's radars were so well suppressed they resorted to firing hundreds of SAM's blindly in salvos without guidance. None of these hit a Nato aircraft. When jamming aircraft like an EA-6 flew with the strike aircraft, Serbian radars that lit off would not see useful targeting data, but even with jamming, if that radar stayed on for more than twenty seconds it was toast. This is the value of having jammers in the strike package. With enough time a really skilled radar operator might work around some jamming, but that would leave the radar on far too long and draw a HARM strike.
Over Baghdad, the Iraqi's left their radars on the first night and lost literally hundreds. Rivet Joint located radars from afar while EA-6's and EF-111's jammed them so that F-16J's could attack with HARM. The Iraqi's did not shut down when they sensed jamming, If they sensed jamming ( a skilled operator will know their radar is being jammed ). Once the radar is down Strike Eagles could attack the battery and command trailer with Maverick and iron bombs. Now we would also use stand off weapons like JSOW. Over Serbia the Serbs seldom emitted, so Nato had to devote more sorties to the SEAD mission. Nonetheless the Serbs, using their radars sparingly lost most of their dedicated search radars and only managed to knock down two aircraft in the entire engagement. Effectively they had no defense against Nato aircraft, and Nato was able to use their airspace above 12,000 relatively freely.

[balance]

[QUOTE=man overbored;83364]It's a team effort. The E-8 and Rivet Joint can loiter well outside the battle space, and beyond any SAM threat to identify and classify threat radars.

What is the data you have to support the conclusion that E-8 and Rivet Joint can stay within the range of their operation, and not in the range of any known
SAM? In other words, they can detect enemy's radar, but enemy's radar or SAM cannot detect or shoot them?

[Pointblank]

[QUOTE=man overbored;83364]It's a team effort. The E-8 and Rivet Joint can loiter well outside the battle space, and beyond any SAM threat to identify and classify threat radars.

What is the data you have to support the conclusion that E-8 and Rivet Joint can stay within the range of their operation, and not in the range of any known
SAM? In other words, they can detect enemy's radar, but enemy's radar or SAM cannot detect or shoot them?

Because the general rule is that passive sensors have more range (significantly) over active ones.

[lilzz]

Rivet Joint located radars from afar while EA-6's and EF-111's jammed them so that F-16J's could attack with HARM. The Iraqi's did not shut down when they sensed jamming, If they sensed jamming ( a skilled operator will know their radar is being jammed ). Once the radar is down Strike Eagles could attack the battery and command trailer with Maverick and iron bombs. .

Isn't the S-300 radar is quite mobile. IT not really a SAM site.
HARM? It's liable to be intercepted by missile also.

[balance]

[QUOTE=balance;83371]

Because the general rule is that passive sensors have more range (significantly) over active ones.

Those jamming aircrafts, I assume, are giving out (false) active sensors. In my understanding, it's still active, not passive.

[man overbored]

Isn't the S-300 radar is quite mobile. IT not really a SAM site.
HARM? It's liable to be intercepted by missile also.

Correct. S-300 can be moved from place to place but must be stationary to fire. HARM could attack these positions while they are stationary but not attack a moving target. AARGM is designed to attack moving targets and is tested to do so.

Here is some information about Rivet Joint. As you can see it can stand well off from the battle space, as much as 240km from the action, to locate and classify threat radars and relay this data real time to combat forces. Don't foget these operate in conjunction with the E-8 and U-2 with side looking radar to construct an accurate three dimensional picture of the battlespace.

http://ftp.fas.org/irp/program/collect/rivet_joint.htm

http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=121

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001948.html

http://www.beanerbanner.com/BB%202/secrets_of_war.htm

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/special.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/senior_troupe.htm

http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=10330

This explains the equipment on the F-16J and some of the interaction of this asset with Rivet Joint. Rivet Joint can give the F-16J and other HARM shooters very good location and classification data on threat radars that need to be attacked.

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_versions_article9.html

Ok, last link. This is the best one. It discusses the modes of operation of HARM, shows it's several different flight profiles and discusses how Rivet Joint evolved from it's strictly strategis recce mission to battle space support for HARM shooters and others and discusses how Rivet Joint vectors HARM shooters to their targets.

http://www.ausairpower.net/API-AGM-88-HARM.html

Ok, I have to get some work done :-)

[lilzz]

Correct. S-300 can be moved from place to place but must be stationary to fire. HARM could attack these positions while they are stationary but not attack a moving target. AARGM is designed to attack moving targets and is tested to do so.

Here is some information about Rivet Joint.

You are assuming Rivet Joint's radar is superior to the S-300 radar. What if S-300 radar can see you first. Such slow moving plane probably has no chance if got discovered first.

Long range low frequency antenas are added to the S-300. I suspect it should detect the Rivet Joint plane first.

[balance]

What is anyone's game is when ground search radars and SAM radars start to use LPI techniques like frequency agile spread spectrum and pulse compression on the search radar, as well as very tight beam patterns with very little sidelobes or active sidelobe cancellation on the fire control radar. To explain the latter, SEAD aircraft depends on the target radar's sidelobs in order to detect the target. The HARM also depends on these sidelobs to gain a seek on.

Now the only time the radar is detected by the hunting aircraft is when a tight beam is already directly illuminating the aircraft. That's the good news---it can still be ultimately detected. The bad news is that a SAM is already on its way.

When it comes to the next generation of radars, the SEAD tactics have to seriously change.

Are these two radars the one that you might refer to when you talk about LPI radars? (Well, at least in PLA inventory)

Sino Defence.com
JY-11 LOW-ALTITUDE 3D AIR SURVEILLANCE RADAR
(Last updated 10 September 2006)
The JY-11 is a full-solid state, frequency-scan low-/medium-altitude 3D air surveillance radar developed by China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) 38th Institute of Hebei, Anhui Province. The S-band radar system is designed to detect and track targets at low-altitude and provide target information for air defence weapon systems. It can be used as a stand-along system, or as a part of a multi-sensor air defence weapon network. The whole system comprises three transportable units with the capability of fast automatic assembling and dissembling.

The JY-11 achieves azimuth scanning by mechanical rotation of its radar antenna, and vertical scanning by electronic frequency phase scanning. The radar antenna creates multiple scanning beams with different operating frequencies and elevation angles in an instantaneous vertical plane. The radar also features low pulse peak power and ultra low SL level, thus reducing the possibility of being detected by enemy radar warning receivers and anti-radiation weapon systems.


YLC-8 LONG-RANGE AIR SURVEILLANCE RADAR
(Last updated 24 September 2006)
The YLC-8 is a VHF-band metre wave long-range surveillance radar designed for medium- to high-altitude long-range surveillance and early warning roles. It can also be used for short- to medium-range target acquisition role. The system adopts the coherent pulse compression and mono-pulse amplitude-comparison height-finding technology, and is said to have strong counter-clutter and anti-jamming abilities.

[balance]

[QUOTE=man overbored;83433]Correct. S-300 can be moved from place to place but must be stationary to fire. HARM could attack these positions while they are stationary but not attack a moving target. AARGM is designed to attack moving targets and is tested to do so.

Another question about this is the LPI radar. From Wikipedia, S-300 is said to have LPI capability. And LPI will make it difficult for the Radar Warning or Jamming Aircraft to pinpoint the radar's location exactly.

A low-probability-of-intercept radar (LPIR) is designed to be difficult to detect by passive radar-detection equipment (such as a radar warning receiver - RWR) while it is searching for or tracking a target. This characteristic is desirable because it allows finding and tracking an opponent without alerting them to the radar's presence.

Ways of reducing the profile of a radar include using wider-frequency bandwidth (wideband), frequency hopping, using a frequency-modulated, continuous-wave signal, and using only the minimum power required for the task. Using pulse compression also reduces the probability of detection, since the peak transmitted power is lower while the range and resolution is the same.

Constructing a radar so as to emit minimal side and back lobes may also reduce the probability of interception when it is not pointing at the radar warning receiver. However, when the radar is sweeping a large volume of space for targets, it is likely that the main lobe will repeatedly be pointing at the RWR. Modern phased-array radars not only control their side lobes, they also use very thin, fast moving beams of energy in complicated search patterns. This technique may be enough to confuse the RWR so it does not recognize the radar as a threat, even if the signal itself is detected. All military EM emitters, including fighter aircraft, naval ships, and missile systems are designed for reduced electromagnetic profiles for improved stealth.

In addition to stealth considerations, reducing side and back lobes is desirable as it makes the radar more difficult to characterise. This can increase the difficulty in determining which type it is (concealing information about the carrying platform) and make it much harder to jam.

Systems which feature LPIR include modern AESA radars such as that on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the electronically steered phased array on the S-300PMU-2.

Thales Defence Deutschland GmbH in Kiel has designed an LPI radar system for naval vessels that operates in combination with a pulse radar. For open operation, the vessel is running the pulse radar. The boat will be identified by ESM systems (fingerprint of boat). For secret missions, it is switched to LPI radar. It works in FMCW mode with min. 1mW in 24 nautical miles .The boat remains invisible for ESM systems. The so-called SPHINX radar systems is supported by a pressure tight Microstrip Antenna (MSA) with CsC feature for simultaneous sea and air observation. References: Greece Navy, South Korean Navy

[man overbored]

If you go back to a previous link from FAS regarding Rivet Joint you will notice an upgrade program called Joint SIGINT Avionics Family (JSAF) Low Band Subsystem (LBSS). This is intended to add further abilities to Rivet Joint to detect, locate and classify LPI radar and communications emissions. See this link:

http://ftp.fas.org/irp/program/collect/rivet_joint.htm

Rivet Joint stays well back from the battle space, roughly 240 km back, so there is no threat to it from surface launched missiles like S-300. Aircraft like Rivet Joint, JSTARS and the U-2 have sensors designed to provide real time battlespace information to warfighters and decision makers while staying our of range of the combat. The fly at sufficient altitude to have a sensor horizon of hundreds of kilometers.
LPI would apply to the search radar, not an illumination radar. These will remain vulnerable to detection and classification by normal means. Also one must consider S-300 to be thoroughly compromised. Cypress ordered batteries of S-300's several years ago and these are in service. Cypress is a close UK and US allie with ties to Israel. One should assume Nato and Israel know the operatiog parameters of this system and all of it's associated radars and data links. It has no more secrets left. "Echo Range" at China Lake advertises S-300 as one of the threats they can offer "customers" willing to pay the several hundred thousand dollars per hour they charge for range time. Nations from all over the world come to China Lake and pay good money to test their skills against that range in exercises and weapons tests. The RAF I know comes out for training before deploying to Afghanistan since the terrain is pretty much identical.
Here is the public page on the various threat simulation ranges at China Lake. If you look carefully you can see we even have precise duplicates of old Soviet naval radars we constructed from careful intel of their systems. Land based systems were either captured in combat or obtained through allies.

http://www.nawcwpns.navy.mil/nawcwd/about/what_we_do/ranges/ecr.htm

It is interesting to read the comments here because in real life the actual operators are way ahead of your questions.
As always, it is measure, counter-measure, counter-counter-measure, to the glee of the many defense contractors out there, and the source of acid reflux to budget weenies everywhere.

[crobato]

LPI would apply to the search radar, not an illumination radar. These will remain vulnerable to detection and classification by normal means.

Illumination radar is much harder to catch because they don't need to light up, and when they do, it may be too late for the aircraft.

Even if you try to catch LPI emissions, the hardest part to catch is a radar with ultra low sidelobe emission. If you don't get no emission, then no detection. And since side lob emissions can be very weak, it may not be detectable at large distances, and can only be picked up close. This leads to other ways, such as using UCAVs, but then again, by using such simple measures you are greatly increasing the cost of countering them.

[man overbored]

Illumination radar is much harder to catch because they don't need to light up, and when they do, it may be too late for the aircraft.

Even if you try to catch LPI emissions, the hardest part to catch is a radar with ultra low sidelobe emission. If you don't get no emission, then no detection. And since side lob emissions can be very weak, it may not be detectable at large distances, and can only be picked up close. This leads to other ways, such as using UCAVs, but then again, by using such simple measures you are greatly increasing the cost of countering them.

JSTARS and Rivet Joint are a long long way from these radars. They might illuminate another target and Rivet Joint will detect this emission and process the data for a Wild Weasel strike on it. You keep forgetting JSTARS and Rivet Joint do their business from hundreds of kilometers out at high altitude, well beyond the lethal range of any ground based system. At the altitudes it flies it sees an enormous amount of battlespace and can track all the different emitters in it's wide field of view. An emitter does not have to aim directly at a Rivet Joint aircraft to detect the signal. In read life, in Kosovo, it could track these systems and send in the F-16J to take it out.

[crobato]

An emitter does not have to aim directly at a Rivet Joint aircraft to detect the signal.

You don't seem to understand what the term "sidelobes" are do you? The RJ needs to read the sidelobes to detect the signal. The main beam as in "aim directly" is the main lobe. Kill the sidelobes, and you don't get the signal.

[Scratch]

You are assuming Rivet Joint's radar is superior to the S-300 radar. What if S-300 radar can see you first. Such slow moving plane probably has no chance if got discovered first.

Long range low frequency antenas are added to the S-300. I suspect it should detect the Rivet Joint plane first.

You seem to think Rivent Joint uses an active radar to detect those systems. That's not correct. It only looks for the emmissions of the threat radars. If a plane is 250km out, the signla from the radar site may/will be strong enough to be detected. Now, for that SAM site to detect the aircraft, the signal must travel 250km to the aircraft, be reflected and travel 250km back to the radar. That's double the range plus signla strenth loss at reflection.
You can always see an emmting radar with passive means before it sees you.

[man overbored]

Distance from the battlespace means systems like JSTARS, Rivet Joint or the U-2 do not need to be directly in the line of sight or in a sidelobe of a CW radar to detect these. Just as Scratch said, a radar warning receiver or other such detection device will, as a rule of thumb detect the radar in question at a range fifty percent greater than the radar will detect the platform with the detection equipment. The sensor only has to sense an emission while the radar must be able to detect the energy reflected off the platform with the sensor.
As range from the radar increases, the width of the beam likewise increases. For CW fire control radars the target must be close to the center of the beam for accurate information to be generated for the fire control system, or the system will use multiple beams such that the energy reflected from each beam is equal. Rivet Joint does not need to be right in the beam to detect it's presence.
There are several reasons for radars to suppress their side lobes that have little to do with their being detected. Crobato, do you know what "inverse gain jamming" is? This technique exploits the side lobes to create a false echo. CW fire control radars suppress side lobes to prevent ambiguity in the doppler return they use to measure range to the target. What is called "side lobe" ambiguity introduces spurious doppler information and muddies the range reading. A fire control radar can likewise be spoofed by inverse gain jamming and a radar lock broken, so sidelobe suppression employed in these radars has nothing to do with avoiding the JSTARS. CW radars will employ wide beams until a target is detected and locked, then use a narrow beam during an intercept.

[crobato]

The main line of sight is called the main lobe. The sidelobes are the emissions that are out of the line of sight. A radar lobe pattern is similar to a peacock's tail with a big main lob at the main center of the antenna, and smaller lobes protruding to the sides.

If you are trying to detect a search radar, the search radar generally has a large main lobe that sweeps around, so you can generally just detect the main lobe itself.

For an advanced fire control radar, one that uses tight beams, you want to control the side lobes for several reasons, first, less side lobe, you get a stronger main lobe; second, you get less noise and interference especially from side lobe echoes, and third, not and not the last, it reduces detection. Part of LPI in fact, is reducing side lobes and side emissions to the extent its not detectable by receivers.

Side lobe ranges are also much less than that of main lobes. The rule of thumb mentioned above only applies to main lobes.

CW radars will employ wide beams until a target is detected and locked, then use a narrow beam during an intercept.

Only if you are referring to an integrated set that has both volume search and fire control tracking functions. However, like the S-300 systems, there are sets that have these functions in separate sets.

Sidelobe cancellation defeats inverse gain jamming.

http://www.argospress.com/Resources/radar/sidelocancel.htm