I would take that database with a big grain of salt.
You can tell me if those particular figures are correct or not, and if incorrect, what are the real figures or post a link.
054/A FFG Thread II
- Thread starter tphuang
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You can tell me if those particular figures are correct or not, and if incorrect, what are the real figures or post a link.
These figures, at least the ones referring to Russian designed equipment are mostly guesswork. The range of 74 km corresponds to 40 nm. Russians use metric system and their ranges are quoted in round numbers in km.
Early MR-90 closely corresponds to Phazotron N006/008 and N019 radars with Cassegrain antenna used in MiG-23ML and MiG-29/S. The quoted detection range for these radars is up to 70 km. Later MR-90 benefited from N010 radar with planar array antenna and increased range of 110-130 km. Obviously, the range depends on the target altitude and the tracking range is also lower than detecting by 15-20 km.
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I would think that MR90 Front Dome is derived from its land based counterparts 9S35 and 9S36 Fire Dome, both of which I believe to be passive phase array. The 9S36, the later version, corresponds and exceeds in performance of N011 BARS and Irbis radars on aircraft.
However all these range figures quoted are for search and detection modes, which also has the best range. Once you go down to tracking modes --- TWS, then STT, the ranges will get shorter as the tracking resolution gets higher. When a radar is in CWI mode, which is what it uses to illuminate targets, it is at its shortest range. MR90 should have something like a DTT or Dual Target Tracking mode, as opposed to just an STT or Single Target Tracking mode, which enables it to light two targets and direct two SARH missiles at the same time. But this will further cost range since are you dividing the radar's power and its elements. The figure quoted on the database I assumed would be the CWI mode, and not its search and detect mode, nor its track while scan mode. It won't be inconsistent to have a search and detect mode of over 120km, TWS at 100km, and CWI modes at 70km, as you exchange range for speed resolution as the radar's PRF goes from low to high. If the missile uses an active seeker head, you can begin engagement with longer TWS ranges, as TWS is used to engage with ARH missiles, whereas SARH missiles would require going down to STT/CWI modes.
(PLA land based HQ-16 does not use anything similar to Fire Dome though, they use a flat panel phase array, which has two faces, one said to be a C-band, and the lower part seems to be an X-band. But little information is available on this unit.)
First of all, the only thing the land-based Buk and naval Shtil share is the missile. Early Shtil was much more sophisticated than Buk/Buk-M1.
N011 Bars became available in 90s, N035 Irbis even later, after 2010. First Shtil was put on a test ship Provorny in late 70s therefore Russians used the technology which they had which is Cassegrain and planar arrays. I have no confirmation that even the latest version for RuN use OP-3 target illuminators with PAR.
Early Shtil definitely used CWSAR. Russian sources do not credit early Shtil with effective range over 25 km. Later versions are rated at 40-50 km.
I have a hard time seeing Cassegrains doing two target illumination simultaneously, and planar arrays --- if you means slotted arrays --- are not used with the Russians until well after the Cold War when they offered Zhuk fighter radars for export. The Russians jumped from Cassegrain to Phase Array, skipping slotted arrays unlike Western nations that used slotted array for their fighter radars. Slotted arrays are not used in SAMs anyway, as the Soviets went straight from mechanical rotating antennas to PESA. Any non moving flat or planar antenna you see for a SAM is certainly to be a PESA, with the search radars using a PESA variant with FRESCAN (Fregat MR710 for example).
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On second thought, the western analog to the early MR90s might be the SPG-49. The basic functionality is similar --- a tracking radar and CWI in one. It uses a scanning technique called a Foster Scan that lets it rapidly scan targets ahead, though this technique has now been replaced by electronic scanning. In fact the whole system of Fregat - Orekh - Shtil has a direct analog o the SPS-48 - SPG-49 - Tartar/Standard SM-1. Like the Fregat, the SPS-48 is a FRESCAN planar array.
N001 is an inverse cassegrain. N010 Zhuk started testing in 1989 but was never operationally deployed with the Russian Air Force, which led to Phazotron offering the radar to China for a J-8II upgrade and later as a candidate radar for the J-10. While it was offered as an upgrade for MiG-29s, this was superceded by versions using a PESA array. Zhuk-27, which is the version for Su-27, was offered as an upgrade for the Su-27SM and SMK, and likely offered to China, but was never accepted.