Almaz S-300: China's "Offensive" Air Defense
- Thread starter crazyinsane105
- Start date
man overbored
Junior Member
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.
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.
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.
Ok, I have to get some work done
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.
Last edited:
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.
man overbored
Junior Member
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Last edited:
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
Junior Member
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.
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.