Serbia plans to acquire Chinese FK-3 air defense missile systems
POSTED ON MONDAY, 03 AUGUST 2020 10:08
According to information released by the Balkan Security Network on August 2, 2020, Serbia could acquire Chinese-made air defense missile systems called FK-3, the export version of the HQ-22. In 2019, the Serbian State Defense Company Yugoimport has published in 2019 its annual business report that mentioned an important foreign for the procurement of Chinese FK-3.
Mobile TEL Transporter Erector Launcher unit of Chinese-made FK-3 long-range air defense missile system. (Picture source Army Recognition)
According to Chinese military sources, the FK-3 is an export of the HQ-22 long-range air defense missile system. The FK-3 system implements effective multi-target tracking and interception against a saturation attack. One fire unit, equipped with the guidance radar, provides interception against 6 targets with 12 rounds of missile. Multiple fire units, under the control of command and coordination vehicle, expand the multi-target interception to 36 targets with 72 rounds of missile.
The FK-3 weapon system can not only fulfill air defense independently but also complete missions in cooperation with other air defense systems. It has large kill airspace ranges from 5 to 100 km at an altitude from 50 to 27,000 m which super adaptive anti-jamming capacity with several anti-jamming measures.
The missile uses a radio-command and semi-active radar homing composite guidance or whole-course radio-command guidance. The vehicle launcher unit is equipped with a quadruple container-type oblique thermal launch with an automatic azimuth servo.
PLA Anti-Air Missile (SAM) systems
- Thread starter FORBIN
- Start date
First Chinese SAM sale to Europe.
LY-60/FD-60/PL10/HQ-64/HQ-6D/DK-10/Sky Dragon firing from a rare angle. I think the PLA needs to serious sort out its naming scheme for SAMs, or maybe it's deliberate.
Is this the same system that was developed with the Italian Aspide (Aim-7 Sparrow based) missile bought during the Sino-Soviet split? Then upgraded to using PL-12 land based missiles. The one in this photo looks like it's the old PL-11 (Aspide-Sparrow copy). I remember seeing PL-12 based SAM upgrades to this system with a booster.
one request for Tam who is an expert in Radar technology.
Could you please educate and entertain a simpleton like me and tell me in a short and succinct summary what S band, C band and X bands
are? and their major applications please, if you don't mind.
thanks in advance.
They represent different wavelengths.
S-Band is 2Ghz to 4Ghz. In physical terms between 7.5cm to 15cm. That's how long the wave is. Your 2.1Ghz wifi belongs to this as well as some telecom bands.
C-band is 4 to 8Ghz. In physical terms it is between 7.5cm to 3.75cm. So you can see compare to S-band, its much shorter. Your midband 5G belongs to this, as well as your 5Ghz Wifi.
X-band is 8 to 12Ghz. In physical length it is between 3.75cm to 2.5cm. Compared to S-band your waves is much shorter and smaller.
In terms of radar use, S-band is frequently and most commonly used for search radars.
C-band is also used for military radars, but not as common. It is also used as a search radar.
X-band is used for military radars in particular with fire control applications, such as controlling and aiming guns, and missile homing.
The longer the wavelength, the less energy it loses when it travels across the atmosphere. It also makes a broader beam. This makes longer wavelengths suitable for volume search radars. Shorter wavelengths on the other hand, while they have a shorter range, produces a smaller and narrower beam, which makes it suitable for precise work, like gun aiming and missile homing. In metaphorical terms, longer wavelengths, larger pixels or less resolution, smaller wavelengths, smaller pixels or finer resolution.
Common practice with SAM radars, and with naval radars as well, is that you have a search radar and a fire control radar. The search radar commonly used is S-band but there are also even longer bands such as L-band and metric or A-bands such as UHF or VHF.
Then you have the secondary radar which is the fire control radar which tracks the target accurately and precisely, and is used to home in the missile or aim the gun. That is on X-band. There are radars that have shorter wavelengths, such as Ku-band, and they are used in places like CIWS.
At least this gives you some idea why a working SAM battery uses at least two kinds of radar, and also why naval warships also use this basic combination.
Does anyone have HQ-22/FK-3 targeting radar data? Many sources are saying that HQ-22/FK-3 is using H-200 , but when I compare photos of H-200 with one used by HQ-22/FK-3 they look different. Also H-200 can guide 6 missiles towards 3 targets while HQ-22/FK3 targeting radar can guide 12 missiles towards 6 targets.
So basically China currently has 3 tiers of modern AAMs
Long range:
HQ-9 / HHQ-9 naval versions / FD2000 export version (300+km,41km)
HQ-22 / KS-1 / FK-3 export version (170km,27km)
Low-medium range:
DK-10A / Sky Dragon 50 / PL-12 (50km,20km)
HQ-16 / HHQ-16 naval versions / LY-80 export version (40km,18km)
Low range:
LY-60 / FD-60 / PL10 / PL11 (18km,12km)
HQ-10 / FL3000 (9km,6km)
TY-90
Are there any that I missed out? Some questions:
Is the LY-60 considered a replacement for the HQ-7?
Is there a missile being developed for quadpacking? The naval side seems a bit lacking compared to Western quadpackable missiles like ESSM, CAMM
Long range:
HQ-9 / HHQ-9 naval versions / FD2000 export version (300+km,41km)
HQ-22 / KS-1 / FK-3 export version (170km,27km)
Low-medium range:
DK-10A / Sky Dragon 50 / PL-12 (50km,20km)
HQ-16 / HHQ-16 naval versions / LY-80 export version (40km,18km)
Low range:
LY-60 / FD-60 / PL10 / PL11 (18km,12km)
HQ-10 / FL3000 (9km,6km)
TY-90
Are there any that I missed out? Some questions:
Is the LY-60 considered a replacement for the HQ-7?
Is there a missile being developed for quadpacking? The naval side seems a bit lacking compared to Western quadpackable missiles like ESSM, CAMM
Do you mean SAMs rather than AAM? You missed HQ-7 and HQ-17 short range missiles. You should also include BMD or ASAT level missiles which service both exo and endo atmospheric interceptions for ballistic missiles, warheads, or aircraft/drones. These have uncertain designations but they include; HQ-19, HQ-26, and HQ-29. The ASAT ones I'm less familiar with but may be included in those three.