Since Mineral is already many decades old, the US would have already gotten data on the system long long before Ukrainians would have sold them. Its not like the US has its own OTH ducting system, which it does under the COBLU monicker and is used in many ships.
Since the Type 366 is gone on both Type 055 and 056, its usefulness is running out, unless a new OTH ducting system is incorporated in their respective radars. Chances are it would have its own unique channels anyway and have other differences. One is that it can be used to detect a low flying object beyond the horizon.
Another thing is that passive OTH detection, tracking and targeting is now relegated to ESM, and not as a separate radar. Since you are
finding your targets passively, its far harder to escape, since I can even pick you out via your communications. The only way to counter is by incorporating LPI into your radar and communication systems so whatever signals they get from you over the horizon can be misinterpreted as noise. Another is to make sure your communications are only directed through a narrow beam and not sent out omnidirectionally. Radar also needs to reduce sidelobes to zero, and you also don't want sidelobes reflecting at the water surface and atmospheric thermal layers so they don't get picked up by OTH passive systems.
For all this, its better to use solid state and digital on your radar systems, and supports the migration to AESA. Navigation radars are converted to solid state and LPI for example.
OTH detection by ducting using active radar also has a more limited range than passive. In the Mineral system, passive is up to 450km while active is only 250km. Both are way short of the potential range of newer antiship missiles if they can reach up to 600km. Using active radar for OTH ducting can also bite back since it would expose yourself to your opponent using a similar passive system.
For the 052C/D and 055, in addition to the Type 366 (052C/D only) there are additional ESM systems that I suspect are both long range and OTH. One is right up the ESM mast, and two appear as cylinders or R2D2 shaped things at the base of the rear mast.
Last edited:
