Russian Radar systems

Rosoboronexport website was updated. Some radars removed new ones added.

What seems to be export version of Nebo radar with a range of 1800km and altitude of 1200km :

http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/air-defence-systems/radar-and-electro-optical-equipment-for-air-target-detection/55Zh6ME/

New radar :

http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/air-defence-systems/radar-and-electro-optical-equipment-for-air-target-detection/55Zh6ME/

Upgraded P-18 :

http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/air-defence-systems/radar-and-electro-optical-equipment-for-air-target-detection/P-18-2%20%281RL131-2%29/

It also means if an enemy is trying to infiltrate your base you can transmit the live position in real time on a map that other people can use to also locate and perhaps target the threat... they can reorient the map to their perspective and quickly locate the target marked there without fear of friendly fire... the same view can be sent to helicopter pilots or close air support aircraft or drones in an easy to read and understand way...

Very nice...

GarryB wrote:Wow... that is clever...


http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/Security%20systems/Borders-protection/Radars/orwell-R/

So it incorporates the radar target data in a topographical map so effectively you see where the target is in relation to things on the ground... a combination of optical and radar sensors for 24 7 day/night, all weather security...

Nice... so instead of a blip on a radar screen you get a map location for the threat/target...

Very useful for MANPAD operating units.

KUBINKA /Moscow Region/, August 24. /TASS/. Russian-made radar Rezonans-NE, which Iran purchased to identify and track stealth aircraft and hypersonic targets, successfully spotted and tracked US F-35 fighters near the country’s borders during an aggravation of tensions at the beginning of 2020 following the death of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the deputy CEO of the research center Rezonans Alexander Stuchilin told TASS on Monday.

"At the beginning of 2020 this radar identified US F-35 planes and tracked them," he said on the sidelines of the international military-technical forum Army-2020.

Stuchilin said that he was referring to the "well-known events of the beginning of this year."

"The radar’s personnel were transmitting information, including the routes of F-35 flights, in clear, thus confirming that it was reliably tracking the planes. For this reason, the opponent did not commit any irreparable actions that might have caused a big war," Stuchilin said.

He remarked that the Rezonans-NE radar had been on round-the-clock combat duty in Iran for several years.

The situation in the Middle East aggravated sharply after the January 3 US overnight attack near Baghdad airport, which killed the commander of Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, General Qasem Soleimani. Tehran retaliated on January 8 with an overnight missile strike against two targets in Iraq that were being used by the US military: the Ain al-Assad base and Erbil airport.

https://tass.com/world/1193281

Huuuuuge antenna.

Is it a Nebo radar ?

Isos wrote:Is it a Nebo radar ?

Sky-M which is one of the 3 radars that make up the Nebo-M system.

Low frequency radars need big antenna elements... which is why they are not fitted to fighters or missiles...

Besides the marketing information like this:

Rezonans radars operate in the meter band and employ the principle of wave resonance, which allows detecting aircraft based on stealth technology and also hypersonic targets flying at a speed of up to Mach 20. The radar is capable of detecting targets and issuing target acquisition on aerodynamic targets at a distance of 600 km and at a range of 1,200 km on ballistic targets, at an altitude of up to 100 km.

How does resonance effect actually identify an F-35 for example? Using "meter band employing the resonance effect" doesn't tell us much. It would be nice to know a bit more about the basics of how the Resonance NE radar works, especially with the Protivnik-GE since both were bought by Egypt and curious as to how they would be able to see the Israeli F-35s for example?

I'm guessing that they're doing a lot of Intel with the Protivnik surveillance and watching for patterns and habits and developing a specific signature (since the distance is relatively close) and with the ability to IFF that they can create a library of signatures on all aircraft that are in the area and put them in their AWACs IFF information to recognize quicker who is out there etc. But not sure how the Resonance NE does it's actual radar work? Anyone?

My understanding... which might not be right, is that the higher resolution radar can determine shape and feature details of a target... visible light is a high frequency, and allows us to see the shape of things when light is shone on the item to reflect to our eyes, but we can also improve our perception of something by using a flashing light like a strobe light, or a light of a particular colour.

The amount of detail and processing power needed to make such eyesight useful means our eyes need to be located next to our brains and connected by a high speed wide band connection called the optic nerve.

Because there is so much information you can actually fool a human being by rapidly displaying still images in order to give the impression of real world motion... 25 frames per second is sufficient for the human brain to think what they are seeing is something actually in motion like Wallace and Gromit which involves still images and bits of clay and plastic.

An ordinary house fly have faceted eyes that are much more basic and detect movement and the bare necessities to fly around and find food, but it means when you try to hit them with your had they always manage to evade you... but try this... when you see a fly sitting on a flat table or wall take a swing to kill them... but the secret is not to slap them where they are on the table or wall... anticipate they will take off and fly about 10cm up off the table or away from the wall... cup your hand and swing it at the empty space above their position when you start the swing. Don't expect to track them... just swing for where they will be and you will find most of the time you get them.

The point of the facets is not to improve the quality of their view, but to increase the field of view of their vision so they cannot be surprised... they take off quickly but are not super manouverable and wont be able to evade...

Anyway, my understanding was that longer wave radar has physically longer energy beams that do not have high resolution, so with metre long or longer wavelengths an aircraft like an F-35 becomes a blob that reflects a radar signal of a blob and the redirection shaping and absorbing materials simply can't cope with such long wave beams so it just resonates the signal like a sound wave...

Remember the blocky old low resolution images of Pluto that were taken before we had anything that got anywhere near it, so they were 10-15 pixels of colour showing no detail or features, but good enough to see it was there.

Obviously that is using light so it is not the same, but even a black object can be seen during the day but is harder at night even with a light source.

With long wave radar you provide the "light" source so there are no issues with not having enough light.

kvs wrote:With RADAR visual reconstruction is not the priority.   A prime reason for using the radar EM band is to see through condensed moisture like clouds and haze.
As long as the target can be localized enough to have a missile take it out, that is mission accomplished.    For resonance radar the important thing is
wide EM band detection and processing of scattered and re-emitted signal plus any resonant harmonics it induces in the target.   Using 1 meter EM
scanning wavelengths is good enough.    

This is true because 1 meter is both a fraction and a characteristic scale of the target.   So it can induce resonance effectively.   Using a 1 km scanning
beam wavelength would be great for penetrating mountain ranges without much scatter but would be low efficiency for detecting an object the size
of an F-35.   You do not need 500 micron EM for this job since shape details are not important.      

That's really incredible and if this is essentially the way resonance works against stealthy aircraft, does it basically mean that all the shaping and RAM and IR reduction and all the American stealth innovation and application in the F-22 and the F-35 is moot at this point?! It's all for nothing or makes detection and tracking just a little bit more difficult than it would ordinarily be, if say, the objective was tracking an F-15 or MiG-29, for example?

Conversely, why would Russia put all the effort into the Su-57 and the eventual PAK-DA and basically stealth aircraft then? Seems counterintuitive, so to speak. Sorry if I sound like a pain in the ass loool. I really don't mean to be, just really trying to learn about this entire system since someone comes out and says "hey, guess what, we just bought 2 types of Russian radars called the Protivnik-GE and the Resonance-NE of which the latter is capable of detecting stealthy targets like the F-35 at 600 kms!" Making such a claim just seems to need some effective validation/explanation and understanding because it's basically saying that all this $200 billion investment and development in stealth technology has essentially gone down the toilet with this radar technology!

That's really incredible and if this is essentially the way resonance works against stealthy aircraft, does it basically mean that all the shaping and RAM and IR reduction and all the American stealth innovation and application in the F-22 and the F-35 is moot at this point?! It's all for nothing or makes detection and tracking just a little bit more difficult than it would ordinarily be, if say, the objective was tracking an F-15 or MiG-29, for example?

Conversely, why would Russia put all the effort into the Su-57 and the eventual PAK-DA and basically stealth aircraft then? Seems counterintuitive, so to speak. Sorry if I sound like a pain in the ass loool. I really don't mean to be, just really trying to learn about this entire system since someone comes out and says "hey, guess what, we just bought 2 types of Russian radars called the Protivnik-GE and the Resonance-NE of which the latter is capable of detecting stealthy targets like the F-35 at 600 kms!" Making such a claim just seems to need some effective validation/explanation and understanding because it's basically saying that all this $200 billion investment and development in stealth technology has essentially gone down the toilet with this radar technology!

I'm not as knowledgeable at physics as kvs but in my understanding a) Russia doesn't sacrifice that much with their stealth approaches, i.e. the Su-57 is a great aircraft even if you forget about the stealth features it has, which certainly cannot be said of the F-35, which has stealth as almost its only selling point (the other being avionics) and b) the kinds of radars making this possible are too big to put on aircraft so you still have a significant stealth advantage in areas where such sophisticated radars are not located on the ground, which is most of the world (for now) and they're probably rather easy to track by satellite (at least for major powers).

Begome wrote:
I'm not as knowledgeable at physics as kvs but in my understanding a) Russia doesn't sacrifice that much with their stealth approaches, i.e. the Su-57 is a great aircraft even if you forget about the stealth features it has, which certainly cannot be said of the F-35, which has stealth as almost its only selling point (the other being avionics) and b) the kinds of radars making this possible are too big to put on aircraft so you still have a significant stealth advantage in areas where such sophisticated radars are not located on the ground, which is most of the world (for now) and they're probably rather easy to track by satellite (at least for major powers).

It does make those ground radars one of the most important targets so how long they would last in a war must be problematic.

JohninMK wrote:

Begome wrote:
I'm not as knowledgeable at physics as kvs but in my understanding a) Russia doesn't sacrifice that much with their stealth approaches, i.e. the Su-57 is a great aircraft even if you forget about the stealth features it has, which certainly cannot be said of the F-35, which has stealth as almost its only selling point (the other being avionics) and b) the kinds of radars making this possible are too big to put on aircraft so you still have a significant stealth advantage in areas where such sophisticated radars are not located on the ground, which is most of the world (for now) and they're probably rather easy to track by satellite (at least for major powers).

It does make those ground radars one of the most important targets so how long they would last in a war must be problematic.

It is very hard t find the long wave lenght early warning radars .


Example all long wave radar operated during the Serb terror bombings, and no one of them was destroyed.

Only the X band targeting radards can be found by triangulation .

Let's say that stealth was intended to counter specifically radar of X band i.e. the ones that allow to perform all functions from early detection to target tracking in the same frequence.
With conventional radars operating in other frequencies is way less efficient, still it gave still a big advantage.

With OTH, multistatic/passive and in future photonic radars you play another game with totally different rules and there is not any peculiar advantage in having stealth because they reverse the equation:instead of sending a light beam toward a black background trying to illuminate something inbetween the two, you are turning the background from black to white so than no matter if the object itself you are  searching is impervious to direct observation and look black, you would spot it the same.
Out of the metaphor there still are differences: radar location is different from optical observation because it is not an immediate thing but gave you the informations you are looking for during an interval of time: so to get enough of them to shoot down an incoming stealth aircraft  would take a longer time than you would need for a non stealthy one.
While a conventional radar observing a non stealthy object would pass between all different phases in a timely and smooth manner, such unconventional systems searching for a stealth ones would need more time to pass from early detention to effectively tracking it.

Tactically however it would change very little as those system have all a quite great range so there is not such a great issue if they need a pair of minutes before giving you the information level you need to effectively being able to engage your intended target.

That's really incredible and if this is essentially the way resonance works against stealthy aircraft, does it basically mean that all the shaping and RAM and IR reduction and all the American stealth innovation and application in the F-22 and the F-35 is moot at this point?

To a degree yes, but Russia hasn't been doing nothing... these long wave and anti stealth radars didn't just fall from the sky... Russia has spent money and time and energy developing radars in different frequency ranges that can work together to help detect not just stealthy targets but also very small targets too.

It is no accident that Soviet and Russia radar space tracking equipment could track chips of paint in orbit...

It's all for nothing or makes detection and tracking just a little bit more difficult than it would ordinarily be, if say, the objective was tracking an F-15 or MiG-29, for example?

Detection is critical... it doesn't matter what missiles and guns or decoys and EW equipment you have if you don't see the attack coming then it doesn't matter because it wont be used.

Tracking is important to determine potential targets and what defence resources need to be alerted to deal with the problem.

Even if you have radar sites that can detect stealth targets you need to get systems close to it to deal with it.... obviously even the dumbest 3rd gen fighter can be directed via ground based long wave radar to cannon range of a B-2 or F-117 to shoot them down.

Directing that old fighter to an F-35 or F-22 would be more problematic for your old fighter...

Conversely, why would Russia put all the effort into the Su-57 and the eventual PAK-DA and basically stealth aircraft then? Seems counterintuitive, so to speak.

Think of it in terms of camouflage... right now the west has a few long wave radar stations that could track stealthy aircraft... if you take down such targets then they would struggle against stealthy targets because their general in service systems are not really optimised to deal with their own stealthy aircraft let alone Russian ones.

US stealth is going for near invisible and so it is enormously expensive to buy and to maintain.

Russian stealth is not to be invisible but be harder to see and engage... a much lower bar that is much cheaper but still effective enough to be tricky to deal with and they are not going for an all stealth fighter fleet... the new MiG light 5th gen fighter and Su-57 are not going to replace all their existing types... they are going to have a mix of options.

With bombers the PAK DA is going to be flying wing stealthy, but likely not as super stealthy as the B-2 because its primary role is not bomber... it is stand off cruise missile carrier... odds are it will never fly anywhere near US territory and its hypersonic 10,000km range missiles will penetrate western air defences... they just wont see where it came from... with new nuclear powered cruise missiles with unlimited range the PAK DA might take off and fly 5,000km away from its target before launching its missiles...

The Su-57 will be stealthy so it is not interrupted as it hunts down F-35s and F-22s... its wing mounted long wave AESA radars used to triangulate the location of stealthy targets...

Making such a claim just seems to need some effective validation/explanation and understanding because it's basically saying that all this $200 billion investment and development in stealth technology has essentially gone down the toilet with this radar technology!

If only it was that cheap... the F-35 programme alone is 1.5 trillion... plus F-117 and F-22 and B-2 and B-21... and the secret programmes and Commanche and the stealthy weapons and drones...

It does make those ground radars one of the most important targets so how long they would last in a war must be problematic.

Most of them are mobile and in service in large numbers... and the issue of finding them... very long wave signals are very hard to locate or jam.

Conversely very short wavelengths are hard to jam too... for instance radar guided hellfire missiles, or the MMW radar systems used by APS systems on tanks are hard to detect at distance and also hard to target with missiles too.

Today everyone has the same electronics and T/R technology. Even a country like Turkey has it.

What will make a radar better than the other is the math formulas used and the alghoritm.

Russians and french have quite good mathematicians. US universities are full of chinese. Chinese spend more time copying and from what I saw on twitter from SAA their radars sucks a lot.

US have money and can start many projects at once. Their civilian companies also attract best foreign engineers and their idea are taken for military stuff.

Isos wrote:Today everyone has the same electronics and T/R technology. Even a country like Turkey has it.

What will make a radar better than the other is the math formulas used and the alghoritm.

Russians and french have quite good mathematicians. US universities are full of chinese. Chinese spend more time copying and from what I saw on twitter from SAA their radars sucks a lot.

US have money and can start many projects at once. Their civilian companies also attract best foreign engineers and their idea are taken for military stuff.

The quality /size /power of radar gives the performance of it.

The alogrithm will imporve it, but if th radar manufactured with too high tolerances then the performance of it will be degraded.

Nebo-M to be deployed in the Volga region:

https://iz.ru/1073816/anton-lavrov-roman-kretcul/kupol-neba-povolzhe-i-ural-zashchitiat-radarami-rekordsmenami

The article has some interesting details and comments by Murakhovsky

GarryB wrote:Anyway, my understanding was that longer wave radar has physically longer energy beams that do not have high resolution, so with metre long or longer wavelengths an aircraft like an F-35 becomes a blob that reflects a radar signal of a blob and the redirection shaping and absorbing materials simply can't cope with such long wave beams so it just resonates the signal like a sound wave...

If this is an accurate explanation, then I can safely say that this is the one that I understood the most! You know why? Because you dumbed it down for me! lol That's what I needed.

I read and re-read KVS' post over and over maybe a dozen times but just couldn't grasp it. Same with the other posts but I certainly appreciate the effort that everyone who chose to answer my question made. Thank you for taking the time to answer.

So essentially, resonance means longer wavelengths that are a meter long and by being that long, they tend to overwhelm the subject they're bouncing off and that subject's stealthy attributes can only cope with such long wavelengths that scattering it or redirecting it by shaping or absorbing it via its RAM for only so much until an actual and identifiable return does come back which is discernable? Am I getting it right in an even more super dumbed down version, or not?