Sea Clutter

I wanted to take the time to state that “sea clutter” is a special form of natural interference. It is more difficult to filter out the signal from this form of interference. Ground clutter is easier because the ground is not moving.
The FSU/Russia is a “land power,” the air force and navy are “auxillary services” to insure that other nation’s air forces or navies do not use their abilities to take advantage of the FSU/Russian Army. Russia’s greatest allies as well as their greatest friends all are on land the that is connected to the “motherland.” The FSU/Russia is not blessed with good seaports! Many of the ports are blocked by ice in the winter and, “all” of their ports have to go through “choke points” before gaining access to the open ocean.
Countries like UK or, USA which depend on the sea lanes of communication for survival. Their enemies as well as allies are across the water, the navy is extremely important. Another important factor is that all ports have access to the open ocean without any choke points or any problems with ice.

The MiG.-29 is the first FSU/Russian aircraft that has an ability to look into sea clutter and still see the target as well as maintain radar lock to any degree of reliability.
The clash between the Libyian AF MiG.-23’s charging at the US Navy’s F-14A’s on 01/04/89, (for example) the Tomcats used the tactic of staying lower than the MiG.-23MF. The Tomcats did not get really low to prevent radar lock-on, just 3,000 Above Sea Level (ASL), at this point the MiG.-23’s were at 9,000 feet ASL. Even at this slight angle, radar lock-on could not be made.
The two Tomcats were flying side by side about a mile apart, in mutual support while the MiG.’s were flying in a leader followed by the trailing wingman (one mile approximately) positioned several thousand feet above the leader. The MiG.’s could not see the lead F-14 that was firing Sparrow Missiles, their first visual was of the wingman.

At approximately 14 miles the RIO from the lead F-14, fired a AIM-7 Sparrow at the lead MiG. but it failed to guide because of an improper switch setting. The lead F-14 fired a second Sparrow, it also failed to guide due to the switch setting (the target was not being illuminated by a CW signal!).
Just before the second missile was fired, the Tomcat wingman called out, “breaking right” to which the leader responded, “roger -left.” So the F-14’s were going into a defensive split, which ever Tomcat the Libyians followed the other Tomcat would do a 180° turn and get on the tail of the MiG.’s. Once the MiG.’s committed themselves it became a race to make the first kill. The MiG.’s would try to kill the one Tomcat they knew was ahead of them. The wingman F-14 called out, “turning into me” to which the leader said, “roger that.” The lead F-14 did a 180° slammed the throttles forward to catch up the fight. The Libyians were not aggressive enough, for they were trailing the Tomcat wingman almost 6 miles behind. Suddenly the Tomcat wingman did a fast 180° turn and fired a Sparrow killing the lead MiG. with a Sparrow Missile, passes the other MiG. and Tomcat climbs up tp cover the tail of the other Tomcat. The lead F-14 had caught up to the MiG. wingman and now just a 1½ miles behind where he fired a Sidewinder Missile and killed it. As the Tomcats left the area they saw “two good chutes” as they decended to get off the Libyian air search radars and headed back to their carrier. The CVBG monitored the Libyians as they tried in vain to find the two downed flier. The US Navy graded the Libyians on their search and rescue ability!

So aircraft like the F-4 Phantom had good sea clutter rejection ability as old as it is. On the otherhand the MiG.-29 has rejection or filtering of sea clutter but still it performs much of its mission still without much need for this capability. The SU-27 would tend to need the capability more since it has the range to a long ways to engage an enemy.

Adrian