BungaIf you mean the link in the post by styx (#11), it doesn’t open.
Leads to a “link cannot be displayed” warning.
Nobody can judge a link or photo that he can’t view. Sealord, in all respect, how did YOU open this link?
BungaCzech Republic: U.S. Says Tamara System Overrated
By K.P. Foley
American F-117A stealth bomber shot down over Yugoslavia in March of 1999. Pentagon officials confirmed that the aircraft was tracked by an unidentified radar and that two surface-to-air missile were fired at the F-117. Russian Minister of Defense announced that the aircraft was brought down by a Russian-made SA-6 mobile SAM working in concert with a ground radar.
Washington, 17 November 1997 (Radio Free Europe) – The U.S. Defense Department is challenging claims that a Czech-built electronic intelligence system can thwart the technology that enables some U.S. military aircraft to evade radar detection. U.S. Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon told reporters last week that there is no independent verification of the claim that the Tamara system made by the Czech Republic’s private Tesla company can overcome radar evasion systems. The contention became an issue in Washington last week when the “Washington Times” newspaper reported that Iraq was trying to obtain the system to enable it to locate and track U.S. jets protected by what is popularly called stealth technology. That is a system that makes it difficult for standard radar to find aircraft equipped with it. The Czech Government said it was investigating the story. However, Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, on a visit to Washington last week, called the story nonsense and a provocation. He told U.S. Vice President Al Gore that Czech law would prohibit such a sale to Iraq. Tesla also denied the report. Bacon, nevertheless, said claims that the Tamara system could overcome stealth were wrong. He also said newspaper reports calling the Tamara system a radar were wrong as well. Tamara, said Bacon, is what he called a family of devices that collect a variety of signals that, theoretically, can be analyzed electronically and used to pinpoint the location of an aircraft.
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Link
BungaWhat Ukraine’s Kolchuga radar does
The team is in Kiev at a time of growing Nato concern
By Jonathan Marcus
BBC defence correspondent
The controversy surrounding the Kolchuga radar is worthy of a Cold War spy novel.
Wrongly dubbed by some as a radar that can spot stealth aircraft, the alleged provision of the system to Iraq is inevitably provoking some tensions between Ukraine and the United States.
The arrival of the team represents something of a sticking plaster being applied over what could become a gaping wound in relations
The Kolchuga radar is manufactured by a Donetsk-based company called Topaz and is marketed by a state-owned organisation called UkrspetsExport.
Its director general, Valery Malev, was killed in a road accident in March of this year, just before a parliamentary commission announced that it had evidence suggesting illicit Ukrainian weapons sales to Iraq.
Amidst all the murky conspiracy theories, it is very hard to get firm details about the capabilities of the system.
However, unlike normal radars which send out waves that bounce back from the target, Kolchuga is a passive system.
The US believes President Kuchma approved the sale
In other words, it detects emissions coming from the target aircraft.
This would make it far less capable against stealth or radar-evading technology because by definition these planes have little or no active emissions.
If the Kolchuga system is being used by Iraq, it poses far more of a threat to conventional non-stealthy aircraft – the types of British and US warplanes that are patrolling the no-fly zones over Iraq every day.
President Saddam Hussein has made no secret of his desire to shoot down one of these aircraft.
And given the frequency of the flights, US and British pilots have depended upon skill and a good deal of luck so far to avoid any losses.
Kolchuga would be far less significant in any large-scale US assault against Iraq where the country’s air defence system as a whole would be an early target.
The row over Kolchuga is symptomatic of the wider problems between Ukraine and the West.
Nato sources have told the BBC that there is growing concern within the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels about the direction being taken by President Leonid Kuchma.
The arrival of the US and British team to discuss the radar issue represents something of a sticking plaster being applied over what could become a gaping wound in relations.
BungaExports
UAE has expressed interest, China has placed advanced orders, Iran is interested and Syrian President Asad has stated publicly he wants it. The reason is the anti-stealth radar and to some extent the long-range missile. The anti-stealth technology is unprecedented outside of US manufaturing and therefore govts that ostensibly lean away from the US are very interested in this product and as such, there is a huge market for it. That’s why it’s so important to understand if it exists or not. I would think that western defence agencies would be a bit anxious to find out for sure if there is an anti-stealth capable system running around and if so, who has it.
BungaZenitnii Vopros S 400
Well, now I’m really rather curious. Firstly, I don’t actually think my original question was actually answered to my complete satisfaction but I was willing to go with the experience of the posters on the existence of this system. However, the fact that the debate has continued for this long appears to me to mean that there are a few other doubters in the world, Noerper notwithstanding. I was willing to accept S 400 as a done deal but it almost seems from Noerper’s arguments that my suspicions do indeed have some basis for credence.
Am I to take it that any picture of the S 400 is going to look essentially like and S 300? If this is indeed the case, I’m not sure how the system can be any different from the S 300, as per Noeper’s arguments. Admittedly, if it uses S 300 parts, it is going to look bloody similar, no doubt but again, what about those extra gimmicks? What do they look like – I would assume that the anti-stealth capable radar would be somewhat distinctive and the long-range missile would not look like a Favorit missile. However, I will say that I orignially posted the 326 km range and just to clarify something, according to a Russian friend’s translation, it was an S 300 medium range missile that reached that range, not a new long-range missile. I admit that now, especially wiith all the interest that has been generated by this topic, I am also very curious to see what they displayed at MAKS – can anyone find out? It would be cool if someone had been there – it would certainly allay my suspicions, call them unfounded if you will, but I have always been a skeptic by nature (please don’t take offfense Admiral Lawrence, your postings are well received).
BungaS-400
Only if they come up with a fully functional and demonstrable S-400 …
BungaWhile I do not subscribe to Noerper’s somewhat cynical anti-Russian approach, I can sympathise with his skepticism. I have to say that there is a large grain of truth to some of Noerper’s comments, although I would possibly have said it differently. I am also a little wary of the Russian claims to own a long-distance missile as I have not seen it, in spite of the posts here proclaiming that it does. The logic of these posts is very good and I very much appreciate the good analytical approach being used but I still have to say that in spite of the evidence presented, I have not seen that much to prove the existence of the S 400 itself and have seen no pictures of it. Moreover, Chinese subscription to the S 400 is still only an open agreement for a potential system although it remains to be seen why they would sign up for a system that doesn’t exist. Let’s see what MAKS has to offer tomorrow. I remain hopeful.
BungaThis is a bad translation of the 327 km reference. My Russian is poor to not great so I can’t comment on it much unless someone can find the original – Moscow Komsomolets I think. Anyway, it looks like some interesting stuff:
“Временили” there is more than year. For this time a long-distance rocket for “Triumph” have made and one month ago have tested on range Kapustin Jar. On range of 327 km it has successfully hit the target (speak, it was possible стрельнуть and further, but the range has appeared is small). But while the 400 pottered with a rocket, in Ministry of Defence has ripened the plan: to borrow in creation of a new complex “Autocrat”. For a basis to take ready “С-400”, and a long-distance rocket – at “С-300VMD” which as it is considered, both “sees”, and shoots further. However, at “С-400” the rocket weighs 1800 kg, and at “С-300VMD” – 5 tons. “400” it will not get into the starting container at all.
BungaIt appears from this article that it has three tiers – long, medium and short range. Is that possible with only two kinds of missile? What is covering the mid-range area? Moreover, I have seen articles that describe the mid-range missile as being capable of attaining a range of 327km, which almost negates the need for a new long-range missile if it is true.
Also, the warfare article does not attest to the existence of the system since tests appear not to have been carried out yet:
” … it was too early to sum up the results before the commencement of the state tests. However, it is expedient, in his opinion, to make investments into the development of the S-400 air defense system because in terms of the effectiveness-cost ratio it is 2.5 times more proficient than the now-functioning systems.”
Not sure what to believe.
BungaThey have had 18 years to develop the system. The system has been offered to a number of countries which is why it probably has some credibility but there is still no definitive proof that whatever we see is not in fact the S-300PMU and the long-range missile is only so far “rumoured” to be a reality. The two systems that are supposedly being tested by the Moscow PVO have so far not appeared to have yielded any results worth reporting on. I would have expected to see potential importers invited to a testing over Kazakhstan since I would want to see the weapon in action before buying it. I also still not convinced about the reality of the four missiles in one tube concept although I think your post makes sense. Even so, would those four missiles be the new long-range weapon? Would that not make them smaller than the medium range missiles in the same system? If they are that small, maybe that’s why they don’t reach 400km.
BungaS-400 Question
While I think you might have a point Noerper, I am not quite as pessimistic as that. I will admit though that, for all of my research into this system, I have seen no categorical proof of its existence, only reports of its purported exsistence and its subsequent purported deployment around Moscow. Nothing definitive and nothing that conclusively shows that it is not the S 300PMU1 or 2. While I remain a little skeptical, I am sure that the Chinese would not lay down money for a system their intelligence told them didn’t exist. I would love to see something definitive instead of speculative. That is why I’m interested in the upcoming MAKS demonstration which btw, only officially declares an Almaz press conference on an unidentified subject, nothing about a demonstration of the S-400 or its long-range missile. Anybody help me on this one? I can’t make it to MAKS unfortunately.
BungaA shot of the S-400 Anti-Aircraft system?
BungaMAKS 2005
A picture of the famed S 400 system and the long-range missile would be cool.
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