Posted on 01/21/2010 1:01:49 AM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
PACIFIC MISSILE RANGE BARKING SANDS, Hawaii | On January 19, the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii began construction of an Advanced Radar Detection Laboratory (ARDEL) facility.
The ARDEL project will test and evaluate a new radar system planned for the next generation of surface combatant vessels strengthening the U.S. Navy's ability to detect, track, and provide information required to engage ballistic missiles at greater distances than current systems in use as well as more elusive long-range air threats. The advanced technologies of the new radar incorporate various aspects of ballistic missile defense (BMD), air defense (AD), and surface warfare (SuW).
The purpose of the ARDEL facility is to test advanced radar technologies including the Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR). According to the AMDR Major Program Manager, Capt. Larry Creevy, AMDR is a next generation radar system designed to address the BMD, AD, and SuW capability gaps identified in the Maritime Air and Missile Defense of Joint Forces (MAMDJF) Initial Capabilities Document (ICD). AMDR is envisioned to counter current and emergent Ballistic missile, air-to-surface and surface-to-surface missile threats.
"This advanced radar project will not only further the Navy's ability to protect and serve our nation and our allies, but also strengthen PMRF's status as a diverse and important training and test and evaluation resource for our country," said PMRF Commanding Officer Capt. Aaron Cudnohufsky.
(Excerpt) Read more at defpro.com ...
Given our success with stealth technologies, I would bet that our enemies are developing the same technology. I wonder if this new radar can beat stealth.
It probably won’t matter, as any weapon system capable of enhancing our national security is viewed as a budget item to be slashed in favor of our 0bamunist regime’s socialistic agenda.
My company has an AMDR program. Gee, if I had known it was being tested in Hawaii, I would have tried to get on it. It sounds like a monostatic (vs. multistatic) radar and it sounds like it employs S- and X-Band (Aegis and THAAD) or similar traditional radar bands. What defeats stealth is long wavelength (ROTHR) or multistatic radars. There are very few multistatic radars (SPACE FENCE) and only a few long wavelength radars.
The ROTHR receive array is almost a mile long and not particularly suitable for a shipborne system, although ROTHR based in Virginia, Texas and Puerto Rico maintain constant surveillance on the Carribean and send reports to ships in the area. (Drug interdiction mission.) The advantage of ROTHR in this mission is cost per square mile surveilled. ROTHR also operates in a bistatic mode, though this mode is used to avoid second time clutter rather than for enhanced RCS.
SPACE FENCE is unique in that it is not only multistatic, it is also the only CW radar I know of, other than hand held Doppler machines (baseball and police speed guns). Again SPACE FENCE is multistatic for reasons of geometry, no RCS enhancement. The Serbs putatively used an improvised multistatic radar to shoot down an F-117 during the Kosovo War. I've also heard they used longwave radar. In either case, I don't think they fielded robust systems, rather they relied on U.S. operational sloppiness and lack of electronic support measures, such as jamming.
Distance is your friend.
My ETs were my friends. :-)
The Navy should note that if they pass through the Commonwealth of Virginia, radar detectors are illegal here. ;)
How about set up as an array with part of the system on each of several ships strung out in a line?
You’ve got a lot more ships than I do.
You can do anything if you have enough money. The Navy looked at SWOTHR (Surface Wave Over The Horizon Radar) which would put a longwave radar on a single ship. One difference was that ROTHR uses ionospheric propagation rather than surface wave and therefore has a minimum range of about 500 miles. SWOTHR would have good sensitivity against low observable (stealth) but not much accuracy. Short wavelength radar can detect low observables if they know where to look. The low accuracy SWOTHR could cue a high accuracy conventional radar which would then only have to search the SWOTHR uncertainty volume. E.g., SWOTHER tells you he’s between 10-30 bearing and 10-15 Nautical miles, the fire control radar would rapidly search and acquire the target with enough precision to put a weapon on it.
I heard the Chinese and Russians are experimenting with doppler systems. They’re a bit frightened of what we’ve got.
True.
Who knows. It would be interesting to find out.
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