What's the Radar?

[FireFly]

What's the radar that has shot the F-117 stealth in Yugoslavia? What kind of that Radar? & where was it manufactured exactly?

Hopefully there will be some official documents or websites referring to the model of the radar used...

Thanks...

[zb10948]

System was Isayev S-125 Neva-M. It's sensors have three radars, 380kW C band acquisition radar (250 km), 250kW I/D band tracking and guidance radar (80 km), and an height finder (E band, 28 km range and 32 km height).

The system featured local modifications, which boosted up wavelenghts, thus F-117 was acquired on radar screens, and engaged.

[FireFly]

someone on another forum said that it was the Marconi S-600 radar.. that's why I was frustrated... is there something true about it?

& hey zb, I'm on the chat and I don't see you weren't you the one who volunteered once to make a chat link?

[zb10948]

I'll drop by now

[Pavel]

BTW, almost on topic:

S-400 missile defense systems to start defending Moscow July 1
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070521/65806197.html

[zb10948]

Already posted, in "Mr. Putin" topic, i believe

[FireFly]

excuse me guys. some people on another forum are insisting that an American Radar called "Marconi S-600 radar" was actually the radar that has DETECTED the F-117 path. Then 3 SAM missiles were fired after being programmed to the path of the F-117 one of them has blown up near the airplane and and its smithereens have shot the F-117..

Is that true? they seem so sure about that...

[FireFly]

I'd like to quote a part of what was said in the forum.. I hope you'll comment on all that please...

First, there was a question by one guy:

The story as was told by the Serb officer is incomplete and has many loopholes:
- There is no information as to how and where did that SA-3 battery got its early warning data about the F-117 from. The P-15 radar associated with that missile system is incapable of detecting the US Stealth fighter.
- Once the SA-3 commander received the data (which some rumors claim that the Russian over the horizon radars from inside Russia provide). He would have to start tracking the F-117 plane using his UNV (Low Blow radar). This radar works in (8-10) GHz band which makes it ideal for the F-117 plane. The F-117 was designed to defeat radars in that band since most fire control radars work in it. So how did the Serb SA-3 commander do it? Or did he use his thermal imaging device (that was a new addition) to track the stealth plane.
- The biggest problem that the Serb has to explain was how did the SA-3 missile radio fuse detect the F-117?
Unless the Serb commander answers the above questions, there won't be a full picture surrounding the shooting down of the F-117 over Serbia with the serious assistance of the Russians.

The reply to that:

That wasn't a P-15 radar, but they used an old Marconi S-600 radar, supplied from the USMC in the 1960s. This radar was stored for years, so it needed some spares when they attempted to put it online again: as no spares were available, they have "home-made" some of them.

The result from use of these spares was that the behaviour of that radar was "abnormal": it didn't work properly (BTW, it didn't work properly also because its antenna was misaligned by something like 2°: this, in turn, made it quite invulnerable to AGM-88 HARMs then missiles would target the ground in front of the radar - fully radiated - instead the antenna).

Eventually, after several tests, they found out they were - from time to time - able to recognize (not even to really track) also F-117s with help of this S-600 (which, BTW, also caused the Jane's to report the Serbs to have S-300 SAMs). In that one case, this "recognition" was sufficient to fire SA-3s into the right piece of skies: the missiles were guided electro-optically, with one being detonated (per remote control) bellow, other at approximate level of the target and the third one above it. Nobody knows which missile knocked the F-117 out, but that plane isn't a particularly flyable object once it falls into a spin any way.... (and, as can be seen on pictures showing its wreckage, it indeed fell into a flat spin, and hit the ground while still in upright position).

In total: that was really a lucky shot. Anybody attempting to explain anything else is either trying to boast or babbling.

Otherwise, they'd manage to repeat it - which they didn't.

I hope zb will tell us the truth about all that... Because I really want to know..

Thank you..

[Carlo]

I don't understand much about radars and electronic technology. The best qualified in this forum about these topics is surely zb. But have a look at these links, from the same webpage, it has very interesting information:
http://www.aeronautics.ru/lbandradars.htm
There is a claim that perhaps the radar that detected the F-117 was Czech:
http://www.aeronautics.ru/tamara02.htm
This is an excellent website (www.aeronautics.ru), but unfortunately, I don't know why, it is not updated in many years, since 2004.

[FireFly]

Thank you Carlo for the great links...
Sure, there are many claims saying different things.. All that because the U.S. government is refusing to believe it. & always showing the Yugoslavs as liars..etc..
But I personally think that the only confirmed answere must be taken ONLY from those who shot down the aircraft. Others are only some people full of envy.

& yes, www.aeronautics.ru is a great site full of informations...

Thanks Carlo