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Iranian Air Defense Systems

در مورد اون تایپیک ریز پهپادها یکی به اون کاربران میلیتاری بگه که توپ های ضد هوایی سعیر برای مقابله باهاشون مناسبند ...

نکته اینجاست که ما باید بتونیم از همین ریزگردها برای حمله به ناوهای آمریکایی ها استفاده کنیم ...

راه ها مقابله هم اینه که بتونی مثل فیلم استار ترک 2016 ، بین ارتباط این پهپادها اخلال ایجاد کنی ...

در نهایت می رسیم به همون بمب اتمی که باید می داشتیمیش و هر زمان که دیدیم اوضاع بده با ترکوندنش توی مدار لئو می زدیم زیر میز بازی ...

البته عزیزان از زدن یک کواد کوپتر هم عاجز بودن

حتی به اندازه ژنرال ضیاء پاکستان هم عرضه نداشتن و به خاطر قدرت طلبی سلاحی که می تونست خیلی از تهدیدات علیه ما رو بی اثر کنه رو دادن رفت ... سلاحیی که تک تک مردم ایران بابتش سال ها هزینه دادن و زجر کشیدن و زجر می کشند ...

حرام است

:D
 
در مورد اون تایپیک ریز پهپادها یکی به اون کاربران میلیتاری بگه که توپ های ضد هوایی سعیر برای مقابله باهاشون مناسبند ...

نکته اینجاست که ما باید بتونیم از همین ریزگردها برای حمله به ناوهای آمریکایی ها استفاده کنیم ...

راه ها مقابله هم اینه که بتونی مثل فیلم استار ترک 2016 ، بین ارتباط این پهپادها اخلال ایجاد کنی ...

در نهایت می رسیم به همون بمب اتمی که باید می داشتیمیش و هر زمان که دیدیم اوضاع بده با ترکوندنش توی مدار لئو می زدیم زیر میز بازی ...

البته عزیزان از زدن یک کواد کوپتر هم عاجز بودن

حتی به اندازه ژنرال ضیاء پاکستان هم عرضه نداشتن و به خاطر قدرت طلبی سلاحی که می تونست خیلی از تهدیدات علیه ما رو بی اثر کنه رو دادن رفت ... سلاحیی که تک تک مردم ایران بابتش سال ها هزینه دادن و زجر کشیدن و زجر می کشند ...
Google this :::
"Nuclear weapon is a big hoax"
We will defeat the grandeur of nuclear weapons. Seyyed Ali Kamenei
We have a better hidden technology brother. Better than fake NUKEs
 
all for show ... where was these system in past days !?
at least they could use Messbah 2 System ...

I think someone brand Messbah System as useless , take the budget for his own project ( just stealling the money ) and then decide an slave solder with 30 years old Zu-23 is enough for Tehran ...

this is reality ...

Just because they didn't show them it doesn't mean they weren't there! This was a live exercise of a wide area not a weapons showing & these areas are protected classified locations so you can't just send a crew to every location!
They showed the Sayyad-2, S-200, Shalamcheh launches! That's plenty!
As I said before they want the 1st public showing of the Bavar-373 to be of a Ballistic Missile interception!

This government is trying hard NOT to create tensions so the plan for now is not to show off their achievements constantly but just because they don't show them off it doesn't mean they aren't working on them! 1st stage booster of the Simorgh was clearly tested but they didn't show it off! Karrar Tank, Kowsar-88 jet trainer, Sina-4, Fatteh Sub, Sahand,...


They have increased Iran's defense spending to upwards of ~ $20 Billion USD it's far from enough especially when your paying almost $6Billion on paychecks + Benefits but still it's an increase despite low oil prices & fall in currency
 
which technology?
EMP! & Weapons based on & or using Nanotechnology!
Imagine weapons that dispersing into 3,000 smaller pieces each weighing no more than 250 grams at an altitude of 10 miles above a city! each peace containing 200 grams of purified liquid Nitroglycerin with a protective layer that keeps it stabilized & slowly dissolves upon hitting the atmosphere using nanotechnology & a charge the ignites it once the protective layer is gone & it hits the ground!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitroglycerin
The reason nitroglycerin is not used today in it's most explosive form is because of it's sensitivity a simple shake or room temperature could set it off
And what you see below is not even a purified form!
http://www.wimp.com/the-power-of-nitroglycerin/
Now imagine nitro was something that was invented long before Nanotechnology even existed!!!

Hell even 1000 X 1kg of HMX (produced by Iran today) dispersed in 2 square kilometers at the hart of a city = 1000 katyusha rockets hitting the hart of a city at the same time it's not going to flatten the city but will totally decimate it!

And of course Iran is working on a non nuclear EMP device who wouldn't be!!!!!!!

Now imagine if those clusters were carrying chemical, biological or a new Nanotechnology based explosive! imagine weapons specifically made not to target humans but your crops or your water supply!
Israeli's & Americans know this! So Iran has a none nuclear deterrent against nukes that will make nukes look like mercy kill!
The problem the U.S. has with Iran has nothing to do with nukes! Nukes are just the most recent excuse!
 
A quick analysis of MTNs photos

So now the names for each of the Bavars radars are mentioned. Hence let me further explain what I think about the Bavars radar systems as I did before i this thread.

One of the Bavar battery radars is called engagement radar and the other accusation and engagement radar. Both work in the same bandwidth, both are phased arrays and as said earlier apparently active ones. So why using two such radars in the Bavar battery and not just one like in the S-300PM/400, Patriot and all the others?

I speculate that the reason is that the Bavar has a higher emphasis to work effectively against VLO, stealth targets while using SARH guided long range SAMs.

If you want to use a long range SARH guided missile against a stealth target at max. range you will have a hard time to track the target at those ranges in S- to X-band for which their VLO features are best optimized. It will even have a hard time to detect the target.
A somewhat complex but feasible solution is the following one which fits the Bavars displayed systems exactly.

Long range surveillance radar data is used as the highest tier source of information this can be by large static systems such as the IRGC's Ghadir or the IRIADF OTH radar which is in development or already operational. This is passed down to lower tier long range surveillance systems such as the Meraj-4, Matla ol Fajr-3 or Nebo-SVU.
Iran has no own mobile Nebo-SVU equivalent, a mobile VHF AESA with space time processing, digital beamforming and most importantly for our case sufficiently accurate 3D coordinate information. But with the static Fath-14 we know that they are working on what would become a Nebo-SVU equivalent.

High tier system such as Ghadir/OTH radars can only do early warning of the rough area where the target should be. The first system of the greater Bavar system which could detect a stealth target is successfully would be a Nevo-SVU like system, potentially using its AESA beamforming capability to search in a limited portion of the airspace with greater concentration of RF energy to archive greater dynamic range. The features of the Nebo-SVU I described above made it the first VHF-band radar with accurate enough resolution to successfully guide a SARH SAM towards it with a good chance for the SAM seeker to pick up the target a terminal phase. This theoretical operation was made famous by Carlo Kopp for Australian Airpower for the S-300PM/400.

Now lets come back to those two Iranian Bavar battery radars:

One is a apparently a AESA wich is enough for following tasks: 360° conventional radar search, sector search using electronic scanning, digital beamforming to track and illuminate a target (needs to be CW/FMCW), track the missile if necessary and create a datalink beam to provide guidance updates to the SAM (if sufficiently advanced). The general functions described are also performed by the S-300/400s Tombstone/Gravestone radars and thus in theory this single radar would be sufficient for the Bavar battery operation. Because its called engagement radar we should expect a CW(FMCW illumination capability.

The other dedicated engagement radar has no search function, is apparently a AESA too and have digital beamforming capability to concentrate CW/FMCW illumination in a smaller portion of the airspace than PESAs such as the engagement radars of S-300/400 and Patriot. This feature would give it probably a similar illumination intensity at the target as the S-300/400 while operating at a much lower emitting power as well as smaller aperture size.

To put this together I think there is a special mode of operation which is used against stealth targets or targets very far away: A Nebo-SVU like radar has detected a stealth target at extended ranges such as 250km using beamforming as described above to archive better range (by knowing the rough portion of airspace where the target should be by higher tier early warning systems).
This information is passed to a Bavar battery. The SAM is launched with those coordinates feed into its INS. The search and engagment radar of the Bavar starts to sporadically emitting in order to track the SAMs position and feed it with guidance updates via a dedicated data-link beam produced by the beamformer. At this point this Bavar radar does not see the stealth target, it only uses the coordinated provided to it by the Nebo-SVU-like radar.
Coming closer terminal range the dedicated engagement/illumination radar is activated to illuminate the portion of airspace where the Nebo-SVU-like radar tracks the target. Also this radar sees no target and tracks nothing.
Of course at one point the SAM get close enough to the target to pick up the RF energy reflected by the target and the inaccuracy coordinate info provided by the Nebo-SVU-like system is no longer necessary. A SAGG/TVM like terminal SARH guidance kicks in, does the necessary trajectory corrections and possibly sends back what its seeker detects via data-link to do cross-processing with the information provided by the Nebo-SVU-like or other sensors.

Hence at the moment I think the Bavars search and engagement radar is the main battery radar used for large targets and at lower ranges than the max. SAM range (possibly for use with lower range SAMs of the Bavar), it also a secondary search function is necessary.
The dedicated engagement radar is a illumination radar possibly not even possessing receiving capabilities. A illumination radar with no receiving system would be a bad decision for system redundancy but could be a wise one for cost effectiveness and knowing that against stealth and very distance targets no tracking would be possible anyway.

This is my explanation for this unusual arrangement of two such radars. It would make a lot sense for a system designed against stealthy opponents or designed for very long range engagement.

A few notes: The engagement-only radar would certainly have a receive function for tracking, for redundancy purposes its "a must", its provides the battery with the capability to to remain operational even if one of the two battery engagement radars has been killed.

The Meraj-4 takes the place of the Big Bird in the S-300/400, a large ~6000 element PESA S-Band search radar (but its anti-stealth capability could be reduced compared to the Big Bird due to the higher frequency).

The Najam 802 is not proven to be related to the Bavar, but compared to the larger Meraj-4 it is apparently a AESA system with beam forming and more sophisticated capabilities (foremost beam concentration to get a track of a distend/stealth target). It resembles the Russian Gamma-S which s also part of the Nebo-M multiband system.
 
A quick analysis of MTNs photos

So now the names for each of the Bavars radars are mentioned. Hence let me further explain what I think about the Bavars radar systems as I did before i this thread.

One of the Bavar battery radars is called engagement radar and the other accusation and engagement radar. Both work in the same bandwidth, both are phased arrays and as said earlier apparently active ones. So why using two such radars in the Bavar battery and not just one like in the S-300PM/400, Patriot and all the others?

I speculate that the reason is that the Bavar has a higher emphasis to work effectively against VLO, stealth targets while using SARH guided long range SAMs.

If you want to use a long range SARH guided missile against a stealth target at max. range you will have a hard time to track the target at those ranges in S- to X-band for which their VLO features are best optimized. It will even have a hard time to detect the target.
A somewhat complex but feasible solution is the following one which fits the Bavars displayed systems exactly.

Long range surveillance radar data is used as the highest tier source of information this can be by large static systems such as the IRGC's Ghadir or the IRIADF OTH radar which is in development or already operational. This is passed down to lower tier long range surveillance systems such as the Meraj-4, Matla ol Fajr-3 or Nebo-SVU.
Iran has no own mobile Nebo-SVU equivalent, a mobile VHF AESA with space time processing, digital beamforming and most importantly for our case sufficiently accurate 3D coordinate information. But with the static Fath-14 we know that they are working on what would become a Nebo-SVU equivalent.

High tier system such as Ghadir/OTH radars can only do early warning of the rough area where the target should be. The first system of the greater Bavar system which could detect a stealth target is successfully would be a Nevo-SVU like system, potentially using its AESA beamforming capability to search in a limited portion of the airspace with greater concentration of RF energy to archive greater dynamic range. The features of the Nebo-SVU I described above made it the first VHF-band radar with accurate enough resolution to successfully guide a SARH SAM towards it with a good chance for the SAM seeker to pick up the target a terminal phase. This theoretical operation was made famous by Carlo Kopp for Australian Airpower for the S-300PM/400.

Now lets come back to those two Iranian Bavar battery radars:

One is a apparently a AESA wich is enough for following tasks: 360° conventional radar search, sector search using electronic scanning, digital beamforming to track and illuminate a target (needs to be CW/FMCW), track the missile if necessary and create a datalink beam to provide guidance updates to the SAM (if sufficiently advanced). The general functions described are also performed by the S-300/400s Tombstone/Gravestone radars and thus in theory this single radar would be sufficient for the Bavar battery operation. Because its called engagement radar we should expect a CW(FMCW illumination capability.

The other dedicated engagement radar has no search function, is apparently a AESA too and have digital beamforming capability to concentrate CW/FMCW illumination in a smaller portion of the airspace than PESAs such as the engagement radars of S-300/400 and Patriot. This feature would give it probably a similar illumination intensity at the target as the S-300/400 while operating at a much lower emitting power as well as smaller aperture size.

To put this together I think there is a special mode of operation which is used against stealth targets or targets very far away: A Nebo-SVU like radar has detected a stealth target at extended ranges such as 250km using beamforming as described above to archive better range (by knowing the rough portion of airspace where the target should be by higher tier early warning systems).
This information is passed to a Bavar battery. The SAM is launched with those coordinates feed into its INS. The search and engagment radar of the Bavar starts to sporadically emitting in order to track the SAMs position and feed it with guidance updates via a dedicated data-link beam produced by the beamformer. At this point this Bavar radar does not see the stealth target, it only uses the coordinated provided to it by the Nebo-SVU-like radar.
Coming closer terminal range the dedicated engagement/illumination radar is activated to illuminate the portion of airspace where the Nebo-SVU-like radar tracks the target. Also this radar sees no target and tracks nothing.
Of course at one point the SAM get close enough to the target to pick up the RF energy reflected by the target and the inaccuracy coordinate info provided by the Nebo-SVU-like system is no longer necessary. A SAGG/TVM like terminal SARH guidance kicks in, does the necessary trajectory corrections and possibly sends back what its seeker detects via data-link to do cross-processing with the information provided by the Nebo-SVU-like or other sensors.

Hence at the moment I think the Bavars search and engagement radar is the main battery radar used for large targets and at lower ranges than the max. SAM range (possibly for use with lower range SAMs of the Bavar), it also a secondary search function is necessary.
The dedicated engagement radar is a illumination radar possibly not even possessing receiving capabilities. A illumination radar with no receiving system would be a bad decision for system redundancy but could be a wise one for cost effectiveness and knowing that against stealth and very distance targets no tracking would be possible anyway.

This is my explanation for this unusual arrangement of two such radars. It would make a lot sense for a system designed against stealthy opponents or designed for very long range engagement.

A few notes: The engagement-only radar would certainly have a receive function for tracking, for redundancy purposes its "a must", its provides the battery with the capability to to remain operational even if one of the two battery engagement radars has been killed.

The Meraj-4 takes the place of the Big Bird in the S-300/400, a large ~6000 element PESA S-Band search radar (but its anti-stealth capability could be reduced compared to the Big Bird due to the higher frequency).

The Najam 802 is not proven to be related to the Bavar, but compared to the larger Meraj-4 it is apparently a AESA system with beam forming and more sophisticated capabilities (foremost beam concentration to get a track of a distend/stealth target). It resembles the Russian Gamma-S which s also part of the Nebo-M multiband system.
Truly outstanding post sir...

Just a few quick questions:

1. If this is a complex solution, how could it be improved/applied differently?

2. How do we know the radars depicted are AESA?
 
@AmirPatriot

A less complex but also probably less robust solution and more expensive is to use a simple ARH seeker equipped SAM with one search-only radar, like the the Aster and others. The Iranian solution would be a good one if it works that way, all systems which would be designed to counter stealth opponents would be more complex.

Two different radars on two trucks looks complex but another point is that we have a problem in practice with my described solution:

The Bavars SAM seeker would almost certainly be in X-band. But AESA technology for X-band is still very new, expansive and hard to master. In my description above both Bavar battery radars would have to be X-band AESAs to work that way. Iran has displayed AESA systems up to S-band, with the Hafez for example.
So it would be a more likely theory that the acquisition and engagement radar is in fact a S-band system with no actual "engagement" capability, means the ability to illuminate a target. It could be a AESA beamforming radar like the Hafez, used for emergency battery search capability, missile up-link communication and missile tracking during engagement. It could additionally be optimized to form a high energy pencil beam to track a distant or stealth target, but with no illumination capability to guide the Bavars SARH SAM seeker autonomously. In emergency it could work alone by using the Bavars missile up-link to guide it in a much less robust and accurate command guidance mode.

The necessary engagement radar able to illuminate a target would be the "engagement radar" of the Bavar. It looks like a AESA system, but due to the reasons mentioned above it would be a quite huge achievement to build a rather large X-band AESA for tracking and illumination. Rather high power levels are necessary and Iran is not known to possess such state of the art semi conductor capabilities. A X-band system explains the smaller aperture size of it and a AESA solution with lower power than a S-300 like PESA could archive a comparably high illumination power by more precise pencil beam forming.
We could dismiss it being a AESA and just looking like one from the outside, a high power direct feed PESA would be muh easier to build. Could it be a reduced AESA with no receiving capability as explained in the previous post, in order to make it easier to build? No such system is known and I'm not sure if this would be technically feasible, but I dont exclude the possibility that only by taking out the receiver function they were able to create a high power AESA Illuminator.

One question would be why using two trucks if both radars could be mounted on a single one judging from the size. Its for system redundancy and because both radars work in different S- and X-bands.

So why do these radars look like AESAs?
-A horn or lens feed system is missing (like on Patriot, Big bird, Tombstone PESAs)
-A waveguide is missing on the front (the horizontal channels on the aperture face, like on Meraj-4 and Bashir)
-The clean face of the radar aperture continuous 100% of surface area and shape in total depth of the aperture and the total depth of the aperture is not rather thin compared to PESA designs but thick.

The Bavars radars have all those traits, hence they are almost certainly AESAs even if there is a slim possibility of a just unusual looking PESA.

Some might ask what the main advantage of a AESA would be in this context.

Lets take the Meraj-4, Matla ol Fajr-3 and Najam 802 as example. These 3 could form something like a Iranian Nebo-M system, even if lacking a third L-band component.
As PESAs the Meraj-4 and Matla ol Fajr-3 would make use of their large emitting power and aperture size to do continuous volume search in VHF and S-band. Signal analysis of the two would make it possible to determine whether its a stealth target or a conventional one. In a stealth case the Meraj-4 would see nothing but the Matla ol Fajr-3 would. Here is where a advanced AESA like the Najam 802 could do following: Its aperture size and emitting power is smaller than its S-band colleague the Meraj-4, hence it would normally have no chance to see the stealth target. It would use its AESA given precise beam forming capabilities to do a tight sector search in which a small pencil beam scans the airspace portion where the Matla-ol-Fajr-3 has detected a potential stealth target. Hence even if operating in the less stealth effective S-band, it could pick up the target visible by the Matla-ol-Fajr-3 and do the necessary target analyzing and more importantly provide much more accurate S-band grade target coordinate data to Bavar batteries. Signal analysis in such a case could even classify the target, whether its a missile, decoy, fighter and so on. Additionally it would be able to keep track of the target in case of heavy jamming, where volume search PESAs Meraj-4 and Matla ol Fajr-3 would already be jammed.
 
@AmirPatriot

A less complex but also probably less robust solution and more expensive is to use a simple ARH seeker equipped SAM with one search-only radar, like the the Aster and others. The Iranian solution would be a good one if it works that way, all systems which would be designed to counter stealth opponents would be more complex.

Two different radars on two trucks looks complex but another point is that we have a problem in practice with my described solution:

The Bavars SAM seeker would almost certainly be in X-band. But AESA technology for X-band is still very new, expansive and hard to master. In my description above both Bavar battery radars would have to be X-band AESAs to work that way. Iran has displayed AESA systems up to S-band, with the Hafez for example.
So it would be a more likely theory that the acquisition and engagement radar is in fact a S-band system with no actual "engagement" capability, means the ability to illuminate a target. It could be a AESA beamforming radar like the Hafez, used for emergency battery search capability, missile up-link communication and missile tracking during engagement. It could additionally be optimized to form a high energy pencil beam to track a distant or stealth target, but with no illumination capability to guide the Bavars SARH SAM seeker autonomously. In emergency it could work alone by using the Bavars missile up-link to guide it in a much less robust and accurate command guidance mode.

The necessary engagement radar able to illuminate a target would be the "engagement radar" of the Bavar. It looks like a AESA system, but due to the reasons mentioned above it would be a quite huge achievement to build a rather large X-band AESA for tracking and illumination. Rather high power levels are necessary and Iran is not known to possess such state of the art semi conductor capabilities. A X-band system explains the smaller aperture size of it and a AESA solution with lower power than a S-300 like PESA could archive a comparably high illumination power by more precise pencil beam forming.
We could dismiss it being a AESA and just looking like one from the outside, a high power direct feed PESA would be muh easier to build. Could it be a reduced AESA with no receiving capability as explained in the previous post, in order to make it easier to build? No such system is known and I'm not sure if this would be technically feasible, but I dont exclude the possibility that only by taking out the receiver function they were able to create a high power AESA Illuminator.

One question would be why using two trucks if both radars could be mounted on a single one judging from the size. Its for system redundancy and because both radars work in different S- and X-bands.

So why do these radars look like AESAs?
-A horn or lens feed system is missing (like on Patriot, Big bird, Tombstone PESAs)
-A waveguide is missing on the front (the horizontal channels on the aperture face, like on Meraj-4 and Bashir)
-The clean face of the radar aperture continuous 100% of surface area and shape in total depth of the aperture and the total depth of the aperture is not rather thin compared to PESA designs but thick.

The Bavars radars have all those traits, hence they are almost certainly AESAs even if there is a slim possibility of a just unusual looking PESA.

Some might ask what the main advantage of a AESA would be in this context.

Lets take the Meraj-4, Matla ol Fajr-3 and Najam 802 as example. These 3 could form something like a Iranian Nebo-M system, even if lacking a third L-band component.
As PESAs the Meraj-4 and Matla ol Fajr-3 would make use of their large emitting power and aperture size to do continuous volume search in VHF and S-band. Signal analysis of the two would make it possible to determine whether its a stealth target or a conventional one. In a stealth case the Meraj-4 would see nothing but the Matla ol Fajr-3 would. Here is where a advanced AESA like the Najam 802 could do following: Its aperture size and emitting power is smaller than its S-band colleague the Meraj-4, hence it would normally have no chance to see the stealth target. It would use its AESA given precise beam forming capabilities to do a tight sector search in which a small pencil beam scans the airspace portion where the Matla-ol-Fajr-3 has detected a potential stealth target. Hence even if operating in the less stealth effective S-band, it could pick up the target visible by the Matla-ol-Fajr-3 and do the necessary target analyzing and more importantly provide much more accurate S-band grade target coordinate data to Bavar batteries. Signal analysis in such a case could even classify the target, whether its a missile, decoy, fighter and so on. Additionally it would be able to keep track of the target in case of heavy jamming, where volume search PESAs Meraj-4 and Matla ol Fajr-3 would already be jammed.
5196523+_d03cd9119d223a483f01ddf2b3dbd1c0.gif







Fantastic post PeeD... keep up the good work :tup:
 
Khahesh mikoam Amirpatriot.

Let me continue:

What sense does it make to select a X-band AESA as engagement/illumination radar? Why not PESA like everyone else? I gave a answer in the previous post, but lets get into the details:

PESA elements are up to several times cheaper than AESA T/R modules. The S-300PM's Tombstone illumination radar uses some 10.000 PESA elements which gives it a large aperture size. HQ-9's illumination radar, still uses some 3000-5000 elements.
Bavars illumination radar has a smaller aperture size than those two, it should have something around 2000 elements. They might still be just direct feed PESA elements, but for the previously stated reasons I thinks its a AESA system.

With a PESA system you could likely archive higher emission power output per element at much lower price and even the S-500 is said to have a PESA illumination radar.

So you have smaller aperture size (half of HQ-9 and 1/4 of S-300PM), lower emission power and likely higher cost. Problems with manufacturing AESA T/R modules at useful prices might make it even necessary to buy them from China while PESA phase shifters and transmitters would be in the reach of Iranian industry.

The answer can be only the following if we take the already displayed engineering solutions of the Bavar as proof that the team behind it is very capable.

I'm not a radar expert to judge if it is possible to overcome a just 25% aperture size with likely just half the transmitter power per element by the flexibility offered by AESA technology. This flexibility could theoretically allow to form a very tight main lobe, a radar beam that is very confined at the target, concentrating the RF energy at a small spot at i.e 300km distance. A spot which would be 5-10 times smaller than the Tombstones, to overcome its lower overall power. If such a aperture gain would be possible by a sophisticated AESA design we would have the answer why Iran selected this engineering solution. You would get the same illumination power on-target for terminal missile guidance as the brute force Tombstone.
This has not been done before as far as I know and I have not enough knowledge on antenna and aperture behavior and whether AESA elements could enable such a highly precise pencilbeam forming.

Fact is: For a Aster like solution with ARH seeker SAM a AESA radar like the other Bavar radar, the search an engagement radar, would be sufficient. So we have a SARH SAM with the Bavar, likely a TVM/SAGG system.
For a illuminator everyone these days goes for PESAs, Chinese HQ-9 and KS-1, North Korean S-300P variant, Taiwan, Russia with S-400 and -500 etc.
A AESA illuminator would only be a benefit in the above scenario.
 
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Khahesh mikoam Amirpatriot.

Let me continue:

What sense does it make to select a X-band AESA as engagement/illumination radar? Why not PESA like everyone else? I gave a answer in the previous post, but lets get into the details:

PESA elements are up to several times cheaper than AESA T/R modules. The S-300PM's Tombstone illumination radar uses some 10.000 PESA elements which gives it a large aperture size. HQ-9's illumination radar, still uses some 3000-5000 elements.
Bavars illumination radar has a smaller aperture size than those two, it should have something around 2000 elements. They might still be just direct feed PESA elements, but for the previously stated reasons I thinks its a AESA system.

With a PESA system you could likely archive higher emission power output per element at much lower price and even the S-500 is said to have a PESA illumination radar.

So you have smaller aperture size (half of HQ-9 and 1/4 of S-300PM), lower emission power and likely higher cost. Problems with manufacturing AESA T/R modules at useful prices might make it even necessary to buy them from China while PESA phase shifters and transmitters would be in the reach of Iranian industry.

The answer can be only the following if we take the already displayed engineering solutions of the Bavar as proof that the team behind it is very capable.

I'm not a radar expert to judge if it is possible to overcome a just 25% aperture size with likely just half the transmitter power per element by the flexibility offered by AESA technology. This flexibility could theoretically allow to form a very tight main lobe, a radar beam that is very confined at the target, concentrating the RF energy at a small spot at i.e 300km distance. A spot which would be 5-10 times smaller than the Tombstones, to overcome its lower overall power. If such a aperture gain would be possible by a sophisticated AESA design we would have the answer why Iran selected this engineering solution. You would get the same illumination power on-target for terminal missile guidance as the brute force Tombstone.
This has not been done before as far as I know and I have not enough knowledge on antenna and aperture behavior and whether AESA elements could enable such a highly precise pencilbeam forming.

Fact is: For a Aster like solution with ARH seeker SAM a AESA radar like the other Bavar radar, the search an engagement radar, would be sufficient. So we have a SARH SAM with the Bavar, likely a TVM/SAGG system.
For a illuminator everyone these days goes for PESAs, Chinese HQ-9 and KS-1, North Korean S-300P variant, Taiwan, Russia with S-400 and -500 etc.
A AESA illuminator would only be a benefit in the above scenario.

@PeeD

whats your opinion/guess about the capabilities of B-373
is it compareable with the russian version of S300-PMU2 or is it inferior?
once mass produced will it be a "pain in the a.." for the zionists? will it be a "game changer"?
 
The Bavar is quite unusual and thus hard to classify and predict.


What I can do is putting up two scenarios as worst and best case.


I start with the worst case summing up the key system characteristics:


- Designed to only engage atmospheric aerodynamic targets, not ballistic missiles and other exo-atmospheric objects entering the atmosphere at high speed.


- No SAM TVC system for higher maneuverability, high altitude maneuverability and possible limited exo-atmospheric interception capability. Reason for this being the above stated aerodynamic-target-only design.


- ARH-seeker (AIM-54 design heritage) equipped SAM for long range engagements or worse: The engagement radar is just a direct back-feed low power PESA. With the displayed small aperture size such a low power non space-feed PESA would have very limited and weak illumination capability, reducing range to at best 100km and providing the SARH non-SAGG/non-TVM seeker with only weak return signal which could hardly detectable with a self defense x-band jammer on the target aircraft. A command-guidance-only would be even worse but as we have seen the Illuminator radar this theory can be excluded.


- No missile up-link for passive SAM guidance up to terminal phase and SAGG/TVM purposes. No autopilot with INS for the SAM to use initial passive operation and optimized flight trajectory for improved long range kinematics. This would also mean that like HAWK and S-200, the illumination radar would be active from the start of the missile, making it easier to locate and attack. This would also mean that only one SAM could be guided at a time, making it a single engagement/channel system such as the HAWK and S-200 etc. The vertical container launched missile proves that at least some sort of autopilot and data-link communication is in place.


- Improvement in range of the Sayyad-2 to the Sayyad-4 is from 50km to 100km, hence 100% and thus considered enough and a huge improvement and so making it as much a long range SAM as earlier PAC-2 variants or the Patriot are. This would fit to the above stated small low power PESA illuminator. One reason would be that a SARH missile is somewhat heavier than a SAGG/TVM guided one and more expansive, making it a less economic design.


- Overall low effectiveness against VLO stealth targets: Low x-band illumination power, not having the brute force necessary to provide the SARH SAM with useful reflected energy. No non-SARH guidance due to lack of missile up- and down-link as well as missing INS-autopilot system able to operate passive with IADS information from VHF/UHF/HF-OTH coordinate data of detected stealth targets.


-Search and engagement radar being a simple low power PESA search radar with ~150km range against fighter targets. A separate part of the array is used to provide S-75 like command guidance to the SAM in case of jammed SARH guidance, thus making it a engagement radar as the name says.


-Meraj-4 being just a weak solution for a Big Bird-like IADS level, upper tier 360° volume search system with smaller single side aperture with fewer and lower power PESA elements. Not to talk about the lack of the advanced analysis and ECCM features of the Big Bird.

________________________________________________________________

So much for the worst case, not the best case scenario:


- System design for use against aerodynamic VLO stealth targets as well as high speed and exo-atmospheric ballistic missile targets up to MRBM-velocity.


- Novel engagement illumination radar using AESA elements and advanced methods to archive a pencil beam with very small width and high, making up for the smaller aperture size and lower emitting power of AESA modules compared to S-400 Gravestone like high power, large aperture brute force solutions. Thus providing enough brute force illumination power on target in X-band to illuminate VLO targets designed to reflect and absorb exactly those x-band waves. This power would be so high that even at long range, the max. SAM engagement range, this RF energy on target being enough to provide the terminal SARH seeker of the SAM with and firm track to home on the target. Russians trust the brute force illumination power of the S-400 X-band Gravestone radar to be able to illuminate US stealth designs to guide their current max. range SAM to its limit envelope of 250km. The engagement radar would have a secondary search function for emergency autonomous operation.


- The long range SAM of the Bavar being a TVC equipped design with SARH, SAGG guidance and secure, robust missile up- and down-link. A potent INS-autopilot would enable it to fly energy optimized trajectory and passive for up to the terminal phase of the engagement by relying on up-link provided target location updates from several IADS sensors. Range wise a 200km+ SAM would be possible. TVC would provide it with high maneuverability and some limited exo-atmospheric and high altitude intercept capabilities.
A very long range SAM variant which would fly a ballistic trajectory with a AIM-54 heritage ARH seeker with HOJ mode would be a anti-tanker, -AEW, Jammer and -ISR-JSTARs component (a concept speculated for the S-400). As well a shorter range SAM components.


- Overall LPI design with short emitter on-target times for the two very mobile shoot-and-scoot battery level radars. Making use of the AESA technology and a C4I IADS multi-sensor systems to operate in a very passive manner in strict emission control regime. This drastically improves the battery level surviveability.


-The search and engagement radar being a 300km against fighter class battery search radar S-band AESA with advanced beamforming capabilities, providing missile up- and down-link as well as missile tracking and redundant robust command guidance system. It would seldom work in search mode, only in case of disruption of connection to the IADS level upper tier systems or battery self defense in case of a PGM attack. However its the system that makes each Bavar battery a autonomous system able to operate alone if necessary. Albeit the long range anti-VLO stealth capabilities of a Bavar battery would be low in such a IADS-disconnected operation. The Cheeseboard radar does the search task of this Iranian radar in Russian S-300PM and S-400 batterys.


- The Meraj-4 being the battle management radar, like the S-300/400 Big Bird. Performance wise it would be a single faced Big Bird (possibly with higher rotation speed to compensate) with similar 3000+ S-band element count and overall aperture size, making use of never technology to archive higher emitting power per element. Its hard to beat the Big Bird in its class but the Meraj-4 could be very close and it could have similar analysis, fusion and ECCM capabilities. The Nebo-M radar system is not the upper tier volume search radar of the S-400 but would make a good replacement for the Big Bird. In the Nebo-M the Gamma-S would take over the task of the Big Bird for S-band search operation although being weaker than the huge big bird.
For the Bavar they could use the VHF-band Matla-ol-Fajr-3 to fuse with the Meraj-4 to form a Nebo-M like multi-band system or a more advanced mobile Fath-14 variant/Nebo-SVU. There is no immediate need for a third UHF band component except if advanced triangulation methods would be applied where a third radar is needed (Najam 802 being a possible AESA candidate for it). Such a system with the necessary sensor fusion involving passive ELINT and EO/UV/IR sensors beside the radars, would offer a huge analysis capability with very high ECCM capabilities and able to identify the target and sort out decoys.



So much for the cases, expect something in between.
 
Thank you for another great post @PeeD.

not ballistic missiles

Well President Rouhani has ordered it to be tested on a ballistic missile target. Though whether it is an exo-atmospheric or terminal defence is the question (I suspect the latter).

No SAM TVC system for higher maneuverability

Maybe. Certainly no officials have alluded to this capability (which I'm sure they would love to brag about if we did have it). There has been one image of the exhaust of the Sayyad-4 showing no sign of TVC though this could be a mockup/prototype.

Sayyad-4_28329.jpg


reducing range to at best 100km

No way... the range of the missiles themselves is expected to be more than that.

Improvement in range of the Sayyad-2 to the Sayyad-4 is from 50km to 100km

Well speculation goes that the Sayyad-2 has a 75 km range and the Sayyad-3 is quoted by news agencies to have a 150 km range so I expect the Sayyad-4 is more than these put together...

exo-atmospheric ballistic missile target

IMHO it seems unlikely. The Bavar-373 has always been pitched as an anti-aircraft system, not an ABM.

Range wise a 200km+ SAM would be possible

Official military quotes seem to suggest the Sayyad-4 missile has a 300 km range.

Its hard to beat the Big Bird in its class

Why is this? Large number of elements? ECCM capability? Power?

I hope you don't think I'm getting defensive... I just think that some of the "worse case" and "best case" scenarios are too extreme as they divert from some things the Iranian defence establishment has said.
 
Thank you for another great post @PeeD.

Maybe. Certainly no officials have alluded to this capability (which I'm sure they would love to brag about if we did have it). There has been one image of the exhaust of the Sayyad-4 showing no sign of TVC though this could be a mockup/prototype.

Sayyad-4_28329.jpg




.
Also if the TVC vanes are coupled with the aerodynamic control surfaces then we wouldnt be able to see them from this angle.As for the official pronouncements on the system these have been pretty thin on any concrete details of the system and its capabilities
 
@AmirPatriot

The task of such a worst and best case scenario comparison is to create those two extremes.
For example Rohani might have ordered it to be tested against a ballistic missile, however under right test conditions also a MIM-23 HAWK could be tested against a TBM and successfully intercept it.

The Bavar might be as useful against TBMs as the S-400 is, primarily designed as anti-aircraft systems. Very high altitude or limited exo-atmospheric capability make TVC necessary, especially if you want to intercept a ballistic missile at ~40km. As you rightly say we cant judge from the parade mock-up if the final variant wont have TVC or whether there isn't a Sayyad-5 component (smaller and ABM optimized) with TVC for TBM type targets. And as for range, yes even 300km might be possible, I just said 200km+ because for a normal SAM with no special ballistic trajectory system, 200km is the upper range for a missile of that size.

Now to the Big Bird. Its just a very sophisticated radar of high emitting power and large aperture size. Its from the 70's and has been incrementally improved. It has a very sophisticated analysis system and advanced algorithms. Russians even opted for its use in the S-400 over much newer systems like the Gamma-D, also because of its decade long sophistication.

__________________________________________________________

Now let me move from system design characteristics to the operational employment and tactics against VLO stealth targets.

Worst case:

It would operate like the early Patriot variant or the KS-1 system. The search and engagement radar would be more or less useless against a F-117 type aircraft, detecting it at less then 20km. They would use IADS Nebo-SVU information to determine the potential target location. The engagement radar would put its mainlobe beam into that direction and try to get a return. It could get a return at 50km range, one that would be hardy sufficient to cue to SAMs SARH seeker to the target. Hence the SAM would be launched in command guidance mode like the KS-1 with the option to accuire the target with the SAMs SARH seeker in terminal phase. The system could also be used in command-guidance-mode-only against stealth targets and in a very worse case scenario this could be the Bavars only guidance mode bringing it to the same league as the early S-300P and the KS-1.

Best case:

A sophisticated IADS based kill chain would be used. A OTH radar system would detect the stealth targets rough position 200km outside Irans border. A Ghadir type high power VHF early warning radar would search for the target once its inside the line of sight of the system. ELINT systems known as "passive radars" would try to pick up emissions from the target, classify it or even locate it and Ghadir radar would also further analyze the target.

Forward deployed to the early warning radar systems (200km) would be a volume search mobile early warning site consisting of the Meraj-4, Najm 802 and Matla ol Fajr 3/Nebo-SVU (or more advanced Fath-14 based Iranian VHF AESAs). Those systems would further classify the target, make band comparisons to sort out ECM and decoy targets, possibly use triangulation methods, prioritize and maybe even identify targets (via radar analysis data, received emitter data and possibly EO/IR sensor data) and pass over target data for engagement to Bavar batteries. Those target coordinates could be be precised by possible 3D S-band AESA Najm 802 and 3D VHF-band AESAs such as Nebo-SVU/mobile-Fath-14. These volume search IADS systems would be mobile and re-deploy every few hours and need about an hour to set up again.

The further forward deployed Bavar batteries (100km) would then use precision target coordinates to cue the Bavar engagement radar to search in the airspace box where the upper tier systems have detected the target. The extrem tight beam of the X-band AESA would get a target return at extended 100km+ range against a F-22 type target. Even if no return is received the engagement radar could start to paint the airspace box where the target has been detected due to precision IADS based target coordinates, so the illumination power on target in terminal phase would be sufficient for the SARH seeker to pick up the target and get a firm track. Such a operation could extend the Bavar anti-stealth engagement range to 150km+.
But in the case of conventional operation where a track by the engagement radar is successfully proven at first, the SAM is launched in passive mode where the engagement radar stops illuminating the target. This is done via target data from upper tier IADS elements and data-link and track of missile via the S-band search and engagement radar. The system only starts to emit again in the terminal phase where the SARH SAGG seeker system of the SAM is close enough to acquire the stealth target. Missile downlink would make a SAGG signal analysis of IADS data, engagement radar data as well as SAM seeker data possible to make a data analysis in order to increase robustness and avoid self defence ECM to protect the aircraft against the attack. The mobile Bavar batteries would redeploy after each emitting for target attack. With 5 minutes shoot and scoot and high off-road capability they would set traps in the periphery of the IADS volume search systems.

Bavar batteries and other IADS elements would be protected by CIWS like AAA and short range anti-PGM SAMs. Even further forward deployed to Bavar batteries would be systems like the medium range Talash with Sayyad-2 missiles, HAWK, Raad etc. So IADS would first order to use those medium range missiles against conventional and no very high flying targets, the Bavars would only get activated for attack if the other lower tier SAM systems fail to down the targets or the IADS wishes to intercept high value targets already far away from Irans borders at long range.
 

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