Not only is the above right but you must add
the environment and task the radar is built for
into the equation.
Heraklès : the main radar of our FREMMs does
both surveillance/detection, tracking and firing.
It goes 250 km in air to 80km on surface. It
protects the ship and those in its "bubble".
Smart_S Mk2 is intended for more complex and
dense environments such as near the littoral. It
has to de-clutter / discriminate a lot more which
ends in less range. Found on CDG and others.
At equal antenna-power-computing power, the
former treats missiles, jets and ships from afar
while the latter will pick up RHIBs up to 2km
and offers a range low limit of 150m. That's tiny.
The SMART-L actually has more range ( 400 vs
300 before improvement program for Heraklès )
and the above multi-target ability. Found on Horizon.
However, the Heraklès guides its weapons in flight
while the other two have a second guiding radar.
All have a 0º to 70º elevation. All are PESAs. But
the number of targets treated simultaneously varies.
To this, you must add that range is given for the
surveillance task at low revolutions of 13.5 turns
per minute but goes down to approximatively 150
km when revs double and defensive mode is on.
Then come the subtleties : Is there an IFF function?
Is there an UAV control function. Are there ECCM?
How big is it? How high is it located? ETC.
More bands will help in detection and discrimination
as a wooden boat doesn't excite radars as steel would.
For surface duties, 25+km or 15 nm to 75 Nm at max
so about 135 km can be had from
commercial radars
reaching max horizon. OFC, they can't help against planes!
It's versus jets and missiles that a 250nm range works
but it mostly stops there on account of all the power to be
emitted ( that shows up on enemy passive devices ) and
the relative utility of tracking a target so much beyond
the range of your best AA defensive missiles.
Check the
radar horizon article in WikiP : simple enough!
At 250 km, the % of error creeps above 1 whole point and
then you need more computing power and it gets ugly which
explains that instrumented range is lesser than possible but
still better than practical and why combat range is below that.
Good luck with your numbers quest, good day, Tay.
