Does anybody know where to find...?

[golfsierra2]

NATO code names, eg all Russian fighters NATO code names begin with F, bombers with B and so on. eg I don't think the MiG-29 is known as the Fulcrum in Russia or the Tu-95 ''Bear''.

 

Callsigns are different. Magic is typically an AWACS callsign as you say. But it's not an E-3 Magic.

 

Right, this is only for the E-3A from Geilenkirchen / Germany. The French E-3F is called Cyrano, about the UK Nimrod or the E-3D I don't know.

[159_Archer]

Doesn't a radar actually have to enter service (or at least be in some kind of finalised status) before NATO bother to give it a description?

 

If they're never going to see an Su34 radar, or if it's going to keep changing spec . . . . are they going to give it a name?

 

Quite right, Batman! Didn't think of it that way. It does say a bit on what radars are used (my book), but as you say, NATO won't name something unless they are actually 'faced' with it.

[Guest IguanaKing]

Good point, BGP! We'll just have to treat the Su-34 as a secret weapon in LOMAC. It pops up on the battlefield, even though it was never officially deployed during the time period of the game. I guess its up to our community to give its radar a NATO designation. I vote that we go with my niece and call it "Uh-Oh", since there are no balloons.

 

Archer, thanks for the effort and the start of the explanation of what a scrum is. I used to get every edition of the DoDs "Soviet Military Power" book for free, but I don't get it any more. That was a cool book. I saw the Tu-160 in there for the first time in the 83-84 edition.

[Brit_Radar_Dude]

 

Bass Tilt - Idiotic name? Actually I always thought that one was one of the better names;) , to me it always looked like a bass drum tilted at an angle - see picture above just in front of the mast.

 

Rugby Scrum? Info here.....http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/low/rugby_union/rules_and_equipment/4205334.stm

 

 

 

 

I thnk there is some confusion between the name of the aircraft and the callsign it usually uses. I thought Cyrano was the usual callsign that the French E-3 uses rather than its actual name. As far as I am aware, the Royal Air Force E-3 is referred to as a Sentry.

 

The Nimrod AEW version was killed by Margaret Thatcher:icon_evil who preferred to buy American rather than buy from GEC-Marconi. Its cancellation was a bodyblow for the British defence electronics industry. Luckily for me, I was working on ground based radars for the RAF at the time.

The choice of the Nimrod airframe was short sighted - not enough internal space for extra equipment when the MoD kept moving the goalposts and adding to the requirement, but the technical spec of the radar was superior to the E-3 at the time.

[Kula66]

The Nimrod AEW version was killed by Margaret Thatcher:icon_evil who preferred to buy American rather than buy from GEC-Marconi. Its cancellation was a bodyblow for the British defence electronics industry.

 

I thought it was cancelled because its old 1960s generation 16bit GEC computers couldn't handle all the data returned by the radars and GECs attempts at multi-processing failed badly ... Hence it was tracking cars, pylons etc ... and just got overloaded and couldn't cope! Millions wasted ...

[Alfa]

 

Bass Tilt - Idiotic name? Actually I always thought that one was one of the better names;) , to me it always looked like a bass drum tilted at an angle - see picture above just in front of the mast.

 

The tracking radar in question is called MR-123.......hardly so alien to the English language that you need to involve the universe of Winnie-the-Pooh to identify it :) .

 

Cheers,

- JJ.

[golfsierra2]

I thought it was cancelled because its old 1960s generation 16bit GEC computers couldn't handle all the data returned by the radars and GECs attempts at multi-processing failed badly ... Hence it was tracking cars, pylons etc ... and just got overloaded and couldn't cope! Millions wasted ...

 

This happened to the NATO AWACS in the begining, too. They were tracking fast cars on the German Autobahn, until they implemented some filters to keep the Porsches and BMWs out of the picture.....

 

Another problem with the NIMROD was the data link handling and here some timing problems which resulted in a 'moving' picture of the NIMROD to be displayed at the Ground Environment (CRCs).

[Brit_Radar_Dude]

The tracking radar in question is called MR-123.......hardly so alien to the English language that you need to involve the universe of Winnie-the-Pooh to identify it .

True for smart folks like all of us on this forum;) .

The theory behind the NATO code names for Warsaw Pact equipment was that the average Army/Navy/AirForce guy was a bit dimmer than us and it was easier for them to remember names (however stupid sounding) rather than code numbers.

 

I thought it was cancelled because its old 1960s generation 16bit GEC computers couldn't handle all the data returned by the radars and GECs attempts at multi-processing failed badly ... Hence it was tracking cars, pylons etc ... and just got overloaded and couldn't cope!

Well that is the usual mis-truth put out by the MoD and is a little harsh. Requirement creep and the radar hardware sending up to 100 times more data than the software designers had been originally told they had to process was more the problem, not software (The GEC4080 was designed in the early 1970's and was a nice machine for its time).

The tracking slow targets problem (eg cars) was because the MoD added yet another requirement - that of tracking slow moving Soviet anti-sub helo's over the North Atlantic (heavens knows why).

The E-3 solved the slow moving target problem at that time by simply dumping any target slower than 150mph. A ex-Marconi friend of mine in Sultan of Oman's Air force at the time of the Nimrod AEW cancellation had a tour of an E-3 that visited Oman and he was quite dismissive of how old school the E-3 was. It had taken 15-20 years to develop and also used old 1960's technology. The difference was that the US Air Force chose a big enough airframe and didn't blink when the going got tough.

[Kula66]

Well, from you description, it wasn't really a mis-truth ... scope creep - the bane of all projects!

 

YEs, but they were always going to have a bigger market, both home and export ... the Nimrod was never going to sell abroad.

 

It was a great shame it got canned ... added to a long list of great projects that never quite got there! Mind you Brit, it was very UGLY!

[Brit_Radar_Dude]

Mind you Brit, it was very UGLY!

Amen to that ;)