Synthetic-aperture radar. Why isnt the A-10c (real one) equipped with one?

[voyagingmind]

I'm basing this question on some of my flight sim 'experience' with falcon/freefalcon (AN/APG 80) (block 52) and a few f-35 (AN/APG 81) videos I've seen featuring Synthetic-Aperture Radar.

 

I (think to) understand that most real A-10 missions involve heavy coordination, ground troop input, JTAC, 9-lines' etc in terms of locating the enemy, reducing risk of friendly fire, and that the pilot relies a lot on their navigation systems to point them towards to target, and then their litening, gps coords, and mk1 eyeballs to pinpoint it.

 

So I could see to some degree how a synthetic aperture radar might not be needed. But still, given the nature of the a-10 in taking out ground threats, since I've been playing DCS A-10c, I've been wondering if it wasn't for the Waypoints, and some random smoke canisters how would a-10's pilots spot targets?

 

Obviously real life has a higher resolution than our monitors (e.g. being able to see a convoy from 3 km's, where as it's only a few pixels in HD resolution, thats why we have zoom), and I'm guessing most attacks are coordinated as mentioned above. But wouldn't it have been a good idea to include such a radar, that to my understanding makes it easy (easier) to make out previously unidentified targets of opportunity?

 

Maybe they leave that up to the high flying fast-movers, AWACS, ground troops, and the a-10 is good in engaging ground targets, but given it's slower speeds, lower climb rates, etc isn't an ideal spotter.

 

The radar warning system is great for spotting targets actively scanning or locking on to you with radar or laser. But wouldn't have including a synthetic aperture radar been a tactical advantage in spotting, engaging, or avoiding the enemy.

 

What are your opinions?

 

Oh yeah, and not to split hairs, but it'd be great to see the a.i. somehow react to a smoke canister going off by their feet and not just standing (sitting) there like a sitting duck for us to mow down with our gau-8's : )

Edited February 16, 2012 by voyagingmind

[Eddie]

Close air support is very much a visual environment, if you can't see both the friendy forces and the enemy with your own eyes (or TGP at the very least) you won't be engaging anything.

 

There are exceptions, aircraft such as B1-B drop purely on coordinates provided by an AFAC/JTAC, but they cannot bring their weapons anywhere near as close as A-10s or other aircraft that have eyes on target.

 

GMR/SAR is great, but it isn't a magic all seeing eye, it has both positives and negatives just like other sensor systems. Take the Apaches in Afghanistan as an example (ours at least, not the US ones), they use their Longbow RADARs quite often, but only as an aid to finding friendly forces & enemy vehicles and then cue the TADS/Mk1 eyeball on to the target.

 

If you're flying an interdiction mission in hostile territory, hunting for enemy forces and taking them out before they can be brought in to the fight and no friendly ground forces are in the area, then yes GMR/SMR can and is used to locate and engage targets. And while the A-10 can be tasked in this role, it can do so quite happily without RADAR.

 

RADAR is expensive and heavy as well as taking up space in the aircraft. When the A-10 was designed, it wasn't possible to fit a viable RADAR system in to the aircraft without loosing the GAU-8, and what would be the point then?

 

The A-10 was designed as a relatively low cost tank buster/CAS aircraft. And had the cold war ever gone hot, it wouldn't have struggled to find targets given the shear numbers of WARPAC armour that would be pouring through the Fulda Gap. Not to mention the fact that they would be spending the vast majority of their missions at very low level due to the SAM/AAA threats, making a RADAR pretty much redundant. And as for the A-10C upgrade, when the primary job of an aircraft is CAS why try fitting a RADAR that it was never designed to have, and wouldn't really add that much to its role?

[112th_Rossi]

Great answer. Very interesting.

[voyagingmind]

Close air support is very much a visual environment, if you can't see both the friendy forces and the enemy with your own eyes (or TGP at the very least) you won't be engaging anything.

 

There are exceptions, aircraft such as B1-B drop purely on coordinates provided by an AFAC/JTAC, but they cannot bring their weapons anywhere near as close as A-10s or other aircraft that have eyes on target.

 

GMR/SAR is great, but it isn't a magic all seeing eye, it has both positives and negatives just like other sensor systems. Take the Apaches in Afghanistan as an example (ours at least, not the US ones), they use their Longbow RADARs quite often, but only as an aid to finding friendly forces & enemy vehicles and then cue the TADS/Mk1 eyeball on to the target.

 

If you're flying an interdiction mission in hostile territory, hunting for enemy forces and taking them out before they can be brought in to the fight and no friendly ground forces are in the area, then yes GMR/SMR can and is used to locate and engage targets. And while the A-10 can be tasked in this role, it can do so quite happily without RADAR.

 

RADAR is expensive and heavy as well as taking up space in the aircraft. When the A-10 was designed, it wasn't possible to fit a viable RADAR system in to the aircraft without loosing the GAU-8, and what would be the point then?

 

The A-10 was designed as a relatively low cost tank buster/CAS aircraft. And had the cold war ever gone hot, it wouldn't have struggled to find targets given the shear numbers of WARPAC armour that would be pouring through the Fulda Gap. Not to mention the fact that they would be spending the vast majority of their missions at very low level due to the SAM/AAA threats, making a RADAR pretty much redundant. And as for the A-10C upgrade, when the primary job of an aircraft is CAS why try fitting a RADAR that it was never designed to have, and wouldn't really add that much to its role?

Thanks for taking the time to post, you made some very interesting and informative points. I don't fully agree with your last point however. The A-10c upgrade implements many items which the a-10a was never originally designed for, and that enhance its ability greatly. I do believe adding a synthetic aperture radar to better detect threats and targets, and just have a better overview of the battlefield would certainly add a lot to its role.

 

The following is just an opinion and educated guess: But as for size and cost, considering the miniaturization of technology in general, I'm pretty sure if the Air Force wanted to, it could commission a pod, or an upgrade to the current radar, that -wouldn't- have to be as big/heavy and as costly as the an/apg 80/81 models.

 

I mean this is another topic all together, but it seems to me there isn't much interest for military contractors to modernize, reduce the size and cost of -much- their hardware, when they can get away charging for larger, component /maintenance heavy, resource demanding equipment. Some of which looks like it was designed in the 50's, containing circuit boards my grandmother would refuse to use.

 

I can already imagine 1000 counter arguments to this, and certainly not all wrong. But it would be naive to believe Weapons Manufacturers/Military contractors have a countries best interests at hearts, and not their own bottom lines. When we're talking a billion dollar contracts, there's a lot of back room talk to sweeten the deals, and get as much of the tax payers money as possible.

 

Anyway, just my opinion, and a bit off topic since this post isn't going to change market economics. But this can be seen at almost every level of the markets and world economies (cyclic consumption, planned obsolescence e.g. technically it would be easy to build light bulb that lasts 20 years by using certain gases, or car that can last for 40 years just by using non-corrosive materials, but manufacturers have absolutely no interest in this when they can sell you 5 cars in the same amount of time (or 1000 light-bulbs).

 

Thanks for your reply

[59th_LeFty]

Note that B52, and B-1B are now equipped with targeting pods.

[Eddie]

...snip..

 

Defence contractor's bottom lines etc have nothing to do with it. RADAR Pods already exist (http://www.es.northropgrumman.com/solutions/podded-aesa/index.html).

 

But just because a defence contractor as developed one doesn't mean a countries defence dept./military will go and buy it. Especially if they don't see a strategic/tactical benefit to be had.

 

In the 21st century with the types of missions and conflicts that are going on, equipment and tactics of the cold war no longer apply. Air forces are leaning more towards fewer, more capable aircraft than multiple specialist aircraft. Spending millions on a few RADAR pods for the A-10C and even more on their long term logistics support, when they are of very little use in the real world just isn't a good choice in a world where military budgets are no longer limitless.

[4c Hajduk Veljko]

A-10 is a weapons system of the past. There is no sense of investing money in its modernization any more. A-10 can only fly against very weak and poor opponent.

[Fleshpiston]

A-10 is a weapons system of the past. There is no sense of investing money in its modernization any more. A-10 can only fly against very weak and poor opponent.

Could you elaborate on that please?

[213]

it's only useful against poorly trained troops using cold war era equipment. being that the terrorists/insurgents of today are even less advanced than the eastern bloc soldiers of the 70s/80s for which the a-10 was originally designed, there's really no need to continue upgrading it. modern updates like the litening pod are really just convenient adaptations.

[EtherealN]

Yeah, it's completely worthless against a massive armored thrust from a major opponent once the F-22's have taken control of the skies... :)

[159th_Viper]

Yeah, it's completely worthless against a massive armored thrust from a major opponent once the F-22's have taken control of the skies... :)

 

The threat from above will be the least of the A-10's problems.....It's the Pantsirs and the like that will spank them six ways from Sunday :)

[Eddie]

The threat from above will be the least of the A-10's problems.....It's the Pantsirs and the like that will spank them six ways from Sunday :)

 

And that's what ECM & SEAD is for. The Russians, eastern block and middle east countries have always placed a high emphais on ground based air defence rather than fighters, which is why NATO put the amount of effort we do in to SEAD and spend so much on ECM and other such things.

 

The A-10C is no worse off than any other aircraft on the modern battlefield when it's used properly, which it would be when flown by trained pilots rather than some flight simmer with no knowledge of air combat tactics sat in front of a computer air quaking.

 

Losses would be relatively high, compared to recent conflicts, but still nowhere near WWII/Korea/Vietnam. With the gloves off, the things NATO airpower can do is quite scary, no recent conflict involving aircraft has even hinted at full capabilities.

[159th_Viper]

Aye, the Pantsir-1 operators will no doubt approve of that level of optimism expressed. I know I do :)

[Eddie]

Optimism has nothing to do with it, there's not a great deal an SA-22 operator can do when every one of his 'targets' knows exactly where he is, his RADAR screen is not reliable and everytime it's switched on swarms of HARM/ALARM head in his direction so he has to use optical tracking,, and on top of all that he has no missile and little fuel/food resupply because his supply chain has been all but destroyed.

 

In the grand scheme of things, a couple of hundered SA-22s have little impact at a strategic level. While they are more effective than SA-19, so are the weapons, ECM, intel and tactics used to defeat them.

 

You don't have to kill a SAM system to make it ineffective, you just need to remove its ability to kill anything itself.

 

But as the chances of NATO going to war with Russia are all but zero, it's a pointless discussion. There are a few export customers that could end up being a problem, but the numbers of double digit systems they have are very limited and more than manageable.

[Moa]

Also have to remember what conditions the A-10 was designed for. In the Central Front the weather was usually pretty bad, which means you *have* to be 1000 feet or below. No point putting a radar on your ship to spot targets when you are low enough to reach out and touch them anyway.

 

Also, where exactly would you put a SAR? there just happens to be a

hulking great GAU-8 just where you'd usually mount a radar.

 

Plus there is a question of cost. Turning a relatively cheap aircraft into an expensive one (since you would need more than just the radar dish and mount itself, such as the signal processors, a change to the in-cockpit displays etc etc).

 

With regard to aircraft vs SAM discussion - unless the aircraft is surprised (can happen, but not that usual if you have proper intelligence assets) the aircraft should always win. Why? because the aircraft always has the *initiative* it can chose when, where and how it will fight the SAM. The SAM can't force the aircraft to engage - that is, it does not have the initiative. So, if there is a surprise SAM that no-one knows about they can be deadly (on the small scale), but if they are known about then Western aircraft pack a lot of anti-radiation missiles which are enough to scare most SAMs silent (which is why on a tactical level the suppression of SEAD is nearly as good as good as the destruction of DEAD).

Edited February 17, 2012 by Moa

[4c Hajduk Veljko]

And that's what ECM & SEAD is for. The Russians, eastern block and middle east countries have always placed a high emphais on ground based air defence rather than fighters, which is why NATO put the amount of effort we do in to SEAD and spend so much on ECM and other such things.

Do you know how many HARM's NATO launched over Yugoslavia? Around a thousand. About 99% of those ended up destroying microwave ovens, decoys that are very easy to make. One HARM missile ended up flying all the way to Bulgarian capital of Sofia. That missile missed entire country of Yugoslavia and ended up in a roof of a house in suburb of Sofia!

 

There is no question in my mind that NATO systems are sophisticated, but NATO opponent will not be sitting in the middle of the meadow with a radio beacon sending a signal "shoot me, I am here"!

 

A-10 is a weapon system of the past. It is good against the Taliban level of opponent. There is a reason A-10's flew above 15 000 feet (and hit almost nothing) in NATO military use over Yugoslavia.

[4c Hajduk Veljko]

Could you elaborate on that please?

See post #9 on this thread.

[Eddie]

Do you know how many HARM's NATO launched over Yugoslavia? Around a thousand. About 99% of those ended up destroying microwave ovens, decoys that are very easy to make. One HARM missile ended up flying all the way to Bulgarian capital of Sofia. That missile missed entire country of Yugoslavia and ended up in a roof of a house in suburb of Sofia!

 

They don't HAVE to actually hit anything, the clue is in the title, SUPPRESSION of enemy air defence. Simply by having HARM and ALARM carriers in the sky launching missiles forces the enemy to flash their RADARs and therefore reduces their ability to engage our aircraft.

 

There is no question in my mind that NATO systems are sophisticated, but NATO opponent will not be sitting in the middle of the meadow with a radio beacon sending a signal "shoot me, I am here"!

 

Nobody ever suggested they would, but they are certainly not going to mean certain death to any aircraft within 100 miles either.

 

A-10 is a weapon system of the past. It is good against the Taliban level of opponent. There is a reason A-10's flew above 15 000 feet (and hit almost nothing) in NATO military use over Yugoslavia.

 

Indeed, they hit nothing because they were A-10As without a precision munition capability carrying Mk-82s and other dumb weapons and the A-10A is indeed a weapon system of the past. In fact it is the very reason the A-10C came to be, to address such limitations, the A-10C will sit at 15000ft (or higher) all day long and still kill more than an A model ever could.

 

Is the A-10C some invincible dealer of death, no. they would certainly suffer losses, just like every other platform. But it's certainly not a helpless lawn dart in waiting either.

[Buzpilot]

The threat from above will be the least of the A-10's problems.....It's the Pantsirs and the like that will spank them six ways from Sunday :)

 

Watching Pantsirs in action, I doubt they would spank much more than older systems, only looks and probably is lot cheaper. But I guess Syria would like a lot of them nowadays :music_whistling:

 

http://en.rian.ru/video/20100420/158667290.html

 

So cruise missiles fly at 3-400m now?

[RIPTIDE]

Seems the modernisations are ahead of actual deliveries: New Radar. Also a tracked version.

 

 

[159th_Viper]

...I doubt they would spank much more than older systems....

 

Have you read up on the capability of the S1?

 

 

New Radar...

 

ENIKS radar for inter alia HARM-targeting.

 

 

Pretty as a picture :)

[Zenga]

Do you know how many HARM's NATO launched over Yugoslavia? Around a thousand. About 99% of those ended up destroying microwave ovens, decoys that are very easy to make. One HARM missile ended up flying all the way to Bulgarian capital of Sofia. That missile missed entire country of Yugoslavia and ended up in a roof of a house in suburb of Sofia!

 

To add to Eddie's comments on this one: It has happend more than once that NATO didn't had to fire ANY HARM to get the Serbs shutting down their radar. A simple MAGNUM call on the radio did the job ("MAGNUM" is the typical call-out you do when firing an anti-radiation-missile...like the more known "Fox2" for a Sidewinder launch). The Serbs, listening to the NATO radio frequencies of course, anxiously shutted down their radars when they heard that call, anticipating the incoming missile.

A fun point: In some missions, even A-10 pilots called out MAGNUM and it worked, even though everybody knows they don't carry any HARMs at all...

 

A-10 is a weapon system of the past. It is good against the Taliban level of opponent. There is a reason A-10's flew above 15 000 feet (and hit almost nothing) in NATO military use over Yugoslavia.

 

There are many reasons why they didn't hit a lot, but IMHO the lack of capabilities, even the more limited ones of the A-model were minor. Many had to do with the ROE and the time and effort it took to get attack approval on a detected target. All that to minimize the probability of accidently killing civilians, which is fully right, of course. But sometimes it just took them 40 minutes after spotting a valid target to get the approval to attack it - even if it was a tank with no civilian structure or people within a mile of it! By the time they received clearance, they were bingo so all they could do was to hope the target would still be there when they return from the tanker. Or handover the target to other strike assets available.

Edited February 18, 2012 by Zenga

[4c Hajduk Veljko]

To add to Eddie's comments on this one: It has happend more than once that NATO didn't had to fire ANY HARM to get the Serbs shutting down their radar. A simple MAGNUM call on the radio did the job ("MAGNUM" is the typical call-out you do when firing an anti-radiation-missile...like the more known "Fox2" for a Sidewinder launch). The Serbs, listening to the NATO radio frequencies of course, anxiously shutted down their radars when they heard that call, anticipating the incoming missile.

A fun point: In some missions, even A-10 pilots called out MAGNUM and it worked, even though everybody knows they don't carry any HARMs at all...

Каже Пера, чуо МАГНУМ преко радија! ГАСИ МИКРОТАЛАСНУ! Translation! MAGNUM radio call heard over the radio, turn the MICROWAVE oven off!

 

There is perspective for everything. Both sides used their assets the best they could within environment. I am sure both sides will claim that their method was more effective. The fact is around a thousand of HARM's were fired, and only few hit the actual radars. That is in the environment where NATO brought around 1200 aircraft to fight about 150 Serbian, mostly old and not fit for fight.

 

Even in that environment, with all the limitations you mentioned above, A-10's didn't do much, if any.

 

Now let us take a scenario of a modern army with good air defenses and pretty soon you will see that A-10, even A-10C's can not do much in a modern battlefield.

[GGTharos]

A modern army with 'good air defenses' that comes out to fight will HAVE to employ their SAMs and start eating ARMs.

 

What happened in the aforementined conflict was something else entirely - the entire army (wisely) hid, waiting for a ground offensive that never came. There was nothing for the A-10s to attack. If there was, they would have inflicted significant damage while other aircraft dealt with air defenses. And while they'd have taken losses too, that's just the way combat goes.

 

Even in that environment, with all the limitations you mentioned above, A-10's didn't do much, if any.

 

Now let us take a scenario of a modern army with good air defenses and pretty soon you will see that A-10, even A-10C's can not do much in a modern battlefield.

[4c Hajduk Veljko]

A modern army with 'good air defenses' that comes out to fight will HAVE to employ their SAMs and start eating ARMs.

Modern army defense will have a bunch of ARH SAM's. Not to mention decoy's. Thus HARM's would not do much good anyway, as HARM's did not do well in above mentioned conflict.

 

What happened in the aforementined conflict was something else entirely - the entire army (wisely) hid, waiting for a ground offensive that never came. There was nothing for the A-10s to attack. If there was, they would have inflicted significant damage while other aircraft dealt with air defenses. And while they'd have taken losses too, that's just the way combat goes.

What if's ... We know that NATO tried to locate the targets on the ground. That part of the war is not talked much about, but would shed new light on everything that happened there. Nevertheless, it did not work. Therefore A-10s, and other assets including those that have same or maybe better equipment then A-10C did not do much damage to ground troop's, to Yugoslavian military.

 

Now, in the "what if ...", scenario, we could go forever with "what if's ..." which would, obviously, be speculations, and would not reflect the "what happened's ...".