Iraq has passive radar?

BBC ^

[TheEngineer]

Passive Radar? Is that what the Ukrainian navy uses to target passenger airliners flying over the Black Sea? /sarcasm

[sam_paine]

"Passive" really isn't correct, since there is an active transmitter involved, just at a remote location from the receiver.

Thank you for adding some common sense to this debate. I remember when this was first reported widely during the Kosovo action. Everyone thought, "Oh my! Stealth is defeated!"

For crying out loud, you can still see stealth aircraft through a telescope, too, but that doesn't mean stealth technology is defeated! Physics is constant. You don't get a free lunch, ever.

If there's a counter-measure, there's a counter-counter-measure.

[Steve0113]

Mr Shlapak said there was still no proof that Ukraine has illegally sold weapons systems to Iraq.

How Clintonian. He knows damned well whether they sold weapons to Iraq.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

If you target the electrical power generating and distribution systems, there won't be enough power available to run cell phone towers and TV stations.

Weapons systems will have backup power (local generators, etc.).

[eno_]

Hard to do: AFAIK "passive radar" could use satelite TV or other space-based transmissions. And since the recievers are passive, they are hard to find. Iraq's phone system will be good for about 15 minutes after the first bomb falls, anyway.

[AdA$tra]

If some of those 200 missing nukes were sold to Iraq ..... they got big problems!

My thoughts exactly. The Ukrainians have really turned out to be a thorn in the side of our new Russian friends.

[AdA$tra]

Hard to do: AFAIK "passive radar" could use satelite TV or other space-based transmissions.

Perhaps even background noise or transmitters in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and others.

[Darksheare]

An EMP would work. And it wouldn't even be nuclear to start with. We developed an EMP a couple years back, has energised copper coils inside it packed around a couple HE charges. When the HE goes, the coils collapse and an EMP pulse is produced. (VERY brief and as undescriptive as possible. Don't want to be helpful to anyone other than us.)

A passive radar would be just as sensitive to an EMP pulse as any other electronic system. Not to mention, the local power grid would suffer dramatically.

[steveegg]

"Passive" radar is line of sight. In short, for it to detect an object, the object would have to pass through a rather small three-dimensional area of space between the transmitter and receiver (not much larger than the very few points in space between the transmitter and receiver that the emissions would pass through).

If one were to raise the transmitter a couple hundred miles, that 3-dimentional area, while encompassing a lot of altitude, would encompass little more than the area of the receiver itself in the horizontal axes at the angle between the satellite in question and the receiver.

The devil in the terrestrial case is where the transmitters/receivers are. I rather doubt that Iraq (or for that matter, any other country) can afford to implement this as much more than either a tripwire or a very limited area defense protecting a target such as Baghdad. Even when something is detected in either case (with the latter providing a bit more target resolution, but nowhere near enough to guide weapons to target), you still need to find the target with enough accuracy to put weapon on machine, something that the F-117/B-2 WERE designed to deal with. Even though the Serbs were reported to have a similar system, it took a lot of luck and not a little bit of operational stupidity for them to score ONE F-117.

[steveegg]

Weapons systems will have backup power (local generators, etc.).

Which will be detected and targeted. If the Hussein Channel tower is still operating when everything around it has no power, I trust the Jedis in the USAF to realize that they're not running reruns of a soccer match.

[ASA Vet]

The signal strengh of a satellite transmission, at near earth level,
is not likely to be enough to reflect a detectable signal from an airborne object.
Even the cell phone transmitters only put out enough power for close range detection.
A satellite transmitter puts out even less power.

TV and cell are either VHF or UHF which are "line of sight"
(except for rare skip.)
Transmissions from other nations would have to be within that "line of sight" distance to be effective.

[ASA Vet]

Yep, what you said.....

[madvlad]

And there are just so many TV and radio towers
spread strategically throughout Iraq.

Mad Vlad

[steveegg]

You're even more devious than me. Those long antennas required to make the system work make REAL good EMP wave guides.

[steveegg]

True, but those that are still transmitting after the power's cut definitely won't be doing so to bring the masses Rushi al-Limbaughi (I know I saw that somewhere else on FR, so don't credit me) or "Good Morning Basra".

[Robert_Paulson2]

and your trust is VERY well placed.

[Light Speed]

Have a look:

Syria rearms Iraq

[AdA$tra]

I bet our AWACS and other stand off radar platforms cast a huge shadow. On these passive cat whiskers.

[ASA Vet]

The AWACS (& other airborne) radar platforms throw
another interesting complication into the mix.
They are moving too.

To compute the location, (in relationship to the receiver,)
of a moving object reflecting a stationary transmitters signal
would be easy compared to computing the location,
(in relationship to the receiver,) of a moving object
reflecting a signal from another moving object.

The location of the transmitter (AWACS, etc) could be
determined by a active radar, but lighting up a USAF AWACS platform
is akin to standing in the middle of Paris Island yelling "Jarheads are fags."