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Not just supposed dangers — real danger. The saying the mil guys have about using active radar is "he who lights up first gets smoked". As in you turn on your
by toss1 4y ago
Not just supposed dangers — real danger.
The saying the mil guys have about using active radar is "he who lights up first gets smoked". As in you turn on your radar, and it'll be a beacon seen in milliseconds, located in a few more milliseconds, and then receiving an incoming missile. Radar has to be passive, using ambient RF frequency 'noise', in any modern military operating theater to survive.
So, yes, keeping passive radar technology as maximally secret as possible among the world's democracies retains an advantage over the expansionist autocracies, which are increasingly belligerent, from Russia attacking in Europe, China making louder noises about attacking Taiwan (sending fighter jets to the shore today), NK launching missiles near Japan... yeah, we need to keep an edge.
- Natsu 4y agoWhy not just separate the emitters and receivers a bit more, then? Wouldn't it work to put some cheap drones or other hardware that "light up" and send nice pulses out for you to get info from that are far enough away from your real position, or am I missing something? If they're cheap enough, it wouldn't be very worthwhile to destroy them I'd think. I mean it'd probably be in your interest to let them waste million dollar missiles on hundred dollar drones if you could get them to do so. Or does something like this exist that I'm just unaware of?
- nraynaud 4y agoMy understanding is that GSM towers are very predictable and well located emitters.
- guhidalg 4y agoIsn’t this what AWACS and datalinks are for?
- toss1 4y agoIt isn't my area, but I think you're on the right track. Most radar systems have already (for decades, AFAIK) separated the emitter from the control panel with at least a long cable, so when the emitter gets smoked, at least the operators are more likely to survive. The USAF & DARPA are already publicly working on aerially deployed drone swarms, and it would not surprise me in the slightest if a swarm of theater emitters was among the goals (but I've got no inside info to share).
- bradknowles 4y agoYou're getting dangerously close to an idea I had back in 1991, when I was working at the Defense Information Systems Agency, in the basement of the Pentagon. I talked to our security officer, and he put me in touch with a guy from the intelligence side of the house. I explained my idea, he said they already had something in that space, and that I shouldn't say anything more about it to anyone. I never heard anything further on that subject. To this day, it is one of two things I don't talk about.
- literalAardvark 4y agoYou're failing very hard at not talking about it, but thank you for the interesting story.
- rkagerer 4y agoIt's a pretty logical step, I would think lots of people have come up with a similar idea.
- duckmysick 4y ago> To this day, it is one of two things I don't talk about. What's the other thing?
- Evidlo 4y agoIt's called bistatic radar.
- nradov 4y agoThat's not really accurate. Militaries continue to heavily use active radar despite the risks of detection. Passive radar has some potential use cases, but in many situations there won't be enough ambient RF energy to do target tracking precise enough to employ weapons. This particular applies at sea and in rural areas. Modern low-probability of intercept radar obviates a lot of those concerns. Technology has advanced way beyond transmitting a steady sine wave on a constant frequency that is easy to detect and track. Keeping passive radar technology secret from potential adversaries is certainly worth doing. Just don't make the mistake of thinking it's some magical technology. In the real world it has only very limited value.