Here is the issue.
OK, I think I see what's going on here. You are making a distinction between line of sight and over the horizon radar whereas I am not, and did not in my original post.
I'm not really interested in confusing the issue by arguing semantics/nomenclature. The bottom line is, there are radars that exist that can detect ballistic missiles prior to the terminal phase and it would not exactly some exotic technology that makes it unobtainable for the Philippines, especially given the current situation. I guess it's just a matter of how they want to prioritize acquiring such a system, though I would argue that not being included under the American BMD umbrella makes it more of a priority than not.
It IS exotic. That's why I was emphasized the distinction between "conventional" and OTH radars.
The countries that actually have Over-The-Horizon radars actually often developed it themselves (Taiwan is an exception). Look up OTH radars yourself. They require VERY large tracts of land for the system to work. Even when it does work . . . its reliability has reportedly been questionable because of variability of atmospheric conditions.
The research shared earlier actually point to the original body of research assembled on the forum a few years ago. Check it out.
Maybe 30 years ago it was exotic. You keep citing the fact that few countries developed it as if it's some kind of forbidden fruit that only the enlightened can obtain. But I think the reason most countries don't have it are for the following reasons: 1) they already fall under some BMD umbrella 2) They don't have an adversary that presents a realistic ballistic threat 3) They can't afford to have it
I don't think the situation is quite as dire as Taiwan, but the way things seem to be going, I almost feel that the Philippines can't afford NOT to have some kind of early warning system in place.
being at sea isn't an absolute requirement, Japan opted to use AEGIS Ashore over THAAD
That’s a terminal phase system.
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) is a transportable system that intercepts ballistic missiles inside or outside the atmosphere during their final, or terminal, phase of flight.
https://missilethreat.csis.org/system/thaad/
Note that the Japanese Atago and Kongo class cruisers are their first line of defense that are meant to engage North Korean missiles earlier in their flight — potentially in the mid-course phase — by being closer to potential launch sites.
You must have misread. I was talking about AEGIS ashore. Not THAAD. Not the shipborne AEGIS.
Our disagreement is in the importance of those details :-)
The devil is in the details man, and to lump all radars together into one category is actually no different from how the press lumps every vehicle with tracks as a "tank", or how any aircraft with a propeller is a WWII-era "Tora-Tora".
Lots of points are missed, and lots of context lost.
For context, I am an American, and I could never imagine not knowing that a missile was launched at me until it hit. This is the whole reason I'm in this discussion in the first place, I'm curious... how are Filipinos able to tolerate this? Is it just because they're too busy in their day to day lives to worry about it? During the Cold War, when a defecting MiG-25 was able to penetrate deep into Japanese territory before they knew about it, it became a priority to make sure that could not happen again. I just found it shocking that a missile could be fired and the Philippines can be like "We didn't even know it happened, hopefully we found out what actually happened"
Let me ask you for the sake of discussion, when should the Philippines look to acquire the ability to detect ballistic missile launches? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? Never? What's the most prudent way to obtain this ability? Acquiring a system from abroad? Developing the indigenous electronics industry? Asking Uncle Sam to let you in?
That is a VERY broad question whose scope needs further definition.
- What sort of missiles?
- What range?
- Launched from where?
- Directed at what?
Answers to the questions would determine if the solutions already shared above are sufficient, or whether alternative measures are required (e.g., space-based system which is actually what the US uses to detect the missile launches themselves, long-endurance high-altitude UAVs of the
GlobalHawk variety, AWACS, etc.)
As for developing technologies in-house, the following older discussions would be good to revisit:
Creating a Philippine equivalent to DARPA/DAPA/DSTO and an SRDP roadmap
Sustainable weapons manufacture
I appreciate this response.
1. OTH radars - these are huge radars that use T/R antenna fields measuring in the acres/hectares. They employ atmospheric bounce and very high compute power to pull data from an otherwise highly cluttered radar picture caused by atmospheric interference. These are very exotic and are unlikely to be sold even to close allies. Australia developed their own OTH radar with some US assistance and they have one of the most recent OTH systems in the Western world.
Come on now... Duga had computers that used punch cards for crying out loud. Let's stop pretending like this is some kind of forbidden knowledge. If Philippines can't even manage technology at early cold war standards, then I don't know what to say. I understand the land argument but... Philippines can't find land for ballistic missile radar, but they'll find land for 10 more mega malls.
(not an argument, just a cynical joke.)
As shown in the Taiwan PAVE PAWs example, focusing on BDM alone would already would take up pretty much the entire AFP modernization budget
This is like saying it's impossible to move from the spot where I am standing because I can't afford a Ferrari. I'm not saying that the Philippines should be able to intercept missiles with a high probability by tomorrow. I just think at a minimum, being able to know that a ballistic missile has been launched by an enemy at the Philippines is an important thing to work towards.
The political ramifications, both domestically and with our kleptomaniac neighbor, will be interesting.
Indeed.
Show Posts
