Pakistan is testing Czech stealth radar technology

[Tiger Shark]

Pakistan has begun testing the Czech military anti-radar system Vera, with a view to a possible purchase. A Czech trade and industry ministry spokesman said that trials began at the end of December and that Pakistan would return the system in March. He added that a further export licence would be required before a final sale could be agreed, and that it would also need the approval of the foreign and interior ministries. The Vera system can detect enemy radar, without being detected itself. In the past Amnesty International has warned against exporting the system to Pakistan.

 

[Khan]

Does anyone know why amnesty is against this system.

 

[ISI2003]

Originally posted by Khan@Mar 9 2006, 09:09 AM
Does anyone know why amnesty is against this system.

[post=6876]Quoted post[/post]​

they hate pakistan having a strong military

 

[melb4aust]

Does Amnesty International has something to with that. With the military arm sales or some thing like that.

 

[Khan]

Does Amnesty International has something to with that. With the military arm sales or some thing like that.

Thats exactly my point. Amnesty International normally deals with human rights violations. I dont understand why they would object to this. Buying a Radar is a military issue. Secondly radars are mainly defensive equipment.

This does not make any sense. :crazy2:

 

[Spring Onion]

wow thts a great news but like all of you im confuse as to why Amnesty International is against this as it has nothing to with purchase and sale of defense-related items.
i think Tiger can reply to this question properly and i will request him that as he had posted this he might had some other information about the topic and why AI had opposed it so it will be nice of him if he can post some more details or if not possible can he post the linke from he had posted the news.

 

[Tiger Shark]

Originally posted by Khan@Mar 9 2006, 01:09 PM
Does anyone know why amnesty is against this system.

[post=6876]Quoted post[/post]​

The Industry and Trade Ministry agreed to lend Pakistan a demo version of the system, known as "Vera", ministry spokesman Ivo Mravinac said. Three other government ministries that must approve licences for arms deals raised no objections to the loan. A new licence would have to be issued if Pakistan opts to buy Vera after its trial of the system, Mravinac said. Amnesty International expressed concern about the deal. "It can't be ruled out that information about the system can leak from Pakistan to other countries, such as China," said Karel Dolejsi, an arms expert with the international human rights group's local branch. So far, the Czech government has approved the sale of the system to the United States and Estonia. ap


Regards

Tiger Shark

 

[Neo]

I found the link to the above news;

http://www.radio.cz/en/news/75519

Amnesty has a stronghold in European governments and would probably try to object to Czech FMS to Pakistan due bad human rights record in our country.
But they are in no position to bloch such deal.

 

[Neo]

More specifics on the Vera system;

PRAGUE (CTK) - The U.S. military representatives have visited Pardubice, east Bohemia, to take over a Czech-made passive radar Vera from the Thomas CZ arms exporter and they are training Vera's operation so that the radar can be transported to an U.S. military base next week, Lidove noviny writes.

Referring to CZ Thomas director Jiri Tomes, it says that the U.S. officers took over Vera in Pardubice last Friday.

Vera, produced by the Pradubice-based Era company, is able to detect another radar's presence and determine its type without being detected itself.

It consists of three relatively small devices, placed several dozens of kilometres from each other. It can simultaneously monitor up to 200 aircraft and accurately specify their distance and altitude.

Vera is a more sophisticated successor to the well-known radar Tamara.

Several other countries have shown interest in Vera, among others Pakistan, China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Egypt. Only Estonia has gained one for the time being, apart from the USA, Lidove noviny writes.

http://www.czechcentrum.cz/inc/print.php?action=new&id=2653

 

[melb4aust]

So whats the difference between Eyerie and Vera, i know Eyerie is an airboren early warning system. If pakistan is getting that, then there is no point of buying this system unless it is much more better than the Eyerie.

 

[Neo]

Systems cannot be compared with eachother is they operate on different grounds.
Vera is a small mobile device whith some capabilities but cannot detect incoming aircraft if they go on radio silence.

 

[SyedK]

And radio silence can be achived by........? Turning off the radar of your own? Wont the radar detection waves still be able to caught the aicraft equipment and air frame?

 

[Neo]

I disussed the system with a specialist on another forum and I'll quote his replies;

Vera is not a radar, it's a passive listening system, e.g. it can only detect when the target is emitting. It's useful for TRACON when the AC are squawking on set transponder freqs, and for EW when the targets are using radar, radio, etc.

It's not accurate enough for targeting opposing AC, but could let you know something's out there. It's a mobile system that needs at least three "nodes". They have to be tied together in a rough triangle, preferably with fiber optic links.

It can't replace active systems, but it can compliment them. It is (I should say was, IIRC it's out of production) usually marketed as a low-buck ARTCC system.

The US bought a couple systems a few years back as part of a deal to block sale to China.

You might note that that claim never came from the manufacturer or any other official source. It is just hype, same as most of the other inaccurate claims we hear wrt LF radar, water on RAM, etc.

In fact, official statements from both the DOD and the manufacturer have specifically refuted the claim, but it still persists among internet warriors and the occasional reporter who think they have some kind of "scoop". It's not really a very exotic system by modern standards, the USN can do the same thing from space, and has had the capability for decades.

It doesn't take a genius to understand that a passive system will not detect something that is not emitting, or is emitting outside of the frequency band the system is listening for.

So sure, it can detect a stealth bomber, providing the bomber is within the range and is emitting on the frequencies Vera is operating on, i.e. 1-18 Ghz.

Question; Could you please comment how this system could compliment our existing defence infrastrucure, specially on the eastern border?
It may not be able to detect stealth fighters, but what about IAF activities within the current fleet?

Neo, I really don't know enough about the existing EW infrastructure to speculate on that. Certainly ELINT/SIGINT is important.

Vera listens for emissions on radio and radar bands, so anything that emits on those frequencies can be detected. So you could conceviably be alerted to AC flying below the radar horizon of existing ARTCC or EW radars. It will ID frequencies, so emissions such as IFF transponders would be picked up and the operator could potentially identify the target based on that info. You can listen in on radio communications, but most everything these days is encrypted, so if you learned much from that, it's because the other guys got lazy. But you could still get a range and bearing on the signal. The system is small and mobile, so areas that are not currently covered by radar could be covered with Vera. It will also pick up other transmissions like cell phone calls, etc.

It's one of those capabilities that you want, but it's not a panacaea.

What you are describing is a bistatic or multistatic radar. Vera does not emit, so there are no deflected signals to intercept at the receiving station.

Using Vera as part of a multistatic system is outside the range of it's current capabilities, since there is no provision for synchronizing the signals. The receiving station has to know exactly when the emitter sent the signal. Nanoseconds count in a big way here.

As much as everyone is anxious to come up with a way to defeat stealth, there are some significant hurdles to overcome. The signal processing to make a multistatic radar functional in a practical way is not here yet. The best we can do is get a rough idea, ~15nm or so (on non-stealthy targets) on test ranges using GPS sats for time synchronization.

People should also understand that just getting a reflected signal is not the answer that some would like it to be. The US is the only country that operates a dedicated multistatic radar test range, so we know exactly what the multistatic RCS of our stealthy AC is, it's an integral part of the stealth requirements on all LO AC.

 

[Sid]

As I had previously concluded, nothing special about VERA and it would be waste of resources to buy it. We should go for advanced ground-based radars from the US and other western countries to really bolster our air defences which are currently quite old and becoming obselete each passing day.

 

[RAPTOR]

I guess the Eireye deal isnt going anywhere. The Vera radar is old news havent really heard if PAF is really impressed with it or not. Pakistan is serioulsy lagging behind in a state of the art AWACS system.It seems the only options it has in an (airborne radar) is a Chinese AWAC or the Eireye /SAAB2000 combo.