Iran’s SAMEN RADAR SYSTEM NET BECOMES OPERATIONAL IN LESS 10 DAYS = Do they pose a threat to US stealth aircraft?

Iran will start using a brand new sophisticated very low Radar Cross Section (RCS) radar system in coming days, a senior Iranian commander announced on Monday.

“It will significantly enhance Iran’s radar detection capabilities against US Stealth aircraft”, says one radar specialist in Charlotte, N.C. who wished not to be named in this report. Despite these drawbacks, ultra low band radars still provide a valuable early warning capability, and enable cueing of other sensors and platforms. Some newer radars, based on Russian designs such as the Nebo SVU , Gamma DE and Protivnik GE are accurate enough to direct a missile shot, for example using the engagement radar primarily as a midcourse command/datalink channel to the missile”, our source indicated.

"Samen Radar System will come online in the next ten days," Commander of Khatam ol-Anbia Air Defense Base Brigadier General Farzad Esmayeeli told FNA.

"We are now deploying it," the commander said, adding that Samen's range is "good" and is able to detect and identify targets with very low Radar Cross Section (RCS).

Iran has recently renewed and upgraded the weapons and defense systems of its air defense units.

Also in February, Iran's air defense units assessed the performance and capabilities of different types of mobile and fixed radar systems during Sarallah military drills in Southern Iran. “Lesson learned will be put into use to detect US spy planes, drones…”, said one Iranian commander.

“Low range RCS radar poses a serious threat to US stealth aircraft”, says one source in Charlotte, N.C. Specifically “Stealth bombers pilots “, during that “window when they open up the bomb bay doors to unload ordinance on civilians and military targets…”, our source said  

During the air defense war games, different fixed and mobile radar systems manufactured and upgraded by Iranian experts and under the control of Iran's integrated air defense network were used. “The Iranians seemed to have been working out the bugs in the system for use against low flying aircraft, spy planes, dones as well larger US stealth bombers in anticipation of an unprovoked American attack”, said one radar expert in Charlotte. “If this is the case it could increase the risk of detection” he said.

Kasta and NEBO radars as well as the Iran-made Kashef (Discoverer) and Matla ol-Fajr (The Start of Dawn) radars were used to detect and identify aerial threats. Extensive tests were conducted to “enhance” their capabilities…

 “The US Air Force is expected to use the F-22A Raptor armed with the glide wing equipped GBU-39/B SDB to destroy a defender's low band systems in the opening minutes of an pre-emptive military strike”, said one defense expert in Charlotte. “The notion that Russian low band radars are artifacts of the Cold War with little combat value is foolish, as current production models are typically 'digitized' through most of the signal and data processing, and display components, and many now use solid state transmitters. At least two designs are AESAs (active phased array). Russian manufacturers have thus followed much the same trend as Western manufacturers, enhancing Cold War era systems designs with digital processing. More than often modern Digital Moving Target Indicator (DMTI) or digital pulse Doppler techniques are employed, some types also using Space Time Adaptive Processing (STAP), exploiting the high performance of COTS computing technology, readily available in the open market and easy to ruggedize for a semi-mobile application of this kind. Russian industry is very actively marketing digital upgrades to the P-18 Spoon Rest, and new production digital 55Zh6 Nebo UE / Tall Rack and Nebo SVU VHF radars, specifically as a "Counter-Stealth" capability. We suspect this is what Iran has accomplished in this case”.