Concerning Sam's
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Do to the recent news I was wonndering if when a sam locks on to a target IS it able to identify what type of aircraft it is?
Just a thought
Thanks
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should be able to. at least, it probably has the same sort of radar IDENT that most military aircraft have, though i doubt itās very reliable. at least, it should be able to tell the difference between an airliner and a military jet. cross section of the airliner must be massive compared.
in my (in)expert opinion, two possibilities: either the battery was controlled by people who barely know how to operate a SAM (and thus, they may know how to aim and fire but couldnāt tell that the SAM was telling them āitās an airliner, dumbassā)
or the SAM had a trained crew that were ordered to fire and did.
just speculation though.
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If they were targeting larger Ukraine Transport aircraft then the probability for error could go up even further.
This further speculation hinges on the speculation it was actually shot down by an SA-11/17 of course.
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Identification depends on what type of equipment and information the RADAR unit (Receiver, or Rx in this text) has and/or what information the aircraft (Transmitter, or Tx) sendsā¦
- If the Rx only has a basic RADAR, it will be primary only, meaning you have to find and distinguish aircraft by their RADAR Cross Section (RCS). The farther the aircraft is from the RADAR, the more inaccurate the position (up to 2NM difference beyond 40NM with a surveillance RADAR) and identification will be. Itās also hard to gauge an aircraftās altitude, as you only have slant range to go on.
A variant on this is a 3D RADAR, that not only scans horizontally, but also has a vertical dome. With that, altitude can be extrapolated as well. Again, accuracy depends on distance between Rx and Tx.
With Primary RADAR only, seeing the difference between a C172 and A380 should be very easy, but an F16 could look very similar to a GLF5. It doesnāt help that the military uses converted civil aircraft either (e.g. B707 -> KC135 or E3; B747 -> VC25A or E4; ā¦) so targeting can be tricky in a mixed environment.
- If the Rx has a secondary unit, it will be able to ping for squawk codes (A-codes), and those can be used to distinguish aircraft. However, to be able to identify an aircraft, you still need data, e.g. a call sign, to link and correlate to that specific squawk code. If the aircraft is equipped with Mode C-transponders, they will also send altitude, which can be read on the Rx monitor.
Squawks are not fixed to aircraft types or flight paths, can change multiple times during a single flight, so identification can be still be hard to guarantee. In some conditions, 2 aircraft can cross each other on the RADAR monitor, and linked flight plan data can be swapped between both aircraft without a possibility to ārevertā to the correct correlation.
- If Rx has an ADS-B or Mode-S unit, it may be able to pick up the information that is sent by the aircraft. Thereās also ADS-C, but I canāt see this being available with SAM-sites. Technically, squawk codes are no longer necessary, as the information broadcast by the aircraft usually includes several things such as identification, callsign, altitude, speed, heading, autopilot settings and many other things.
Mode-S is obligatory in Europe (AFAIK, above FL195 at least), so everyone operating there must have it. ADS-B and Mode-S are what is used by sites like FR24, to plot aircraft on a map. Receivers can be bought for relatively cheap prices by anyone, but even though all aircraft in Europe must have it, some aircraft (e.g. military) will not be visible due to filtering and/or security equipment.
This is what I still remember from my courses back in 2011. Some things are a bit sketchy in my memory, but I believe itās still (pretty) correct. Feel free to correct me where Iām wrong.
- If the Rx only has a basic RADAR, it will be primary only, meaning you have to find and distinguish aircraft by their RADAR Cross Section (RCS). The farther the aircraft is from the RADAR, the more inaccurate the position (up to 2NM difference beyond 40NM with a surveillance RADAR) and identification will be. Itās also hard to gauge an aircraftās altitude, as you only have slant range to go on.