Ukraine plinking a Russian GPS-jammer with a GPS-guided bomb. Ukrainian drones blowing up Russian drone-jammers. Ukraine’s cruise missiles striking Russian air-defense sites whose missions include, you guessed it, shooting down cruise missiles.

Russia’s 23-month wider war on Ukraine has seen a lot of ironic, darkly-hilarious clashes. The latest was also one of the quickest between setup and punchline.

On Tuesday morning, Russian media announced the deployment, to Ukraine, of Russian forces’ latest high-tech counterbattery radar. A few hours later in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainians blew it up … with artillery rockets.

The irony deepens. In theory, a Russian Yastreb-AV radar would help to protect Russian troops from Ukraine’s American-made High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems launchers—its HIMARS. Now guess what the Ukrainians used to destroy that first Yastreb-AV.

That’s right: HIMARS.

  • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    For some radar. This is actually the biggest gap between western capabilities and Russian - Russia does not make proper digital AESAs, which are very critical for LPD operation. If you only transmit in scanning pencil beams, it is extremely difficult to locate you.

    • tpyo@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      This was an interesting conversation to follow, but I got lost on the acronyms. Could you expand those please? TIA (thanks in advance)!

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Just taking some guesses based on a minute of googling:

        digital AESAs

        digital active electronically scanned array (AESA)

        LPD operation

        Low Probability of Detection operations

      • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        So normal radar is like a lightbulb. You can tell where it is from any direction. The right kind of AESA is like a laser. You have to more or less be right in the path to detect it, and you have to detect it to locate it.