Eliminates Patriot’s main drawback: the latest LTAMDS radar enters final tests
The American defense giant Raytheon has announced that it has successfully conducted another test of the latest LTAMDS radar (commercially known as GhostEye) for the Patriot, which precedes the “home stretch” of tests that should result in the radar’s full operational readiness in 2024.
The test successfully practiced intercepting a low-altitude cruise missile moving from the rear. LTAMDS detected it in advance, transmitted the data to the command post and sent an anti-aircraft missile to intercept it. It should be noted that this scenario is more than realistic and based on actual hostilities in Ukraine, when the enemy combines the use of different types of missiles and cruise missiles can attack from any direction.
These tests may seem a bit simple, but the fact is that this is the main purpose of creating LTAMDS and integrating it into Patriot. Because the existing radars for this system, AN/MPQ-53 and the newer AN/MPQ-65, have a sectoral view, which for AN/MPQ-53 is 120 degrees.
It is here that Patriot can see targets and guide anti-aircraft missiles to them. At the same time, LTAMDS has a simultaneous 360-degree view and can be used to guide anti-aircraft missiles.
For this purpose, in addition to the main radar, this radar has additional radars located on the sides of the station and covering the blind spot. Thus, it is quite possible to reduce the number of Patriot batteries (fire units) to protect a particular object, and possibly reduce the number of short-range SAMs that should cover it.
That is, the integration of LTAMDS is really important for strengthening air defense, not only for the United States, but for all other Patriot operators.
Of course, additional radars have fewer capabilities than the main ones, but they do their job. Moreover, Raytheon is also planning to produce a separate medium-range radar called GhostEye MR with them.
In total, Raytheon has already conducted more than ten successful intercepts, and under the first contract, the company manufactured six new radars for test operation. In addition to the United States, the first potential customer of LTAMDS is Poland, which wants to buy six more Patriot batteries with new radars.
