South Korea and US to jointly develop Aegis warships for export, one possible customer is India.

With the tonnage mentioned, it sure seems like a possible option for our future MCV replacements? Hmm.

Correct me if i'm wrong - the F and the even smaller K variants of the AEGIS arent meant for naval ABM.

I we are looking for AAWD to replace our MCVs, then the Hobart is roughly the smallest it can go...?

I suppose it all depends on what the MCV replacement needs to do. Hmm.

Yes, if we need a sizeable AWD role, then Hobart or the Alvaro de Bazan is the smallest Aegis ship at the moment. 6250 tons.

But the crew complement of the Hobart (180) may make it tough for us, in terms of manning..

Wait for more details about this ship, then perhaps we will have a better idea..right now, I'm just pondering :)

As for the SPY-1K

I doubt this is what we need..it won't be a significant leap in capability, IMHO.

The SPY-1F on the other hand

Source : Globalsecurity

Anyway, other than the Ds, the other versions do not provide BMD capability, if that is what we might be looking at in the future.

dun waste money

correct me if im wrong but isnt current BMD technology too immature ? to actually have a missile defense shield ?

as i understand it, a missile launch has 3 phases. boost. mid flight and final/terminal intercept phase. to achieve a successful BMD, one must either intercept it at the boost or final/terminal stage, where it is most vulnerable. mid flight is next to impossible to intercept as it is probably travelling at very high speeds and in low earth orbit.

boost phase intercept represents the best option in terms of neutralizing the hostile BM as it eliminates possible use of decoys and maneuvering to avoid interception. but this option is generally near impossible to implement as most missile launch sites are easily defensible.

a terminal intercept is tough because of 3 conditions

1) the warhead or MRV is re entering atmosphere at extremely high velocities. the time window between launch , missile impact and time needed for correction / course adjustment is very very short. i.e the kill window for terminal phase intercept is very small.

2) newer generation of missiles may deploy multiple manuverable warheads or decoys. no way of telling which warhead is the decoy and which warhead is the real deal. far easier to overwhelm the missile defences with decoys and smaller warheads

3) [here's the one im not sure about, mentioned by chalmers johnson but not too sure] there is no known missile available that can engage the incoming ballistic missile at velocities fast enough to match it (i.e course tracking is very important, because if the ballistic missile can manuevuer or experiences changes in its flight path due to atmospherics or any other reason, the intercept missile will miss)

the fact that there is no single radar mounted on any ship, aegis included, that is capable of tracking the missile flight path from launch, mid-flight to terminal intercept, indicates another potential weaknesses for the layered "BMD shield"as it is dependent on external X-band radars and other indicators of missile launch for targeting information

so all that being said and done, with no "non-rigged" missile intercept tests being performed (current missile intercept tests are being performed with old missiles that have GPS sensors mounted in their payload area to guide interceptors to them) is it worth investing in an AEGIS class ship-based BMD shield ?

imho, BMD is unlikely ever to work given the numerous technical difficulties that it faces. its just a huge financial black hole for US defense corporations. while such a system may achieve limited success against theatre missile / tactical missile systems like scuds and other mid ranged missiles, given their limited speed and unlikeliness that a decoy system would be mounted on such a system, it is unlikely to be capable of intercepting even a "rogue nation" missile

Systems like THAAD are kinetic kill vehicles, which means that they should be able to track any incoming projectiles so accurately that they can actually hit it physically. Granted, no real world test has been done, but there have been successes in limited testing.

Obviously with longer range BMs, no single surface radar will be able to track the missile from launch to terminal phase, simply because of the limits of the horizon. That is where the plethora of military satellites come in. Bandwidth required will probably be immense though.

Even if no perfect BM/ICBM defence can realistically be built, a mediocre system may be good enough, and the spin-off technologies in targeting and response systems could be used in areas as diverse as Trophy APS to C-RAMs, so I wouldn't classify it as a black hole.

First, there is nothing uninterceptable about a ballistic missile in its mid course phase of flight. Traveling at high speed is no barrier to intercept – they are following a ballistic trajectory and so long as the system can generate a track early (greatly aided by the ballistic nature of its flightpath) and have a interceptor with a high enough acceleration and range, an intercept in the mid course phase is perfectly possible. In fact both the GMD and the AEGIS BMD are fully capable of intercepting targets in this phase of flight.

Boost phase intercept requires that the interceptor be placed closer to the launch coordinates, hence the desire to have them placed aboard ships. That’s why they were looking at giving the mission to CG(X), given that current Mk41 silos aren’t big enough for such interceptors. In any case I think the KEI, which is the ascent phase interceptor, has been cancelled by Obama.

Terminal phase intercepts face the possibility of decoys deployed. To say there is no way to differentiate real warheads and decoys is totally misguided. First, the real situation – the vast majority of ballistic missiles simply have no decoys on them to talk about. Second, effective decoys aren’t easy, given the nature of payload-range sensitivity of ballistic missiles. Small increases in weight can detract significantly in range. Decoys must emulate the characteristics of a real warhead while being small and light enough to minimise the effects of the missile performance. And it must emulate the warhead very precisely. Differences in weight and shape affect the trajectory upon entering atmosphere, differences in shape means that radars which with centrimetric accuracies can differentiate real from fake, differences in material means that temperature of the warhead changes at different rates etc. All these are MASINT. Knowing these information to differentiate the real targets from decoys is why the US has Cobra Ball and Cobra Judy etc, and sends them to observe foreign missile tests.

So one finds that the more ‘real’ one wants the decoy to be, the closer the decoy has to be to the actual warhead. But there is little point to having a decoy if it weighs and takes up the same space as that of a real warhead, since one might as well place another warhead in place of the decoy in that case. And in many ballistic missiles there simly isn’t enough space and weight allowances left for a decoy. In fact, the US MDA has been finding that to be a very hard problem to tackle – they find that making an effective decoy is not as easy as it sounds, while simpler ones can be differentiated with the multitude of sensors deployed. In any case, even of the decoys turn out to be too hard to differentiate, the option exists to puch the intercept point earlier into the target trajectory. Deploing decoys (or MIRVs) too early isn't an option for the ballistic missile.

Speed isn’t as much of a problem as it is made out to be. The ballistic missile is, obviously, ballistic in nature. That means that its trajectory is very much plottable in advance – the volume of uncertainty of its position at any one time is very small. So, as long as the missile launch is detected early and cueing and tracking is established quickly, there is no reason why an interceptor launch cannot be initiated in a timely manner for intercept.

So one may say, maneuverable warheads. These don’t work the way missile defense critics think. What maneuverable warheads are is that they have the ability to make minor corrections in their trajectory to be more accurate. Warheads zipping around the sky in an attempt to evade defenses is fantasy – warheads don’t have the propellant to do that. Small winglets at best only give for small corrections in the atmosphere, something which can be handled by the current or as-envisioned missile defense interceptors.

Notice how in the past missile defense critics have squawked about how impossible it was to hit a bullet with a bullet? Now they are very silent about this. What they didn’t know or didn’t say is that hit to kill was achieved against ballistic missiles a long time back with more rudimentary technology. In fact, now MDA claims that they can do the equivalent of ‘hitting a spot on a bullter with a bullet’. The intercept of the satellite was exactly that – the specific tank on the satellite was hit.

There is nothing wrong with depending on a multitude of external sensors for missile fire control etc. Or is there something wrong with CEC because external sensors are used for providing fire control information? And so on and so forth for many other systems?

GPS on the payload to guide interceptors to the targets, as well as scripted tests in general. Another lame accusation made by those missile defense critics to wilfully misguide the undiscerning. Those GPS on the targets are more likely to be there to ascertain the exact position of the target – very important in learning lessons from the tests, such as by how far an interceptor misses (if it does), how accurate the sensors are in determining the exact position of the target etc. If specific lessons are to be learnt from tests, they have to be scripted in some ways so that the specific situation which the researchers want to observe (and learn) something on the system performance, occurs. That’s the whole bloody point of tests.

Inevitably the reason for many missile defense critics in criticizing the system is not that the system doesn’t work, it is that the system works. Russia should know, they had a missile defense system deployed and working throughout the Cold War and is still operational now. Many other countries see BMD as very viable, India is currently working on one and it is going smoothly in tests. Netherlands, Japan, Germany etc are all somewhere along the line towards getting a BMD system. What this suggests is that there are many technical experts who concur that missile defense is perfectly workable. And that’s what really scares the missile defense critics.

Why does the USA and South Korea want to move into this venture?? Lower porduction costs if US wants to order more for their own consumption? At the same time better profit margins for both??

Any risks of secrets leaking out?

Question should be, why not? The KDX-III were very successfully completed under cost. That is close to a miracle for complex, major surface combatants. The S.Koreans are good at shipbuilding, US has the systems, put them together you get a great combi. As far as secrets go, the US has already exported the AEGIS system. Naturally the really sensitive stuff would be taken out, according to how close to the US the country is that the system is sold to.

Spot on YF....suppose the US should have gone on this track when they wanted to reduce costs....if the South KOreans can do something which the US yards cannot -contain costs and be on time, then look elsewhere.....if they are really serious about controlling costs then they cannot be employing double standards with the workers from the motor car industry and those from ship building industry - both controlled by strong unions, same bullshXX and same mentality......The US can really benefit from such future arrangements where explored possible and workable..... perhaps the costs savings can be ploughed back into other programmes.... like...FXX perhaps??? :P

I was actually wondering about that. The Moscow ABM has been in place for a few years. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there doesn't appear to be very much information on it due to its sensitive nature.

Is there anything in particularly outstanding about it? Aside from the fact that it's considered fully operational, I guess?

The main difference is that it uses a nuclear warhead, allowing for the taking out of multiple warheads. So no worries about decoys, given that the sensor (and soviet) tech at that time was poorer.

Heres a wiki ( :P ) page to give some general outlines of the system. Better use info elsewhere to confirm the details though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABM-1_Galosh

I was under the impression that the nuclear warheads were used in the original A-35 ABM system, and the new missiles in the A-135 may not use nuclear warheads. No idea if that's actually true though.

I also wonder how much EMP damage, if any, firing those would have done, considering they were supposedly 2-3MT warheads.

Thanks for the links though.
;)

Here's a bit more on the A-135 if anyone is interested.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/abm3.htm

http://www.missilethreat.com/missiledefens...stem_detail.asp

Wasn't the S-300V followed by the -VM and then the S-400 developed to supplement ABM capability that spooked US so much they abandoned the ABM treaty.

Here is a in depth discussion on the Gazelle system

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=71973

With a 3 MT warhead? You will prob blind your own engagement radars...

I would have tot that's just a question of TREE hardening.

Never heard of S-400 or S-300 as a reason for abandoning the ABM treaty. Unrelated developments. The ABM treaty was abandoned due to the proliferation of WMD and Ballistic missile technology.

Pre-internet age. That was in the very early years of the Clinton era. There was a huge hoo-ha over nuclear tipped S-300 missiles whilst US stuck to patriot/standard restrictions as part of the ABM treaty. The issue was spooked in 1995 due to some news reports claiming Russia had shot down a missile using a long range missile.

Bush even offered in 2001 I think to purchase S-300s as part of the ABM renegotiations but after the fall of the soviet union, the US managed to obtain samples from Belarus.

Over the past 2 decades, there were a lot of concerted effort to renegotiate the ABM treaty to allow US to exceed ABM restrictions. I think Bush Jnr calculated that Russia would not raise too serious objections to the abandonment of the ABM treaty cos they weren't adhering to it either. The cover story regarding how WMDs spread is believable but the ABM treaty would never have unilaterally been considered for scrapping if the Russians didn't have their own post-ABM capabilities. Don't forget the ABM treaty prevents mobile ABM capability which is exactly what the S-300V is advertised to do.

Danke, I'll mosey over for a look.

Is it true that RSN Aster Missiles also possess ABM capability?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBDA_Aster

None of the Asters currently in service have an ABM capability. That's why they need an Aster 45 or something to serve that role. In any case, the Herakles isn't able to handle that role. A long range surveillance radar like the SMART-L is required.

EMP should only cause a momentary disturbance assuming the system is EMP shielded, which I think would be a fair assumption if they are using a 3MT warhead! :lol:

SAMP/T

From DIEGEL.COM

The SAMP/T is a mobile, ground-based, air transportable, medium range air defense system designed to replace the Hawk air defense systems in the Italian and French Armed Forces. It comprises basically a ground control station/target engagement module, a 10 tons class truck-mounted Arabel radar, and up to six launcher vehicles carrying eight Aster 30 missiles each. Each Aster 30 missile is stored in a single sealed canister which eventually becomes its vertical launch ramp.

The SAMP/T will protect the bases of the Italian and French air forces from a wide range of airborne threats. The Armies of Italy and France may use this air defense system to defend other high value assets as well as ground armored formations. In addition to aerodynamic threats such as fixed and rotary wing aircraft and cruise missiles, SAMP/T will be capable of defeating Theater Ballistic Missiles (TBMs) and Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs) thanks to Aster 30 missile advanced performance.

In this case, it's more of without much hope vs no hope :lol:

The issue is not just with the EMP shielding. Sure, the equipment could be harden to continue operations.

But the radar? It works on receiving radio waves. A EMP blast/multiple blast would be like shining a giant torch light or camera flashes into your face. It is likely to cause the radar to drop the track.

Consider the difficulty of tracking a re-entry vehicle coated with radar absorbent material the size of a small cupboard traveling at 200km/sec and trying to separate that from the nuclear fireballs going off next to it...

Meaning though our Frigates' radars cannot handle tracking of ballistic missiles but our Asters (15 / 30/45??) can handle the threats?? POssible upgrade of radars in the near future then.... in any case think SG should be more concerned with cruise missiles than ballistic ones....neighbours seem to be more likely to have these

our frigates are too small to accomodate the heavier, more capable radars like SMART-L and SPY-1D needed for even the ATBM mission. if our intention is for a seaborne A(T)BM capability, then no doubt a much larger, destroyer-sized ship will be required - in line with the 4500-6000t proposals from the said LM-Hyundai joint venture.

the 'Aster 45' is itself nothing more than a hypothetical quantity. chances are that the Europeans are quite far behind the US in this area and they'll not be able to produce an SM-3 equivalent for a number of years. as an advance from the Aster 30, you might expect to see a larger first-stage booster (or a new booster stage altogether!) that enlarges the missile to fit the A50 launch cell, plus a KKV final stage.


as for cruise missile defense, this is an aspect which i feel we are already quite well prepared for. CAEWs and F-15SGs with their AESAs will do a good job of spotting CMs from far out. if it becomes a real threat, more investment could be made in aerostat-based AEW radars for persistent surveillance (like what the US is doing) and new SAMs (which should quietly be under consideration to replace the I-Hawks and Rapiers).



i think it's interesting that the Indians are interested in a seaborne ABM capability on top of their ground-based systems. at first consideration it may seem oriented against Pakistan, but could this be a response to protect their carriers from the mysterious Chinese ASBM threat as well?

Hallo. It is definitely not a qn of radar size. The Aster 30 Blk 1 missile's range is only 100km. To say that the Herakles with a 200+km range cannot be used because of size is strange.

More important is the angle. If BMs come in at a steep angle, then the radar limited to 70 deg is not capable of pointing up to detect the target above 70 deg (depending on the angle of intercept and a longer range allows intercept at lower angles).

Even upgrading radar will not help unless the radar's tracking directly up. The Empar G has an high-angle search function though. But of course one can develop a platform holding up the radar that can be rotated such that although the radar is pointing at 70 deg, the effective deg angle is 90.

The alternative is AEW track cos that's forward tracking but guidance handsoff is an issue.

I think NCADE makes more sense and is far cheaper an option.

Not necessarily. The EMP pulse may be too short to disrupt a track depending on the rotation of the radar. If it doesn't take out the radar first, the track may not be lost.

Engagement radars, used for terminal guidance and battle management are phased arrays, from the original MSR for the Sprint system to the Cobra Dane, to the Russian Dog House and even the Indian/Israeli systems. Reason for this is because of the need to deal with fast moving targets.

Yup. And missiles seekers normally will experience and can handle some signal loss albeit very temporary. In an EMP blast, the frequency wavelength can be affected or scintillation may apply though not necessarily fully disappear. However, if the operating radar can still broadcast radar waves, so the missile track might not be lost depending on how fast and far the waves go. Apparently higher freq will experience lower EMP effects and I suspect that's partly due to this. Missiles may have self terminal guidance as well but likely tracking radar still needed.

Just my 2 cents as I definitely did not do any nuke (or nude) testing.

From what I understand, EMP is exactly as stated - it is a pulse, duration lasting only microseconds. So any hardened equipment would only be offline for pretty much that amount of time.

Not quite as simple as that. There's the issue of searching and detecting the target and doing so early enough to give time for target determination, raid assessment etc, and that requires both long range and a wide beam, something which search radars with high power like SMART-L better fit. A 200km range is unlikely cut it, especially with the need to track the target over a major part of its trajectory for point of impact predictions etc. In fact even the 400km range of SMART-L wasn't enough and a ELR (Extended Long Range) mode had to be developed to give it a ABM role.

When one looks at how Patriots intercept Scuds, that's approx the same warning time and profile. I agree that its not really significant warning time when TBMs approach at 2 to 5 km/s but that's how automation kicks in. Considering that Herakles is expected to detect low RCS missiles at ~60km, that probably gives ~12 seconds of warning time but that's the same even for patriots. Patriots won't wait for target determination, raid assessment etc. If it comes in at Mach 9, that's weapons free.

For SAM engagements, tracking is less of an issue rather than illumination. Once a target is illuminated, the missile basically just follows to that point so path of target imho is not so important.

Longer ranged radars allow more warning time but is still limited by missile range. An EMPAR G or SMART-L is not going to be much use as missile engagement for an Aster 30 Blk 1 can only reach 100km. To max the impact, the missile range also needs to be upgraded eg standards to really utilise the benefits of the added radar range.

Still prefer NCADE concept though. Whack them at the launch phase.

You're not taking into account a lot of things. It's not just max missile range - when you are talking about high altitude interceptions the actual missile range at such altitudes are only a fraction of the maximum missile range. Then there is the issue of missile acceleration and maximum speed etc. Finally there is the most pressing issue - the missile isn't always (actually usually isn't) going to head directly towards the ship itself, and the ship is usually supposed to protect something other than itself as far as ABM missions go. Ie, the problem of crossing targets.

Imagine a plan view of a scenario where teh Formidable is in the center of a 2 circles, the outer one whose radius is the maximum range of the Herakles and another smaller circle representing the maximum range of the Aster 30, then imagine the path of the ballistic missile cutting a wedge across one side of this smaller circle (and by extention the outer circle as well).... then remember that the length of the path within the smaller circle is the actual points where the ballistic missile is engageable by the Aster. But then the Aster has to be fired before the BM actually reaches that section of the flight so that the missile can intercept... (assuming the length of the path doesn't allow for a second shot) One can see that reaction times are actually far less due to the limitations in range of the radar. In this case one can argue that both the max range of the Aster 30 and the herakles are not suitable for ballistic missile defense.

Agreed. The incidence of the missile to the target are reduces the likelihood of a successful target interception as the incidence increases. Same thing with most sam engagements. The highest rate of successful interception will be when the missile is headed directly for the target.

At 20 km, the interception capacity of the Aster 30 is limited in altitude as well. Accordingly, it is not so much the capacity of the radar in question as opposed to the capacity of the missile.

Nevertheless, I don't deny the Aster 30 does have ATBM capability, just a question of how much. Same thing with anyone arguing that the Patriot does have an ATBM capability, just a question of how much.

Ballistic missile needs re-enter the atmosphere, the re-entry vehicle (RV)’s high speed will ionize the surrounding air and black out any EM signal. This occurs roughly around 50-90kms above sea level. In which period the RV is virtually “plasma stealthy”. This unique feature of RV plus its hyper terminal speed, request the interceptor’s radar system possessing very long detecting range of the RV far from it re-entering the atmosphere, or in another word, when the RV still remains in space. But here’s the thing, long range detection prefers long wavelength of radar beam but long wavelength radar beam has a poorer position resolution, furthermore, it can detect the threat at 200kms max, doesn’t mean it can track at that extreme range, if the mode turns to track, beam width will turn narrow, for example, AN/SPY-1E searches/tracks a small RCS RV at 400kms/200kms, when tracks a RV at 200kms using S-band, the uncertainty of the RV position is around 8kms, when switch to C-band, the resolution will improve to 5kms, but still too large to immediately determine the RV’s ballistic trajectory. The small RCS of the RV will further complicate the situation, The radar needs certain dull time to refine the RV’s trajectory before interceptor missile can be launched to the preset impact point of the ballistic trajectory, and SPY-1E is specially designed to incorporate both software and hardware upgrade of traditional SPY-1 radars. But nevertheless, a brochure stated 200kms max range doesn’t identify anything, against what RCS, what’s the tracking range etc need to be addressed…

But if the RV is maneuverable, the situation will become much more complicated. For a conventional RV, an intercepting missile can be always shot to the vicinity of pre determined intercepting point of the ballistic trajectory even if the radar loses contact of the target during its black out period. Because the conventional RV nevertheless will follow the well resolved ballistic anyway. However, the maneuverable RV ( MaRV) will behave much different, for example, Pershing II is such a MRBM with MaRV, MaRV maneuvres to a near horizontal position to slow itself down during re-entry. The MaRV then pitches down to put itself into position to operate the RADAG seeker. The RADAG seeker is turned on at 50,000ft. There are a number of scans of the terrain at 4 altitude bands to provide course corrections to the INS and the MaRV will go a 3D movement in somewhat a spiral way rather than a simple 2D ballistic dive down so as the seeker can acquire the target data. In the final stage, the missile continues to the target in a ballistic path. From the description, it’s very difficult next to impossible for the interceptor radar resolve the predictable trajectory because the MaRV maneuvers upon its simple control fins will never follow any precisely controlled path but rather random moving. After the MaRV re-emerging from the black-out , the ground based radar needs re acquire and track the MaRV remeber, the maneuver begins even when the MaRV in black-out period, so the reaction time of the ground based radar are much reduced. but nevertheless the ground based system shoots out the intercepting missile. What going to happen, then it’s the intercepting missile’s own speed and maneuverability to cover the deficit of the unpredictable trajectory, but common SAM’s with max speed over Mach4, or overload 40-50g , much less when the Sam’s has to operate at ascending stage and high altitude when the thin air provides much less effect of the control surfaces found on the air breathing SAMs. Will have slim chance to catch a much faster ( mach12-4) MaRV, less than the chance I buy 50cent 4D and hoping to win 1st prize.

Attached: a trajectory illustration of how Pershing II MaRV works, but pls take note I couldn’t find any PII trajectory online for the time being, so I substituted with the now very fashionable ASBM, but never mind, all ASBM trajectory actually all directly copied from PII. So, it’s still valid as the PII’s

For a better idea on what is possible in the areas of warhead-decoy discrimination, check this out. The amount of detail that can be extracted on an observed object is quite eye-watering. And work done in this area goes all the way back to the 60s. This article is from 2000, so some data is a little outdated, like the largest mobile radar now being the Sea Based X band Radar instead of Cobra Judy. Claimed to be able to track and discriminate a baseball sized object at almost 4,000km. :blink:

http://www.ll.mit.edu/publications/journal...debandradar.pdf

How about terminal IR tracking to overcome the radar uncertainties? Also, missiles like THAAD are supposed to take a target out up to an altitude of 150km, which I believe is above the blackout/maneuvering phase of re-entry?

The Americans use yankee voodoo.... ;) :lol: While the bad guys have yin-yang powers to give the reentry vehicles a different set of physical realities such that maneuverability limits apply only to SAMs but not to reentry vehicles.

SDACS which uses IR targeting is already developed and tested to whack missiles in exo-atmospheric conditions. Having said that, there's no reason why non-nuke TBMs can't be taken out at 10-20km above sea level. Nuke TBMs will probably need SM-3s if high altitude blast is figured.

One note needed to add that SRBM like Scud never flies out of the atmosphere, usual sea based ABM platforms need to deal with BM flies over the vast water area. Seldom does SRBM do so. So a land based PAC-3 to intercept a low tie SRBM would have much different operational characteristics from that of sea based platforms like Aegis ABM systems dealing with BMs flying over ocean.

IR seeker’s field of view is very narrow, if the “radar uncertainty” is too large, probably the seeker will not lock on the target. THAAD’s guidance radar uses x band to get better target resolution & discrimination, Aegis system because of the limitation of the platform, it could never put a too powerful radar. So a longer wavelength is selected to balance the range requirement and resolution, Even so the specially designed Spy-1E for ABM operates not only in longer S-band which is standard frequency for the normal Aegis radars but also in an additional C-band to squeeze out every ounce of target resolution available.