Solutions to win: Ukraine's armed forces utilize Sentinel radar maquettes to deceive Russian soldiers
Maquette of the AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar of the Ukrainian military, which remained in Avdiivka. February 2024. Photo: Telegram / Typical Donetsk
The Ukrainian military uses maquettes of American Sentinel counter-battery radar stations to deceive the Russian invaders.
Rubryka writes about this, referring to the Russian Telegram channel.
What is the problem?
The Russian military has consistently outnumbered Ukraine's armed forces in terms of weaponry. The Ukrainian defense forces are attempting to exhaust the occupying forces' resources by searching for enemy warehouses of weapons and using their current military equipment, both domestic and Western, to destroy their military weapons.
Unfortunately, as Ukraine does not possess adequate weapons, they are forced to entice Russian drones and ammunition and deceive the enemy on the battlefield.
Today, the Ukrainian military is actively utilizing decoys as "bait" for the enemy. The goal is to have more decoys on the battlefield to draw out and exhaust the enemy's supply of missiles and attack drones.
What is the solution?
Thus, the Ukrainian military uses American Sentinel counter-battery radar station maquettes to deceive the Russian invaders.
Photo: Telegram / Typical Donetsk
How does it work?
The Russian military captured one of these maquettes in the city of Avdiivka in mid-February.
The AN/MPQ–64 Sentinel radar model appears to have suffered some visible damage from debris. It is likely that the Russians mistook the mock-up for an actual radar and expended ammunition on it.
In the reports of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, "destroyed" counter-battery radar stations appear pretty often. It is possible that many of these stations had similar layouts.
Maquette of the Ukrainian military's AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar, which remained in Avdiivka. February 2024. Photo: Telegram / Typical Donetsk
The main task that is solved when using layouts is:
- diversion of the main blow from the real technique,
- misleading the enemy about the real number of military equipment in a certain territory.
Photo: Telegram / Typical DonetskAfter all, counter-battery radar stations are priority targets for the Russians.
It is worth adding that the Sentinel radar system is short-range but effectively helps air defenses hit approaching threats such as missiles and UAVs.
The AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radars operate in the X-band of radio frequencies (8-12 GHz) and use the Doppler effect—the change in frequency and wavelength as the source moves relative to the device.
AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel. Photo: i0.wp.com
The maximum range is 75 km, but the effective operation is limited to 40 km.
The antenna provides phase-frequency electronic scanning, forming a three-dimensional picture of a significant observation. It is mounted on a rapidly rotating platform (30 revolutions per minute) for rapid 360-degree space scanning.
It should be noted that in August of last year, Western mass media reported that Ukraine was forcing Russia to spend expensive high-precision missiles to destroy wooden "decoys" imitating HIMARS missile and artillery systems.
At the time, it was said that during several weeks of using wooden copies of HIMARS in the field, Russia spent at least 10 Kalibr cruise missiles on them, which prompted Ukraine to increase the production of "decoys" for their wider use.
In the Czech Republic, for these purposes, rubber models of the M142 HIMARS and M270 MLRS missile systems, which cost four times less than the same Javelin missile, are manufactured for Ukraine.
Czech TV @ReporteriCT: Czech 🇨🇿 production of inflatable decoys HIMARS, which are delivered to Ukraine 🇺🇦
(English subtitles added) pic.twitter.com/wiyKTjCRSK— Tarmo 🇨🇿 🇺🇦 🇫🇮 🇪🇺 (@TarmoFella) February 22, 2023
As noted in the story, a company from the Czech city of Děčín produces and sends copies of Western missile systems to Ukraine – according to the manufacturer, they can make 35 such "fake copies" in a month.
