Ukraine army tests new counter-battery radar (VIDEO)

Ukraine’s Armed Forces have conducted successful field tests of a new version of the Ukrainian-made 1L220UK counter-battery radar, the country’s state-run defense production concern UkrOboronProm reported on April 8.

The device is able to track incoming enemy shells with its microwave band radar, calculate their trajectories, and trace them back to their firing points.

“This allows for detecting precise locations of hostile cannons, mortars, multiple launch missile systems, as well as air defense systems and tactical missiles, at distances of dozens of kilometers,” UkrOboronProm’s press service said.

“The poiwer of the 1L220UK’s digital phased array antenna allows it to be deployed tens of kilometers away from the enemy lines and observe the battlefield within a sweep of 180 degrees. The use of counter-battery radars is an important aspect of modern warfare, which significantly increases the effectiveness of war-fighting and allows enemy artillery to be destroyed in the minimum amount of time.”

Recent tests at a firing range in Chernihiv Oblast showed the 1L220UK radar had capabilities that “substantially exceed” the those of all other counter-batter radars currently operated by Ukraine’s Armed Forces, the concern said.

The 1L220 Zoopark-2 family of radars were designed in the 1980s and 1990s by the Iskra plant in the city of Zaporizhia. The system’s purely Ukrainian version, the 1L220U, was designed independently of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and came into service with Ukraine’s Armed Forces in 2003.

According to the designers, the system, operated by 4-person crew, can detect enemy mortars at a distance of 20-25 kilometers, artillery at a distance of 23-28 kilometers, multiple launch missile systems from 35-45 kilometers away, and tactical missiles at a distance of 55-80 kilometers.

Iskra designers have also proposed a 1L221E version — an enhanced mobility radar mounted on an 8×8 KrAZ-7634 truck chassis with a set-up time of just 5 minutes, thereby ensuring the system’s better mobility and survivability in combat.

UkrOboronProm said that with the 1L220UK having successfully passed field tests, the Iskra factory is ready to launch mass production of the radar for the Armed Forces.