Marconi S-400
Contents
Description
The Marconi S-400 or Marconi Series 400 is a British ground-based target detection and tracking radar.
Vehicles equipped with this radar
General info / usage
The Marconi S-400 is capable of both scanning for targets and locking onto targets. However, it does not offer "Track While Scan" (TWS) capability, meaning that the radar must cease scanning in order to lock onto a target. As a result of this, if a target is locked onto, then all other radar blips will stop updating and be removed from the display within a few seconds. When it locks on to a target, it will stop spinning and instead point directly towards the target, following it as the target moves. Upon a target lock being lost, the radar will revert back to scanning.
The radar has a "Line of Sight (LoS) scan" mode. In this mode, the radar dish is locked in place facing the front of the turret. As such, it will only detect targets within a very narrow azimuth range, relative to the front of the turret. Elevation scanning angles will remain unchanged in this mode, however. In LoS mode, the radar (and thus the turret) need to be directly facing a target in order to detect it. Once a target has been detected, it can be locked onto in the normal manner and the radar will automatically follow it; once a lock is lost the radar will revert to LoS mode and face the front of the turret. The benefits of operating the radar in LoS mode is that as the radar is not emitting in all directions, you will not alert enemy aircraft equipped with radar detectors to your presence unless you aim directly at them.
| Search Characteristics | ||
|---|---|---|
| Maximum Detection Range |
Minimum Detection Range |
Range Settings |
| 12,000 m | 1,000 m | 12 km |
| Search Modes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search Mode | Azimuth Scan Angle |
Elevation Scan Angle |
Scan Time | Minimum relative speed |
Maximum relative speed |
| Default | 360° | -10°/+90° | 1.20 s | 15 m/s (54 km/h) | 1,000 m/s (3,600 km/h) |
| LoS Scan | ~ ±1.5° | -10°/+90° | 0.25 s | 15 m/s (54 km/h) | 1,000 m/s (3,600 km/h) |
| Tracking Characteristics | |||||
| Maximum Tracking Range |
Minimum Tracking Range |
Azimuth Tracking Angle |
Elevation Tracking Angle |
Minimum relative speed |
Maximum relative speed |
| 10,000 m | 100 m | 360° | -10°/+87° | 15 m/s (54 km/h) | 1,000 m/s (3,600 km/h) |
Comparison with analogues
Compared to other search and tracking radars, the Marconi S-400 has fairly poor range, being able to detect targets at only 12 km range and lock on to them at only 10 km. The radar system also lacks Track While Scan capability which other systems can achieve by using two different radars. On the flip side, as the main radar is also the tracking radar, the Marconi S-400 can track targets through a full 360°. This is unlike SPAAs such as the Gepard, where the tracking radar is mounted on the front of the turret, meaning that targets can only be tracked in a limited area in-front of the turret.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Reasonably fast scanning
- Can track targets through a full 360 degrees
- Since it scans and tracks, there is no need to guess if you can lock or not
Cons:
- Poor range
- Lacks "Track While Scan" capability
History
The Marconi S-400, also known as the Marconi Series 400 or Marconi 400 Series, is a ground based radar developed by the British company Marconi Electronic Systems. The radar was developed by Marconi in the 1980s for use on their Marksman anti-aircraft system. The Marksman is a generic turret which can be fitted to a number of chassis and is found in game on a Chieftain chassis as the Chieftain Marksman. Finland uses the Marksman system on T-55AM and Leopard 2 chassis.
Marconi Electronic Systems merged with British Aerospace PLC (BAe) in 1999 to form BAE Systems which is still operating today.
Media
Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.
See also
External links
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
