If you read my blog on the Russian Over-The-Horizon radar system Konteyner (29B6) then you may recall that at the end of it I mentioned the report on a Far East site, and that it hadn’t been started:
There has also been mention of another Konteyner site already in construction in the far east. At this time nothing has been found of any construction site that looks to be a Konteyner OTHR and I have my doubts about this. It was first muted in 2010, then again in 2018, and I would have expected something to be there by now.
Well, thanks to a contact on Twitter – Krakek – this has been proven not to be the case!
He was able to point me to the location of the receiver site, though it is very clear that the system has either been abandoned, or it has been postponed.
Located at 53°43’16.27″N 127° 4’29.63″E, the site appears to have been started sometime between 23rd August 2015 and 6th September 2017 according to Google Earth imagery. The site has just been cut through a forest and it appears that no antenna arrays have ever been sited there.
The latest GE imagery available, dated 7/7/19, is shown below with the site not changing since September 2017.
The site is located 9 km west of the town of Zeya. There appears to be no other real military presence, with the region being mainly involved in open pit gold mining. The large dam nearby is also a big employer – an ideal source for the large amount of electricity required to power an OTHR.
At this time I have been unable to locate any sign of the Transmitter site, though it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I went along the same lines of the other site and looked within a nearby radius and discovered nothing of real significance.
Using the GE imagery, I’ve taken a look at the potential coverage the Far East system would provide. As there isn’t a transmitter site available, I’ve based it on a three array system, rather than the four at Kovylkino.
The image below shows the site with added arrows for the direction the antenna arrays would appear to be planned in covering. The rough bearing for each is: 077 (Green), 137 (Red) and 197 (Blue).
The Green and Blue directions are definite as you can also see the areas cut out of the trees into what would be the ground plane that is placed in front of each array. This is not visible with the Red arrow and there isn’t a second ground plane visible for an array pointing to the West. This currently points to a three array system, but should there be a fourth array, my thoughts are that it would be back to back with the Green array. My reasoning for this? The second cut through the trees that extends in front of the Red (197 degrees) proposed array and around to the rear of the Green (077 degree) is the potential extension for the ground plane.
The next image depicts the potential coverage based on the same dimensions from the Kovylino system. The quadrants are colour coded the same as the previous image. The inner ring is at approximately 900 km and shows the skip area, whilst the outer ring is at approximately 3000 km. The lines in each coloured quadrant are extend from the planned arrays to the bearings of 077, 137 and 197 degrees.
As you can see, the OTHR is perfectly placed to cover SE China, North and South Korea, Japan and anything launched from the West coast of the USA. Three of those countries have ICBM capability. Major cities and naval bases such as Vladivostok are covered, as is a lot of the sea areas to the east of Russia.
You can also see that if a fourth transmitter array was to be built and it was put back to back with the 077 (Green) system, that it would point in the direction of India and Pakistan – both countries are ICBM capable.
It will be very interesting to monitor this site, to see if any further development takes place. I wonder whether they are waiting on how well the Kovylkino site copes in a live environment before continuing with any work here.
Krakek was also able to provide me with some further data on the Konteyner system as a whole. The data, shown below with some of the information translated in a separate table, is from the procurement datasheet produced by Радиотехнические и Информационные Системы (Radio Engineering and Information Systems JSC). The paper is further sourced from Oружие Oтечества (Weapons of the Fatherland) – a fantastic site on all things Russian military. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the direct link to the page.
This data confirms much of that already known, in particular the range (min and max) of Konteyner and the maximum number of aircraft that can be tracked simultaneously. Of note is the pulse length – 6 to 8 ms as I was able to ascertain through my analysis.
| 1 | Multifunctional Radar Station with increased range of detection of air objects |
| 2 | Main Technical specifications |
| 3 and 4 | Wavelength Range : Decametre |
| 5 and 6 | Antenna Type : Phased Array |
| 7 | Area of Responsibility |
| 8 | Maximum Range – 2700 km |
| 9 | Minimum Range – 1000 km |
| 10 | Azimuth Width in Degrees – 60 |
| 11 | Within Area of Responsibility |
| 12 | Number of continuous monitoring zones – 4 |
| 13 | Range size – 450 km |
| 14 | Azimuth Width in Degrees – 15 |
| 15 | Standard errors of measurement |
| 16 | Range for single target – 18 km |
| 17 | Range for single target in degrees – 2 |
| 18 | Radial speed (pulse rate) – 6 to 8 milliseconds |
| 19 | Number of simultaneously tracked targets – 350 |
| 20 | Service life – 15 years |
| 21 | Placement Options |
| 22 | Relocated (note – presumed mobile) |
| Stationary | |
The positional error information highlights the issues with OTHR. The plot for each track could be anything up to 18 km and/or 2 degrees out. This shows why the system can not be used for weapons targeting, and can only be used in an information or rough intercept/search area purpose for aircraft or another air defence system.
The title of the paper also alludes to the fact that Konteyner will only be used for air targets and not maritime surface targeting. This explains why there are no ship targets in the video for the Kovylkino activation.
I’d like to thank Krakek again for all the information as this has helped not only in locating the Far East site for further observations, but also for the datasheet that has proven a lot of the analysis already carried out.
I’ll be working with Jane’s, keeping a close eye on the site to catch any further work that may start here in the future.
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