Japan to put new Aegis radars on warships after cancelling ground stations: report

Ah, Kono Taro, the gift that keeps on taking.

In June, then defense minister Taro Kono suspended plans for two Aegis Ashore sites, citing the possibility that interceptor missile booster rockets could fall on nearby residents

I'll take a booster possibly falling on a house, over a nuke falling on a city any day

$2 billion added to complete Aegis Offshore project means $2 billion cut from some other defense project.

As I pointed out before, there are many small islands in the Japan Sea that can be used to deploy Aegis.

@Tom Webb

there are many small islands in the Japan Sea that can be used to deploy Aegis.

In the Sea No. 18(The official IHO designation), you just can't put Aegis anywhere; one must be near Aomori and one must be near Kyoto to provide coverage for all of Japan.

@sammit. I see the one in north Kyoto often. It is currently undergoing massive construction.

We should buy the Russian ones, better and cheaper.

Japan should build it's own.

We need many of this radars, cheaper made, smaller if possible, more flexible for Japan's circumstances and conditions.

We have the technology to develop our own system, this is not an offensive weapon. At least build the Defensive part.

In a real conflict with a serious opponent, this few radars that Japan has will be taken out in the first 3 days of the conflict.

We should buy the Russian ones, better and cheaper.

No. Just cheaper. SM-3 Block2 has several times the effective range of the newest and longest range Russian or Chinese air or missile defense missile. The SPY-6 and SPY-7 radars are better than anything Russia or China has. Russia doesn't have a battle management system comparable to Aegis. The Russian equipment hasn't been tested on high fidelity ballistic missile targets the way Aegis and SM-3 have.

Japan should build it's own.

It is. Japan is partnering with the US to develop test and manufacture SM-3 Block 2. It is a joint program with the US.

Powerful radars with some missiles alone are still no defense at all. You additionally need an outnumbering amount of interception missiles. That concept can’t really work, as they will take those radar ships out of the game with ease, by frigates, torpedoes, air raides and additional jamming those are a more than simple target. Then also the few missiles don’t even get said where to go. Another scenario, the radars on those ships work, but the missiles are not sufficient. Why? Because they send multiple missiles each one with many real or a mix of fake and few real warheads inside. As you can’t distinguish, which incoming warhead is a threat and which one is only fake, you’ve got to hit them all, without too many exceptions or too high error rate. Therefore the outnumbering redundant defense missiles amount is needed. The new concept doesn’t represent either of those requirements. It doesn’t fit at all right from the start.

The Russian equipment hasn't been tested on high fidelity ballistic missile targets the way Aegis and SM-3 have.

Yes agreed tested recently (FTM-44), success first time ever, any where.

But, the destroyer was relying on C2BMC (networked data from sensors etc. elsewhere). Aegis ashore would have comparable capability, but the proposed Japanese Aegis afloat is an unknown quantity and could cost the Japanese government many more billions to develop and successfully commission.

More money, more time, more risk.

As you can’t distinguish, which incoming warhead is a threat and which one is only fake, you’ve got to hit them all

SM-3 has been tested against ballistic missile surrogates that deployed decoys. In multiple tests SM-3 rejected the decoys and hit the warhead.

You additionally need an outnumbering amount of interception missiles.

Two interceptor missiles for each incoming missile is the rule of thumb. That gets you over 98% chance of hitting the target. Any leakers are engaged by PAC-3. That is what it is designed to do.

That concept can’t really work, as they will take those radar ships out of the game with ease, by frigates, torpedoes, air raides and additional jamming those are a more than simple target

Sounds so simple. The ships will be in Japanese waters. Any enemy that comes close enough to Japan to engage them will have a hostile welcoming party waiting for them to protect those ships.

and additional jamming

Do you know what "burn through jam" means? So you know what the burn through distance is? Those radars are deliberately too powerful to jam. Jamming relies on the jamming signal being stronger than the radar's return signal to spoof it and break lock. But that doesn't work against a really powerful radar. An incoming warhead would need a jammer the size of a city bus to generate enough power to jam an Aegis radar. Even most combat jets cannot jam it. it's a megawatt class radar in a world where most naval radars and airborn radars are kilowatt class. The ship will be announcing its presence to the world with those radars on, yes, but jamming them is not going to happen with the kind of power they have. But, obtw, you can go in a receive only mode and not transmit. You can still know a lot in a receive mode and not give your position away. When I served we'd run the whole carrier strike group EMCON and go places without the Soviets knowing we were nearby, even conducted flight ops without using radios relying on light signals. Ivan had no idea we were right off their coast until we launched a mock alpha strike at them and all those aircraft suddenly pulled up from the deck at their 12 nm limit. All was quiet, then their radios went wild. Ships can be effectively hidden. Believe it.