Soviet Mars Passat Radar

JFC Fuller

JFC Fuller

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Has anybody seen a comprehensive history of this system, what it was meant to, etc? I know it was made by Kvant in Ukraine (who subsequently transferred technology to China). All I have been able to find is the usual narrative that it never worked, but there are a whole host of curious questions about it:

1) If it never worked why did the Soviet's keep building ships with it, Baku, what became Kuznetzov, Varyag as launched had space for the arrays and the Ul'yanovsk model shows the system installed. surely they got at least some functionality out of it or had some confidence it would work eventually?

2) Why does it only ever seem to have been proposed for carriers? A Kirov class seems like an obvious candidate for a system of this size?

Attached is an image I found digging around on the net that shows the space the system took up in a carrier Island. Mars-Passat_Model.jpg
 
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From what I can tell, Baku was delayed from her completion probably by 2-3 years (comparing against the launch to commissioning time of her near-sisters), but there is no evidence she ever in fact received an operational system before her decommissioning in 1995. NATO photo-reconnaissance revealed the 'arrays' to be concrete slabs and her post-Communist Russian service was fairly brief considering she should have been a far superior ship to her older sisters.

The main reason often given is that the Mars-Passat suffered from software problems rather than any hardware issue. Some western analysts have been puzzled by this given the fact that the Soviets managed to overcome software similar issues with the Vega-M used on the Beriev A-50. Plus they successfully introduced the Zaslon system on the MiG-31 and 36D6 'Tin Shield' and 76N6 'Clam Shell' radars used with SA-10 batteries from around the same timeframe.
But the fact Baku did not receive one is perhaps a sign of hardware delays in production and the head of the Severnoye SKB stated that the system was deemed too expensive.

Mars-Passat was meant to be an air-defence battle management system, so it made most sense for the system to be carried by the carriers as they were the main long-range aerial defensive platforms with their Su-33s and had the necessary dedicated C&C facilities.
 
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None of which really answers any of the fundamental questions, it makes sense that the system went on carriers but that doesn't mean that its logical that it wasn't proposed for anything else. "Air defence battle management system" is essentially a combat management system, the kind of thing one would want on many types of surface combatant. The oft repeated slabs of concrete conclusion merely adds to the confusion, the system was being proposed for carriers as early as the mid-1970s and still seems to have been proposed for ships laid down in the late 1980s - thats a 15 year timeline in which it could have been abandoned.

I am sure there is a fascinating story around this topic but it seems that, at least in the open source, it has never been told and thats a shame given what we know about US efforts such as AN/SPG-59, ANS/SPS-32 & AN/SPS-33 and ultimately AN/SPY-1.

I also note the image in this post that appears to accredit the system with a 2,000km range and, based on the imagery, a space surveillance capability - if I am reading it correctly. That potentially hints at a very significant role.
 
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JFC Fuller said:
I also note the image in this post that appears to accredit the system with a 2,000km range and, based on the imagery, a space surveillance capability. That potentially hints at a very significant role.
Click to expand...

Not quite.
A translation of that image is (from top to bottom), square brackets is my additional info:
ц, у от спуtника легенда (все цели в радлсе 200km) - from the 'Legenda' satellite (all targets in 2000km radius) [Legenda was the targeting satellite for the Granit (SS-N-19) ASMs, note the ingoing arrow, it is signifying a datalink to the ship of radar data from Legenda]
марс-пассат - Mars-Passat [range] 550km at 10km altitude, 300km at 0.5km altitude
подберезовик - Podberezovik [MR-650] [range] 500km at 10km altitude, 200km at 0.2km altitude
подкат - Podkat [MR-350 Podkat-M] [range] 100km at 5km altitude, 50km at 0.5km altitude

Of course the diagram gives no indications of maximum altitudes, I would not read too much into the height of the stylistic arcs on the diagram in that regard. Certainly the satellite shown in Legenda and is not connected to the performance of Mars-Passat. The MR-650 Podberezovik and Mars-Passat are both quoted as having a maximum altitude of 30,480m but I would suspect the Mars-Passat has a higher max detection altitude. The high-level detection range is only 50km greater but at lower altitudes Mars-Passat had a more marked advantage and I presume would offer better detection of lower-RCS targets too.

I have seen unattributed comments elsewhere online that the system on Kuznetsov failed to detect anything, which would seem to indicate some serious issues. The software claim seems to have surfaced by the mid-90s, not sure where that came from, whether it was from a Russian source or Western speculation based on US development of similar radars. The decision to redesign Riga (aka Varyag) with the Forum system and the fact that only one complete complex was ever completed for Tbilsi (aka Kuznetsov) would indicate the Soviets had pulled the plug by 1990, whether due to software issues or delays in constructing the components. I suspect a combination of both factors were responsible.

Thinking more about the proposed ships I noticed another issue. Nearly all the platforms considered, apart from Baku, were nuclear powered. So I compared the electric generation capacity of the ships:
Pr.1143 - 6x 1500kW turbine-type generators & 4x 1500kW diesel-generators = 15,000kW
Pr.1143.4 - 6x 1500kW turbine-type generators & 4x 1500kW diesel-generators = 15,000kW
Pr.1143.5 - 9x 1500kW turbine-type generators & 6x 1500kW diesel-generators = 22,500kW
Pr.1143.7 - 10x 1500kW turbine-type generators & 8x 1500kW diesel-generators = 27,000kW

It seems that Baku was given no additional generation capacity over her sisters, despite the planned addition of Mars-Passat. Putting aside the different ECM/ESM suite, the only major radar change was the removal of MR-600 Voskhod. It would seem logical that the large and powerful Mars-Passat would have required more electric power than Voskhod, but none was provided for. Is this further evidence that Baku never received Mars-Passat (or was incapable of operating it in any case)?
 
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Mars-Passat was developed by the Ukrainian Kvant OKB and fell victim to a combination of technical issues, political issues and cost. The later carriers had provisions to carry Mars-Passat until it became clear it was not going to work. It seems to have been a technical dead end, with both subsequent carriers abandoning the system for the already existing, Russian, and lower technology, MR-650 Podberezovik (C Band) and MR-700 Fregat (E-band) radars.
 
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Thanks Paul. It seems that the decision to pull the system from Varyag was made after her launch, in the famous photo of her and Kuznetzov side-by-side there is clearly a large square aperture awaiting the forward-facing Mars-Passat antenna yet by the time she left Ukraine that was long gone. That suggests the decision to abandon it was taken only in 1988/89.

This article claims that the second Ul'yanovsk would have received two MR-700 and one MR-650 instead of the Mars-Passat and acquired a different project number at the same time (1143.8), the first vessel would have had MR-650 in addition to Mars-Passat (one assumes replacing the MR-700 as seen on Kuznetzov). I have attached the image of the proposed 1143.8 Island without Mars-Passat, there is one MR-700 forward and one aft with the MR-650 right at the top of the Island. It is an interesting contrast with the model I posted in the first post. 11437_model_NevskoePKB_14.jpg
 
The situation was doubtless not helped by the fact that in the late 1980s the surface fleet's R&D and construction funds were being increasingly diverted to the development and production of submarines, as a result of the dubious deal between Gorbachev and the so called 'Submarine Admirals' to oust Admiral Gorshkov.
 

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