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Would a country (any country) normally keep their radar units that are located on the borders of their country active all of the time?

It seems to me that all potential adversaries are already aware of their existence, so there doesn't seem to ever be a time when they should shut them down. Besides, the primary purpose of the radar is to detect intruders, and they can't do that if the radar is turned off.

The reason that I ask this question is because I have seen numerous scenarios where the designer has some of these turned on, and others off. I didn't know if the reason for this was because they wanted to lessen the strain on the computer's memory overload, or because varying on/off radar units is what is actually done by countries.

Great question...

Many scenarios seem to have the Red team specifically target and obliterate Radar sites prior to any attack (as you expect) but I often wonder if having them on or off would have made any difference. On looking it does seem that many are "Make Aware" to OPFOR anyway so it seems pointless having them off.

There are fixed sites and mobile. Fixed sites are pretty well known so might as well leave them on. Mobile sites you can choose either depending on if you think there has been an effort to locate them prior to scenario start. You should probably google things etc. to figure out what kind they are if you're unsure. Some nations have designations that tell you FPS/TPS etc. In general though surveillance radars are active because that's the only way they can surveil unless they have a passive detection capability (ELINT etc).

Sensors do have a game performance cost but shouldn't be as big of an issue as it was on version 1.0.

Regardless shouldn't be a reason to bang on another scenario builder at all. Don't like it go into the editor and flip the switch.

Mike

Hi Mike... not sure anyone suggested any criticism of scenario builders ? I certainly didn't

The reason that I ask this question is because I have seen numerous scenarios where the designer has some of these turned on, and others off. I didn't know if the reason for this was because they wanted to lessen the strain on the computer's memory overload, or because varying on/off radar units is what is actually done by countries.

Right here. He can ask them privately why they've done this. Nobody has to answer to Doug on a forum as too why they've done anything.

Mike

Valuable assets are not to be deployed near the border. Old Sam systems and radars are usually used. Those sites are well known to the neighbours and are the first targets during an invasion. Easy targets for a long range artillery units/MLRS.
Valuable sam systems are deployed to the front once the war breaks out. Highly mobile systems try to ambush attacking air force, use shoot and scoot tactics, inflated dummies and ARM decoys, take advantages of the terrain.

ORIGINAL: User2

Valuable assets are not to be deployed near the border. Old Sam systems and radars are usually used. Those sites are well known to the neighbours and are the first targets during an invasion. Easy targets for a long range artillery units/MLRS.
Valuable sam systems are deployed to the front once the war breaks out. Highly mobile systems try to ambush attacking air force, use shoot and scoot tactics, inflated dummies and ARM decoys, take advantages of the terrain.

Exactly!

I see a couple reasons to leave some fixed radars off at the start of a scenario.

1) To simulate/replicate routine maintenance - usually not a biggie (maybe 5%) but countries that have been subjected to long term sanctions and isolation - you could probably ramp that up to 30-40% deliberately leaving holes for an observant player to exploit.

2) Redundancy - if there are enough radars (speaking of fixed ones here), to cover the key approaches, leaving a few off with a Lua 'ON' switch is a good way of protecting them from ARM munitions. When radar 1 gets hit, radar 2 turns on to fill the gap, and so on. A good player will mix up his SEAD/DEAD strike with some CBUs and sort out the problem but perhaps there are limited resources or perhaps s/he hasn't thought of that yet.

Mobile, not auto detected are another matter completely - as are fixed sites that are turned to 'not auto detectable' because they were built recently and/or secretly.
Designer choice really.

B

Would a country (any country) normally keep their radar units that are located on the borders of their country active all of the time?

Hi Gunner,

This is the question that I asked originally. I don't know how the concept got changed to to "bashing scenario designers." In fact, I don't have any specific scenario in mind, nor do I even know who designed any of the company-produced ones. So, that line of thinking is way off base.

I was hoping to get responses from personnel with actual military experience to explain what, if any, would be the benefit of ever turning them off as far as from a tactical point of view.

My question was based on what a real life country would do on a border situation. As I said, it seems that any type of reconnaissance would reveal the existence of a radar unit near, or on the border, so it kind of seemed a little foolish to ever turn them off. You did bring up a good point concerning mobile units, but I don't think that I ever specified anything about that.

To me, it just seemed like a country would turn on any on the border radars because their position was likely to be known anyway, and if they were turned on AFTER the raid has passed by, then they don't seem to be worth much at that point.

I do see that in countries with many radar units lined up on the border that they do seem to be very redundant, and I don't see what the benefit of having two of the same kind radiating, right next to each other on at the same time. I would think that the computer might have to calculate hundreds of contacts for each radar, and that would be very redundant for the large number of radars on the border, so I was thinking that if countries really do leave the radars on in real life, then maybe some of them were turned off by various designers to conserve computer memory. It was just a thought.

But, primarily, I just wanted to hear how the real life military experts would approach this situation.

Czechoslovakia has during the Cold War radar stations positioned in about 30 - 40 miles from each other with usually several radars (icluding same type) in one position so at least one radar was still on in the position (other for maintenance etc.). Distance between stations was dictated by need to be able to track low flying aircrafts - in western part of country was demand to able to track aircrafts in 100m, in the rest of country it went to 300m. Along whole border with West Germany and partially also with Austria were built observation towers for visual detection of any aircraft crossing the border at any height (doesn't worked in night) with permanent crews.