Radar is a crucial piece of equipment that provides weapons systems with "a thousand eyes and ears." Among the countries capable of independently developing radar technology, China, the United States, and Russia stand out for their advanced capabilities. Do you know how far each of these three countries' radars can detect targets?

　　The Detection Range of Russian Radar

　　Currently, the backbone of Russia's strategic early warning system is the Voronezh radar.

　　This is Russia's third-generation large phased-array anti-missile early warning radar. It uses solid-state active phased array technology, an open architecture, and a modular design, significantly enhancing its ability to detect, track, and classify targets.

　　The Russian Voronezh radar system includes the Voronezh-M, Voronezh-DM, and Voronezh-VP radars. Among them, the DM model boasts the highest target positioning accuracy.

　　It operates in the decimeter wave band. Since the first DM-type radar officially entered combat duty in Lekhtusi, St. Petersburg, Russia in 2006, the modernization of Russia's ground-based strategic early warning system has begun.

　　As mentioned earlier, the Voronezh radar uses an open architecture and modular design. This significantly reduces research and development costs, construction time, and maintenance personnel requirements.

　　If Russia needs to make strategic adjustments in the future, the Voronezh radar can be redeployed and modernized in a short time.

　　Unlike Russia's previous strategic early warning radars, which took 5-9 years to build, the Voronezh radar only takes about 1.5 years.

　　After systematically studying Russia's Voronezh radar, some military analysts believe that its use of many modern radar designs and device technologies makes its detection capability for ballistic missile targets even stronger than that of the American "Cobra Dane" radar.

　　In terms of detection range, the Voronezh radar can detect targets approximately 6000 kilometers away.

　　The Detection Range of American Radar

　　Among American radars, the "Cobra Dane" deserves special mention.

　　This is due to both its excellent performance and the fact that Taiwan authorities previously introduced it from the United States to detect mainland targets.

　　As early as March 8, 2013, Wired magazine published an article introducing the "Cobra Dane" radar purchased by Taiwan from the United States.

　　The article stated:

　　"Incredibly, a 10-story green building has met Taiwan's needs for 15 years: a ballistic missile early warning radar system (which is actually the "Cobra Dane" radar), capable of detecting fighter jet takeoffs 3,000 miles (4828.03 kilometers) away."

　　The United States believed that providing the "Cobra Dane" radar to Taiwan would enable it to detect and warn against the more than 1,000 ballistic and cruise missiles deployed in 10 provinces of mainland China.

　　It is worth mentioning that the "Cobra Dane" radar provided to Taiwan by the United States at that time was not the latest model. It was relatively older. Because of this, in 2016, the United States proposed upgrading the "Cobra Dane" radar purchased by Taiwan.

　　The upgrade would cost Taiwan approximately $26.22 million.

　　However, to the surprise of the United States, Taiwan's armed forces rejected the proposal:

　　“Taiwan's so-called ‘Air Force Command’ stated that after evaluation, the radar fully meets the military's needs, and there is currently no need to improve its performance.”

　　Compared with the "Cobra Dane" radar deployed in Taiwan, the same model used by the United States has better performance. Currently, the United States has deployed four such radars on its territory, mainly used to detect and track submarine-launched ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles and provide missile early warning information.

　　The maximum detection range of the US-operated "Cobra Dane" radar is approximately 5500 kilometers.

　　Finally, let's return to the "Cobra Dane" radar deployed in Taiwan. Although the Taiwan authorities have high hopes for this radar, expecting it to play a full early warning role in a future Taiwan Strait war, it is unfortunately unlikely to achieve this.

　　The reason is simple. Shortly after the deployment of the "Cobra Dane" radar in Taiwan, mainland China deployed a large phased-array radar with jamming capabilities in Hui'an, Fujian, which is located across the strait from Taiwan.

　　The jamming signals emitted by this radar are not something the "Cobra Dane" radar, developed in the 1970s, can "immunize" itself against. The "Cobra Dane" radar in Taiwan is now essentially blind.

　　The Detection Range of Chinese Radar

　　Finally, let's talk about China's long-range early warning radar.

　　As early as 2017, China unveiled a P-band long-range early warning phased array radar.

　　Although China's military-industrial complex started late, its insight into the development of some military technologies is quite keen. As early as the 1970s, China began developing long-range early warning radar. The final result was the later famous 7010 large ground-based long-range early warning radar.

　　This radar's overall performance is quite excellent. In subsequent use, it accurately predicted the time and location of the fall of debris from the Soviet Cosmos 1402 nuclear-powered satellite.

　　However, the 7010 large ground-based long-range early warning radar is a product of the last century. Even though its performance was quite good at the time, with the rapid development of modern missiles and fighter jets, the 7010 large ground-based long-range early warning radar is no longer sufficient.

　　Therefore, China developed the P-band long-range early warning phased array radar.

　　The reason why China's new generation of long-range early warning radars chose the "P-band" is mainly because different frequency band radars have the characteristics of "the higher the frequency band, the higher the measurement accuracy; the lower the frequency band, the stronger the target search and discovery capability."

　　Radars that require early target detection, such as long-range early warning radars, are best suited for using P-band or lower frequency bands.

　　China's P-band long-range early warning phased array radar has a total of 11,000 radar units, covering a 240-degree wide-angle detection range. Its maximum detection range is considered to be about the same as the US's "Pave Paws" radar, exceeding 5,500 kilometers.