The Estonian Air Force's second ThalesRaytheonSystems GM400 air surveillance radar, based at the Toika air force facility near Otepaa in southeast Estonia, was formally handed over on 27 January. (Nick de Larrinaga/IHS)


Estonia completed the creation of its military air surveillance network on 27 January, with the formal handover of its final ThalesRaytheonSystems (TRS) GM400-family radar system to the Estonian Air Force.

The radar, installed at the Tõika air force facility near Otepää in the southeast of the country (around 50 km from the Russian border), is the second ordered by Estonia under a bilateral procurement programme with Finland. The contract for the two GM400 radars was signed in 2009 and is worth some EUR28 million (USD32 million). The first radar, installed on Muhu island in the Baltic Sea, was handed over in March 2013.

The radars feed into the Baltic Air Surveillance Network (BALTNET), run out of Lithuania, and NATO's Air Command and Control System (ACCS) through the Combined Air Operation Centre (CAOC) in Uedem, Germany.

The ceremony was attended by Estonian Minister of Defence Sven Mikser, Estonian Chief of Defence Major General Riho Terras, the head of the Estonian Air Force, Colonel Jaak Tarien, and the CEO of TRS France, Jérôme Bendell.

Speaking at the ceremony, Mikser said, "The joint procurement [with Finland] has been a very worthwhile project. Not only has it saved us money. I believe it has also given us an opportunity to learn from each other."

Finland has already inducted eight of its GM400 radars into service, with the 13th and final radar under order for the Finnish Defence Forces expected to be delivered in early 2016.

Both the GM403 radars at Tõikamäe and Muhu are installed in fixed radomes, although an integrated lift system allows them to be rapidly lowered and mounted onto an 8x8 Sisu military truck. Combined with a trailer for a mobile generator, a logistics truck and two crew trucks, this allows the radars to be quickly field-redeployed in a mobile configuration if required.

TRS is a 50/50 joint venture formed in 2001 between Thales and Raytheon. The company offers a wide range of ground-based surveillance radars, command-and-control (C2) systems, and cyber capabilities to military customers worldwide.

TRS has received around 100 orders for its Ground Master (GM) family - which also includes the GM60 and GM200 - across 10 nations. The most recent customer for the GM family was France, which ordered four GM200s and 12 GM403 radars from TRS in December 2014. Deliveries of these are expected to begin in 2016 and be completed in 2020.

The GM400 is an S-band fully digital solid state 3-D long-range air surveillance radar, with an operational range of at least 470 km. It is designed to fit within a single ISO 20 ft shipping container and to be air transportable in a Lockheed Martin C-130 transport aircraft.

The GM400 family includes the standard GM403 version and the uprated GM406 variant. Both feature integrated identification friend-or-foe (IFF) antennae mounted above the main radar antennae. The radar provides a capability to track low radar cross-section targets travelling and manoeuvring at high speed, including ballistic missile targets.

A GM400 with a demonstrator ballistic missile defence (BMD) capability has already been delivered to Germany at the Ramstein Air Base.
ANALYSIS

The handover of the second GM400 radar provides Estonia with its first comprehensive capability to monitor its own airspace since the country's independence in 1991.

The country inherited a single P-37 'Bar Lock' military air surveillance radar at Tallinn Airport on independence from the Soviet Union, but no other form of military radar capability. Improving its airspace-monitoring capabilities has been a key goal of the nation since its independence, which it has now fully achieved.

Although Estonia has for a few years had an electronic surveillance system deployed close to its eastern border monitoring Russian activities, the GM400 at Tõikamäe provides its first radar-based air surveillance capability in the region.

Together with a Lockheed Martin AN/TPS-77 radar installed at Kellavere, and an ASR8 radar at Amari Air Base, the new GM400 radars provide complete military air surveillance coverage of Estonian airspace.

With an operational range of at least 470 km, the two GM403 radars each provide coverage of all of Estonia, with the radar installed at Tõikamäe also covering all of Latvia, most of Lithuania, and parts of northern Belarus and western Russia.

Meanwhile, the GM403 radar at Muhu provides coverage over the majority of the Baltic Sea and the entirety of the Gulf of Finland. The country also possesses two Saab Giraffe-AMB C-band air surveillance/targeting radars based with the Estonian Defence Forces' air defence unit at Tapa in northeast Estonia.

The installation of the radar comes at a time of significantly increased tension with Russia, with the location of the radar so close to Russia's border being no coincidence. With it, Estonia - and the NATO's Integrated Air and Missile Defence System (NATINAMDS) it is integrated into - will be able to monitor Russian air activity near the Baltic nations, and over the northern part of Russia's Western Military District, from the Pskov Air Base and training range to beyond St Petersburg.

The air surveillance picture that the two GM400 radars provide is already being used by the alliance to support its Baltic Air Policing mission at Amari Air Base in Estonia and Siauliai Air Base in Lithuania.
[url]http://www.janes.com/article/48391/estoniaS E N S O Rpletes-air-surveillance-programme[/url]
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