The ekranoplano, Soviet of the skies beached on the shores of the Caspian Sea.

[lomcovak]

Lightning fast and invisible to radar, it was considered a formidable war machine ... before being discarded forever. aircraft moved by flying a few meters from the surface (generally over water, but also over ice or land), exploiting the so-called "ground effect.

watch video!!!

 

[Wurger]

thumbright:

 

[wuzak]

I believe that is the Lun class ekranoplan developed later.

Lun-class ekranoplan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Caspian Sea Monster, the KM, was this:

 

[Zipper730]

I gotta say I'm glad they didn't pursue this in a larger scale. I'm sure we could have dealt with anti-shipping missiles and aircraft, but it would have been particularly bad if it was fitted with nuclear missiles.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

lol this thing was not invisible to radar.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Agree - it had no stealth features and by it's shear size and shape probably had a RS the size of Jupiter!

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Ground and ship based radar all say hello.

 

[Zipper730]

Uh, I thought top speed was 550 mph not 342 mph. The former would have given it a rather small time from detection to firing

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Uh, I thought top speed was 550 mph not 342 mph. The former would have given it a rather small time from detection to firing

Wiki shows a top speed of 340 mph

 

[Zipper730]

Yeah, I got my units wrong lol

 

[shackleton]

Flying very low just a couple of meters above the water it might not have been so easy to detect with radar although it has no obvious stealth characteristics.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Flying very low just a couple of meters above the water it might not have been so easy to detect with radar although it has no obvious stealth characteristics.

Ship radar will detect it like a boulder on an ant's butt!

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Flying very low just a couple of meters above the water it might not have been so easy to detect with radar although it has no obvious stealth characteristics.

It would be detected like any surface ship can be detected by radar. It has no stealth characteristics.

 

[J_P_C]

Ship radar will detect it like a boulder on an ant's butt!

yes but detection range will be limited radar horizon - around 20 nm. Aircraft mounted radar will have no such restriction - in such case detection range is limited by airborne RADAR celling, RADAR's signal power, target RCS and many details in RADAR design - antenna directional gain, used signal conversion algorithms, wave clutter elimination methods etc.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

yes but detection range will be limited radar horizon - around 20 nm. Aircraft mounted radar will have no such restriction - in such case detection range is limited by airborne RADAR celling, RADAR's signal power, target RCS and many details in RADAR design - antenna directional gain, used signal conversion algorithms, wave clutter elimination methods etc.

Copy but bottom line, whether its surface radar or airborne radar, this craft is not invisible to radar and when it is picked up will have the RCS the size of a mountain!

 

[J_P_C]

yes - but for surface radar RCS is secondary factor - you will always have hard limit 20nm (except overhorizon installations - which is totally different story), for Airborne radar RCS is starting to gain more importance for detection range or tactical scenario. I'm not stating that hit & run scenario for soviet ekranoplanes was even close to realistic - NATO surface forces in most cases will have MPA airplanes coverage or AWACS orbiting over it, in worst case it will be watch of onboard helicopters guarding surface vessels. I tend to describe soviet bet on ekranoplanes as a overoptimistic, and I fully agree that RCS of LUN or KM was probably close to a barn or could be a whole farm - there is no sign of any RCS minimalization techniques have been used in it's design.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I fully agree that RCS of LUN or KM was probably close to a barn or could be a whole farm

 

[nuuumannn]

Very cool looking things, but useful only in absolutely flat calm water, they didn't like choppy conditions, so would have been a major accident waiting to happen out at sea. The Soviets loaded their excellent and widespread cruise missiles onto lots of surface ships and submarines though, which would have been deadly to a US carrier task force in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Kiev 69

 

[nuuumannn]

Copy but bottom line, whether its surface radar or airborne radar, this craft is not invisible to radar and when it is picked up will have the RCS the size of a mountain!

Agree, although the argument about stealth is a bit futile in this case; it's clear there was no attempt to incorporate such measures into their design, who did back when this was built?

The idea was a typical Soviet one, deploy as many of these suckers as possible to swamp the enemy defences, yeah, some would have been picked off, as would some of the cruise missiles, but they never would have operated alone, relying on large numbers at one time using the premise that at least a few missiles would get through... Yikes.

 

[Zipper730]

The RCS on that thing looks like it'd be huge.