Just recently, the German defence company HENSOLDT announced that it had been contracted to deliver an unspecified number of TRML-4D air surveillance radars and SPEXER 2000 3D MkIII short-range radars worth more than €340 million to Ukraine.
The order is most likely financed by the German government, although this is not proven. Now, a few days later, the company and its deliveries to Ukraine are once again in the spotlight.
As HENSOLDT CEO Oliver Dörre announced yesterday in an analyst conference call, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will soon receive upgraded TRML-4D air surveillance radars.
According to Dörre, in addition to detecting, tracking and classifying drones, cruise missiles, aircraft, helicopters and other targets, they will now also be able to detect enemy artillery and mortar positions.
This is proof that HENSOLDT’s “software-driven products can deliver new functionality rapidly”.
How many of the still pledged TRML-4D air surveillance radars are equipped with this upgrade, when they will be delivered and how this technology works in detail was not disclosed.
Based on CEO Oliver Dörre’s choice of words, however, it can be assumed that with a little work, time and of course money, all radar units supplied to date could be retrofitted and equipped with the new capability.
This would not only mean more protection for the IRIS-T SLM fire units supplied by Germany and Norway if they were to be deployed along the front line.
After all, in the course of the Russian war against Ukraine, which has now been going on for more than three years, the German government has provided an additional 16 TRML-4Ds as stand-alone radar systems outside the IRIS-T SLM deliveries to support Ukraine, which in future could perform additional detection work in the front section assigned to them and thus increase protection for the units in the vicinity.
Nevertheless, it can be assumed that the upgraded TRML-4D cannot, of course, replace dedicated high-performance counter-battery radars such as the COBRA, which was also supplied by Germany.
After all, the TRML-4D is primarily an air surveillance radar designed to support short and medium-range air defence systems.
Nevertheless, with this upgrade HENSOLDT proves once again that the manufacturers of modern armaments are constantly working on their products together with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, adapting and thus improving them.
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can they detect and precisely locate glide bombs as well – and if, from which distance?
glide bombs are thrown in their thousands and are destroying hardened ukrainian positions, and intercepting them would need precise and early detection first. i know there is an ongoing evaluation of defense against glide bombs, which is crucial for front line troops to increase survivability – which in turn would increase motivation for men to enlist themselves (understandable, no?).
another prio 1 topic concerning survival time of a ukrainian soldier is defense against fpv drones. We see shotguns given to them, but this is really a stopgap solution. if you could cover this more, it would be of value.
I’ve got no specific information to publish about that, sorry.