- Yes
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Eldenhet 98 (Giraffe 1X)
Summary
The Eldenhet 98 (Giraffe 1X) is the vehicle which is the most likely to cap off the Swedish SPAA line based on the current criteria on what kinds of vehicles are able to be added. It has a highly mobile chassi, possibly the best ground radar that can ever be added to the game as well as a set of four IRIS-T SLS missiles which are an almost guaranteed kill on any aircraft that they are fired against. The only real downside with the vehicle is the aforementioned ammo count as the gameplay would rely on your team capturing points that you can restock ammo on.
History
Sweden was in need of a new short-ranged anti air system to replace the ageing Robotsystem 70 system which was set to be retired for good in 2016. As Sweden was one of the countries in the IRIS-T program since 1996, with it entering into service in 2009 as the Jaktrobot 98, the new IRIS-T SLS caught the attention of the Swedish government. This caused them to order the Swedish armed forces, Försvarsmakten, to procure a new air defence system based on it on the 20th of december 2012. This new system was then named Luftvärnsrobotsystem 98 which is made up of a firing vehicle (Eldenhet 98, abbreviated to EldE 98), a radar vehicle (Underrättelseenhet 23, abbreviated to UndE 23) and various command stations. The Eldenhet 98 was first shown to the public with a prototype being flown from Germany to the Malmen airbase where it was displayed on the 27th and 28th of august 2016 as the 90th birthday of the swedish air force was celebrated.
Eldenhet 98 prototype at Malmen Airbase in august 2016.
Later in 2018, one of the prototype vehicles was loaned by Saab and Diehl for to showcase the modularity of Saab’s Giraffe 1X radar at Diehl’s exhibition at the ILA 2018 Berlin air show where they showed off their IRIS-T SL family of systems, making it into a standalone vehicle without the need for a dedicated radar vehicle like the base EldE 98. Later on the 23rd of august 2019, the Eldenhet 98 system officially entered service, although without the Giraffe 1X radar of this vehicle.
Eldenhet 98 (Giraffe 1X) in the red square at ILA 2018, Berlin.
Features
Hull
The hull of the Eldenhet 98 (Giraffe 1X) is the Bandvagn 410 (abbreviated to Bv 410) which is internationally known as the BvS10 Mk II made by BAE Systems Hägglunds. It is fitted with the logistics flatbed variant of the rear car. This flatbed has in turn had the ML-98 launcher made by Diehl mounted on top of it. The Bandvagn 410 is an articulated vehicle consisting of a front car and one or two rear cars. Each of these cars have two tracks each with every track on the vehicle being powered at once giving the Eldenhet 98 (Giraffe 1X) a sort of four-track drive akin to four-wheel drive found on some cars. Furthermore a total of 10 smoke grenades are placed on the front of the front car. The vehicle has a crew of three sitting in the front car with the driver sitting in the front left seat, the commander in the front right seat and the gunner / radar operator sitting in the back seat behind the driver.
Bandvagn 410 in the logistics configuration with attatchable sides and a canvas roof on the flatbed.
Armaments
The Eldenhet 98 (Giraffe 1X) has a total of four IRIS-T SLS missiles, which are called Luftvärnsrobot 98 in Swedish service, on the ML-98 launch platform mounted on the logistics flatbed. These missiles are physically identical to the regular IRIS-T missile letting them be used interchangeably between fighter jets and air defence systems after a quick software update. This launcher has the missiles laying down horizontally when in travelling, but when preparing to fire, they get raised to point straight up into the sky. These missiles then have two different firing methods: Lock-On-Before-Launch (LOBL) and Lock-On-After-Launch (LOAL). In the first mode the missile seeker locks the target and then the missile is fired, whilst in the second mode the missile flies off the rail and flies towards the radar lock, with the seeker attempting to lock onto the target only after the missile is fired. The missile locks on with an IR and UV sensor which then creates a 128 x 128 pixel image. It then takes this image and compares the heat signatures seen to a library of silhouettes of known aircraft to try and pair them to any of the known silhouettes. This lets it ignore flares simply because of the flares having “the wrong silhouette” compared to the silhouette of the aircraft in the image. This means that if it is targeting the aircraft from a weird angle or long range, the silhouette may not be recognized as an aircraft allowing it to be fooled more easily by flares, which means that the missile’s flare resistance gets stronger the closer to the target it is due to having a clearer silhouette. When the missile then is fired, an initial rocket booster is started giving the missile a high manoeuvrability right off the rail. A short while after being fired, the main motor of the missile is activated accelerating it to a top speed of mach 2. During the firing of both motors, four fins located in the engine exhaust control the flow of thrust giving the missile an extremely high manoeuvrability with thrust vector control (TVC). The missile is armed with a proximity fuze and a backup contact fuze for detonation of the warhead for when it reaches the target. It also has protection against blinding lasers, letting it target helicopters like the Ka-52 that use blinding lasers to confuse heat seekers. The vehicle is also capable to fire all four of the missiles at the same time against four different targets at once.
IRIS-T missile.
Radar
The vehicle is equipped with a Giraffe 1X radar made by Saab on the roof of the front car. It has a range of 75 km and an elevation coverage of 70° letting the vehicle see most aircraft except for those located almost straight above it. This radar is also capable of tracking over 100 different air targets simultaneously and is extremely resistant to clutter which makes it able to track individual small quadrotor drones in flocks of birds as it is capable of detecting low, slow and small aerial targets. It has an AESA antenna with 12 digitally stacked beams operating in the X band. It also rotates at 360° per second and thus gives the vehicle frequent updates on the situation in the air.
Giraffe 1X mounted on the roof of an RG32
In War Thunder
This vehicle has a very likely possibility of being the end of the SPAA line in the Swedish tech tree by the current standards of what SPAAs that can be added as they need to be able to detect and engage air targets on their own without the assistance of outside vehicles (such as external radar vehicles). Whilst the missiles does not have the longest of ranges, these missiles are almost guaranteed to hit any target that they are fired at unless they physically break line of sight with the missile or fly outside the range of it before it hits. A missile this strong with the help of one of the strongest ground radars that could be added to this game and a highly mobile chassi would make it an incredibly strong SPAA with the only real limiting factor being only having four missiles. It would function a lot like the TOR M1 currently sitting in the Chinese tech tree except that it would have no sight to speak off, so unless Gaijin gives it a generic gunners sight, it would be operated entirely from the function menu or with keybinds to the functions within it where you lock a target with the radar, spool up the missile and then fire if using LOBL. The LOAL firing mode would probably not be a part of the vehicle with how the game currently functions as it would require Gaijin to add the ability to either spool a missile after it has already been fired or alternatively have it automatically spool a short while after being fired. LOAL would function similarly to ARH missiles like the AIM-54 where it first guides based on the launch platform’s radar, but then starts to track on its own a while after being fired. It would also have TWS allowing you to track 100 different air targets at once due to the radar, with the ability of the vehicle to fire all four missiles simultaneously at four different targets.
Specifications
General:
- Crew: 3
- Driver
- Gunner / Radar operator
- Commander
- Weight: Unknown *
- Height: 2,45 m (Radar not included)
- Width: 2,25 m
- Length: 8,0 m
- Protection: Small arms fire
- Smoke:
- 10 frontally mounted smoke launchers
A normal Bv 410 with an empty logistics flatbed weighs ~ 8500 kg so the weight for this vehicle is probably around 9500 kg with the missiles, radar and launcher.
Mobility:
- Top speed: 70 km/h
- Reverse speed: 10 km/h
- Gradient: 45°
- Side slope: 35°
- Vertical obstacle: 1 / 0,6 m (Forwards / In reverse)
- Turning radius: 11 / 14 m (With pitch control / Without pitch control)
- Trench: >2 m
- Engine: Cummins diesel 6,7L In-line 6 cylinder:
- 210 kW
- 285 hk
- 970 Nm
- Transmission: Allison MD3560:
- Automatic
- 6 forward gears
- 1 reverse gear
- Four-track drive
- Pitch control in the suspension to lift the front of the front car and the rear of the rear car
- Amphibious? *
A regular Bv 410 is fully amphibious without any modifications and has a top speed of 4 km/h in the water. It is however unknown if this variant is amphibious, but even if it is then it is highly unlikely that it can fire whilst in the water as the end of the missile engines would be underwater. Just wanted to leave this here as a note as it may be a possibility, however a very unlikely one.
Armaments:
- Luftvärnsrobot 98 (IRIS-T SLS):
- General data:
- Manufacturer: Diehl Defence
- Length: 2936 mm
- Body diameter: 127 mm
- Fin span: 447 mm
- Weight: 87,4 kg
- Propulsion and manoeuvring:
- Min range: 1 km
- Max range: 10 km
- Altitude coverage: 6 km
- Manoeuvrability: Unknown *
- Top speed: 680 m/s (Mach 2,05)
- Thrust vector control (TVC)
- Low smoke HTPB-propellant
- Guidance:
- Seeker:
- IR
- UV
- Image processing
- Gimbal limit: +/- 90°
- Seeker gimbal speed: 60°/s
- All-aspect capability
- Creates a 128 x 128 pixel image where it searches for silhouettes of known aircraft
- Countermeasures resistance:
- Extremely high flare resistance
- Immune to blinding lasers (DIRCM, such as those on the Ka-52 and MI-28NM)
- Lock-On-Before-Launch (LOBL)
- Lock-On-After-Launch (LOAL)
- Max lock range: 20 km
- Seeker:
- Warhead:
- 11,4 kg of an unknown explosive
- Fuze type:
- Proximity fuze
- Backup contact fuze
- General data:
- Launcher:
- Diehl ML-98
- Ammo count: 4
- Vehicle must be stopped for the launcher to deploy
- Can fire all four missiles at once, at four different targets
Varies a lot from source to source. I’ve seen everything from 40g to >100g
Radar:
- Giraffe 1X:
- General data:
- Manufacturer: Saab
- Antenna weight: 100 kg
- Full system weight: 200 kg
- Power consumption: 2,3 kW
- Radar type:
- Stacked beam 3D radar
- Antenna type: AESA, digital beam forming
- Stacked beam radar with 12 stacked beams
- Frequency: X band
- Technical data:
- Horizontal coverage: full 360° coverage
- Vertical coverage: 0° - >70°
- Rotation speed: 360°/s
- Range: 75 km
- Capability:
- TWS
- Air: >100 simultaneous tracks
- Ground: >200 simultaneous tracks
- Can detect small drones, artillery rounds, rockets and mortar rounds other than just aircraft
- General data:
Sources
Andersson, Martin. “Möjliga efterträdare till robotsystem 70”. Försvarshögskolan. Pages 25 - 28.
http://fhs.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:545958/FULLTEXT01
Reberg, Michael. “Nytt luftvärn med IRIS-T SLS”. Vårt Luftvärn. 2013:1. Pages 5 - 7.
http://www.luftvarn.se/vlv/1301.pdf
Specifications of Luftvärnsrobot 98
Specifications of Luftvärnsrobot 98
Specifications of Luftvärnsrobot 98
Specifiations and history of Eldenhet 98
History of Eldenhet 98 (Giraffe 1X)
Additional images / videos
Inside of the front car of the Bv 410 with the driver in the front left seat, the commander in the front right seat and the gunner / radar operator in the back seat.
Gunners seat in the Eldenhet 98 (Giraffe 1X).
Product description of the Eldenhet 98 (Giraffe 1X) at ILA 2018 .
Eldenhet 98 (Giraffe 1X) with a canvas cover at ILA 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-ergu8aP1U
Seeker head of the IRIS-T.
https://youtu.be/U2b0uCd7cpk?t=153
Diehl promotional video showing the FCS of the IRIS-T SLS and the Eldenhet 98 firing.
MiG-29 as seen through the Luftvärnsrobot 98 (IRIS-T SLS) seeker