Red October

I should have the October I&A finished by the end of next week.  The biggest issue has been the Russian air defense overview.  Russia moved to four OSCs rather than the previous military zones, meaning I had to change all of the placemark files (said changes will show up in the next SAM Site Overview update as well).  This is causing some problems with map generation, as the new OSCs are (except for the Southern OSC) a lot bigger than the previous military zones.  I'm trying to find a map style or template that works best to show the entire zone and it's taking a bit longer than I wanted it to.  Everything else was relatively simple to update.

Worldwide SAM Site Overview

Click here to go to the download page  This is a link to where the file is hosted, right-clicking and selecting "Save As" will not work.

Current as of:  10 October 2012 (7558 locations, +123)

Notable Additions:

None


This reference work contains the locations of SAM sites and related air defense facilities identified in open source imagery, presented as a collection of Google Earth placemarks. The downloadable file found above contains four separate folders: SAMs by country, SHORAD SAMs, Historical Sites, and Target Range SAMs. There is a fifth folder, Range Rings, which may be downloaded here: Range Rings. This is a link to where the file is hosted, right-clicking and selecting "Save As" will not work.

SAMs by country: This folder is at first organized identically to the Range Rings folder. Each geographic area features a folder populated by subfolders for each nation. A nation's subfolder will contain up to four folders of its own, depending on the types of systems or facilities identified therein: Active (containing subfolders for each active SAM system), Inactive (containing all inactive sites), Facilities (containing EW radar sites, SAM garrisons, and other related facilities), and Low resolution (containing SAM sites and known support facilities not visible in high resolution). Clicking on the folder name for a continent or a nation will cause a pop-up window to appear displaying the inventories of that continent or nation. Different icons denote different types of facilities. These are as follows:

Squares: facilities such as garrisons, test and training centers
Diamonds: EW, BMEW, and OTH radar sites
Circles: 36D6 and 64N6 radar sites, or other fire control radar sites associated with a non co-located SAM battery, such as Tien Kung LPARs or NIKE-HERCULES fire control sites.
Triangles: SAM sites

The icons in the SAMs by country folder as well as the representative range rings are color coded as follows:

Dark red: SA-2 and HQ-2
Bright red: S-300P series, PATRIOT, Chu-SAM, Tien Kung series, NIKE-HERCULES, SAMP/T, Arrow II, 64N6 radars
Dark blue: EW radars, to include 36D6 and 96L6 radars
Faded blue: 55Zh6 radars
Bright blue: SA-3, Pechora-2M, HQ-7
Bright green: SA-6
Faded green: SA-4, SA-11, SA-15, HQ-16
Dark green:  BMEW and OTH radar sites
Lime green: HQ-12
Orange: HAWK, HQ-9, S-300V
Yellow: S-400, HQ-6D
Purple: SA-5
White: an unoccupied location
Brown: a general facility or garrison

An active S-300PS site will therefore display as a red triangle. An S-300P garrison will display as a red square, denoting the facility's affiliation. The placemark names are hidden for clarity, but will display when an individual site is clicked on in Google Earth, along with the identified components at each site and any other significant details. By manipulating the individual folders for each nation and employing the color scheme above, users should find this to be a useful visual representation of the available data.

SHORAD SAMs: This folder is populated with subfolders arranged similarly to the SAMs by country folder. This folder contains placemarks identifying various SHORAD SAM emplacements that have been identified, such as Rapier and Crotale positions. Range rings are not provided, given the short ranges involved.

Historical Sites: This folder is populated with subfolders arranged similarly to the Range Rings and SAMs by country folder. The intent is to separate SAM site locations pertaining to systems which are no longer in active service in respective nations from the main database. For example, two folders are present containing placemarks for the inner and outer SA-1 SAM locations surrounding Moscow. SA-1 sites containing other systems such as SA-10 or SA-20 batteries will remain marked as to their current occupant within the main portion of the database. Additionally, locations for sites which have been dismantled or overtaken by urban growth are retained here.

Target Range SAMs: This folder contains subfolders arranged by country. Each folder contains the locations of SAM-site configured targets on bombing and electronic combat ranges. Many of these sites employ emitters or actual hardware to simulate a given system.

Range Rings: This folder contains representative range rings generated for all SAM sites which are currently active. The folder is divided into various subfolders. First, there is a subfolder for each geographic area. This folder is divided into subfolders, one for each country in that area featuring identified SAM systems. Each country folder will contain various subfolders for each type of active SAM system or identifiable EW radar system. These folders contain the color-coded range rings. The range rings are color coded using the same system described in the next section. The ranges were taken from Jane's Land-based Air Defence and other industry-affiliated publications. Ranges for the SA-2 are representative of the system's most common variant (43 km). A subfolder is also included where necessary containing range rings for low-resolution sites believed to be active.

Key Contributors

Various individuals have provided SAM site locations for inclusion into this database, and their help is greatly appreciated. These individuals include Lex2 and ChristianNL from the Google Earth Community, Hpasp, RoAF, p_shadow, and Planeman from the IMINT & Analysis forums, Tim Brewer, Pierre Troyes, and all the readers who have posted site locations in the comments to this article.

Additional Discussion

Feel free to discuss the content of this file at the IMINT & Analysis Forum in the SAM Site Overview discussion thread found here.

Past Updates

Information regarding previous updates to this database has been archived in the comments page attached to this post.

August/September I&A

See what I did there?  The current issue of I&A has begun distribution.  Due to my different workload this semester I didn't get around to 1) doing this on anything close to a normal schedule, and 2) get around to a separate September issue.

 

Also, don't expect to see anything else "new" from I&A until 2013.  The next two issues will be October and December, focusing on Russia and China and primarily consisting of updated articles on air defense, strategic forces, etc.  There won't be anything in November, the idea is to leave a lot of space open to ensure that all of the updating is complete on time (in theory). 

 

Because of the current workload issue, I may go to a bimonthly schedule in 2013.  We'll see.  If I get things under control the rest of the year, I may be able to retain the hypothetical monthly schedule.

 

Finally, anything notable will appear either here or as an I&A special report for the rest of the year for the reasons listed above.  I also have a rather large (over 100 sites) update to the SAM Site Overview to process as well.

August I&A

A brief update:  the August I&A is being finalized, but may require some work on Saturday to complete given my new schedule.  I now teach five days a week instead of my more typical two, but I can't complain.  As such you may see it in your inbox during the first week of September rather than over the weekend.

 

There are two outstanding contributor pieces focusing on China and Pakistan, as well as two pieces of my own covering air defense updates in the Caucasus region and a new method of classifying military locations in Google Earth (or any other GIS program for that matter).

 

Remember that September will be a new issue, but October will not; October will be an updated, consolidated Russia-centric issue.  Then November will be new, and December will be a repeat of October but China-focused.

Also, the next Jane's Intelligence Review contains an article I wrote covering present and future upgrades to Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal.  We got some great satellite imagery in there of some of the new Voronezh BMEW radars, and a few other interesting locations.

Lastly, if you heard someone on Voice of America talking about SAMs in Syria...yeah, that was me.

 

I'll get back to work now.

I&A, the Business Model. Or something.

So I'm trying to wrap my brain around a way to get out there and use my brain to generate additional sources of money.  Which CFO-House usually transforms into apparel, or VP-Destruction demands for whatever the latest toy on the market is, but that's another issue entirely! 

My current line of thinking is some sort of consulting or analytical service, which I mentioned last month. 

First, a few disclaimers.

1.  Everything posted here is and will always remain free of charge.  The same goes for the I&A PDF.  I do those because I find it interesting, and because I'm apparently good at it, or so I'm told.

2.  Also free:  academic-related help.  I've assisted people who've contacted me with various things from finding sources to reviewing theses.  If you've got a question along those lines, or any other general question of amusement, don't hesitate to contact me.  You won't be getting a bill!

I've obviously started channeling brainwaves into cash deposits via my work with IHS Jane's, and will begin to pursue other similar opportunities as well.

The point of my new idea is to offer a fee-based service to, well, pretty much anyone, providing detailed analysis or imagery interpretation.  I haven't completely thought this through yet, with questions such as "do I need to set up a legitimate business" or "is there red tape to cut" still in the future.

The question right now remains:  is there a market?  Which can be translated as:  do you know of anyone who would benefit from such a service?  Pass my e-mail along to anyone you can think of that might be in the market for this kind of work.  Foreign clients are certainly acceptable, provided they aren't asking me to do something illegal under US law.

The idea is to take on analytical or analysis tasks and do the groundwork, delivering a finished product to a user.  The product can be a document, a KML file, or an annotated image or map.

The one caveat here is that if a user requests imagery-based analysis, they may have to provide externally-sourced imagery.  When we use imagery in Jane's, it's purchased directly from a provider so they have the rights to use it "for profit" (and lets us use imagery that's typically far more current than you can find in Google Earth).  I'll have to look into the guidelines a bit more from Google to see what's what with this issue.  Incidentially this is one of the main reasons I&A will never cost you a dime, because it prevents me from having to purchase rights to the imagery!

As far as a pricing system goes, I haven't thought too far on that either.  But I'm certainly not interested in making this my plan to join the 1 Percent, or throwing myself into an obnoxious tax bracket.  I do intend to use a per-project fee, rather than an hourly rate system, because it makes things a lot easier to deal with and I don't have to justify spending seven hours looking at one single image.

Once I get a better idea of the entire process, the pricing plan, and whatnot, I'll post a PDF file here outlining the way things will work.  I should probably get something together containing my areas of expertise and professional experience as well, that'd probably help.

So, is this a good idea, or have I completely lost my mind?

Which is always a distinct possibility.

July I&A going out tomorrow

UPDATE:  the first set of e-mails just went out.  Expect to see the e-mail within the next day or two.

Here's the link to download the June issue, for everyone else:  CLICK

July's I&A will go out tomorrow afternoon once I finish tweaking the book review bit.  I'd have had it done today but I got sidetracked doing final grades for the semester and taking care of some edits to my next Jane's feature covering Russian strategic force developments.  The KML file will be really amusing this time, there are a ton of palcemarks for Libya.

All for now!

July I&A and other info

July's I&A is coming along and will be distributed on time by the end of the month.  Topics will be as follows:

-A book review

-Analysis of BDA from Libya in 2011

-The ROK's ADD Complexes

-An update to the Chinese radars in Syria business

Expect a KML file for this issue as well.

Moving forward, expect "normal" I&A issues to appear every month except October and December.  Those months are reserved for Russia and China respectively, and will serve as annual volumes focusing specifically on each state.  They'll include both the content in last year's issues, as well as Russia or China focused content from other I&A issues.  Everything will get updates.

Also, my next Jane's article will focus on the updating of Russian strategic forces, to include the ABM and BMEW networks, and should appear in the August issue of Intelligence Review.  Or maybe September.  It depends on what the cover date is versus when it goes to print.  I'll post the link here once it goes on the IHS website, as I did with the previous one.

Lastly, I'm thinking of offering some sort of professional-type consulting service.  More to follow on that early August, probably.