Worldwide SAM Site Overview

Click here to download

Current as of: 2 December 2009 (5209 locations)

Latest updates: active and inactive sites in India (EW, 36D6, Green Pine, SA-2); active sites in Bangladesh (EW), Chile (EW), Colombia (EW), Guinea Bissau (EW), Japan (EW), Kazakhstan (36D6), Laos (EW), Morocco (EW), Nigeria (EW), Peru (EW), Russia (EW, 36D6), South Africa (EW), Sri Lanka (EW), Sudan (EW), Syria (36D6), Tajikistan (36D6), Turkey (HAWK), Turkmenistan (36D6, SA-4 garrison), and Zambia (EW); added low resolution sites in Azerbaijan (SA-4), Morocco (EW), and Vietnam (EW); recategorized 1 Kazakhstani, 2 Russian, 1 Syrian, and 1 Turkmenistani EW site as 36D6 EW sites based on further imagery interpretation.

This reference work contains the locations of SAM sites and related air defense facilities identified in Google Earth imagery. The downloadable file found above contains six separate folders: SAMs by country, SAMs by type, SHORAD SAMs, Historical Sites, Target Range SAMs, and Low Resolution Sites. There is a seventh folder, Range Rings, which may be downloaded here: Range Rings

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 three 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), and Facilities (containing EW radar sites, SAM garrisons, and other related facilities). 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 radar sites
Circles: 36D6 and 64N6 radar sites co-located with or operating in direct support of S-300P series SAM units
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, TIen Kung series, NIKE-HERCULES, Arrow II
Dark blue: EW radar, to include 36D6 and 64N6 radars
Bright blue: SA-3, FM-90
Bright green: SA-6
Faded green: SA-4, SA-11
Lime green: KS-1A
Orange: HAWK, HQ-9, S-300V
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 facilities 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. By manipulating the individual folders for each nation and employing the color scheme above, users should find this a much enhanced visual representation of the available data.

SAMs by type: This folder contains numerous subfolders organizing the placemarks from the SAMs by country folder in a different fashion. Each individual system or type of facility (such as SAM garrisons or EW radar sites), or has its own subfolder, allowing the user to browse all the examples of a particular SAM system worldwide without sorting through each nation's subfolder in the SAMs by country folder. This allows users to identify nations operating different types of systems with relative ease. There is also a subfolder for inactive SAM sites, which is further divided into subfolders pertaining to each individual SAM system. Icons in this folder will be displayed as basic placemarkers with the name of the system displayed.

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.

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.

Low Resolution Sites: This folder contains subfolders arranged in the same manner as the SAMs by country folder. Each folder contains SAM sites found in various nations which are typically not visible in sufficient resolution as to ascertain their operational status. Various information, however, including country inventories and site imagery, have been conducted to provide an estimate of site status, and the sites have been labeled accordingly using the same scheme found in the SAMS by country folder. These sites will be monitored using Google Earth and various other online imagery sources to determine their status for inclusion into the main portion of the database. Many of these sites have been submitted by IMINT & Analysis readers who have researched various sources to ascertain their locations.

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. System modifications such as the Pechora-2M, which increases the SA-3's range to 35km, have not been taken into account as these systems cannot be identified as of yet in Google Earth imagery. Also, ranges for the SA-2 and SA-5 are representative of either the system's maximum ranged variant (SA-5: 300 km), or the most common variant (SA-2: 43 km).

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, 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.

Image of the Week: Little Creek, VA

LCAC HOME BASE
The image above depicts the LCAC berthing area at Little Creek, Virginia. The base is home to a number of LCAC assault craft deployed on amphibious assault ships around the globe. A second LCAC base is located at Camp Pendelton, California. The LCAC provides the amphibious landing capability required to deploy troops and armament from sea to shore, providing the US Marine Corps with an amphibious assault landing capability.

ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION

Feel free to discuss the current Image of the Week at the IMINT & Analysis Forum Image of the Week discussion thread found here.

SOURCES

-Satellite imagery provided courtesy of Google Earth

Taiwan Isn't Pleased

A Taiwanese news article posted online on November 21st had an interesting topic: an IMINT & Analysis forum member's article posted to militaryphotos.net detailing Taiwan's air defense facilities. In a roundabout way, this site was also mentioned, as the article stated that the air defense overview's author "was working with another that had previously worked on Taiwan air defense, and photos/imagery". Hey, that's me, referring to my May 2009 piece on Taiwan's Strategic SAM Network.

The news piece claims, by way of comments from ROCAF officials, that the sites detailed are public knowledge and not secret, and that the distribution of commercial satellite imagery makes it more difficult to keep such facilities concealed. That's all well and good, but they have to be privately annoyed, given the fact that a good deal of these sites are in fact censored in the most recent Google Earth imagery. If they weren't meant to remain hidden from public view, why bother censoring the sites?

Of course, that didn't stop me in the least from utilizing Google Earth's features to extract uncensored images of the sites and display the relevant imagery. Besides, if anyone thinks that the Chinese military doesn't know exactly where these facilities are located, they're deluding themselves. Taiwan may desire to hide these locations from the general public, perhaps to conceal their proximity as likely Chinese targets to major population centers, but talking about them on the internet is certainly not a serious security concern.

At the end of the day, I can take pride in one aspect of all of this apparent international annoyance: If I wasn't accurate, the ROCAF's responses would've been different.

Image of the Week: Zhengzhou

POSSIBLE HEL FACILITY?
The image above depicts a new facility on the outskirts of Zhengzhou, China. Of note is a building built between 2008 and 2009, displaying the same layout as those described in the Chinese ASAT article posted here on November 3rd. While the true nature of these facilities is not conclusively known, there is circumstantial evidence and open-source reporting available suggesting that they may fulfill an ASAT role to some degree. The continued appearance of such facilities suggests that they are significant to some degree, and are certainly worthy of further analysis in order to definitively determine their true purpose.

ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION

Feel free to discuss the current Image of the Week at the IMINT & Analysis Forum Image of the Week discussion thread found here.

SOURCES

-Satellite imagery provided courtesy of Google Earth

China's LPAR Revealed

GOOGLE EARTH SHOWS COMPLETED RADAR

Google Earth's latest imagery update now provides a high-resolution view of the completed LPAR facility in western China. This facility was previously illustrated as an Image of the Week while in an incomplete state using then-available Google Earth imagery, and identified as an LPAR facility using Terra Server imagery. Google Earth's newly-uploaded imagery from 2009 displaying the operational radar facility can be seen below:


There is still no information regarding this facility, although its positioning and orientation suggests a BMEW function. An alternative, given the relative proximity to the Xinjiang possible HEL site, could be a space tracking role providing early warning data to the ASAT network.

SOURCES

-Satellite imagery provided courtesy of Google Earth

Old blog reactivated

Some of you might remember that I had another blog about two years ago, dealing with the fact that I am a confessed Miami Dolphins fanatic. It's been relaunched with a sports and music theme, so check it out if you feel so inclined:

Fins and Riffs

Image of the Week: DPRK FULCRUMs

SUNCHON AB
The image above depicts a lineup of North Korean fighter aircraft at Sunchon AB in December of 2002. While a number of Su-25 FROGFOOT attack aircraft are visible, as well as a handful of probable F-5 FRESCO and MiG-15UTI MIDGET obsolete day fighters and trainers, the most significant aircraft are the five MiG-29 FULCRUM air superiority aircraft. The MiG-29s represent the most advanced and capable combat aircraft in the DPRK's inventory. FULCRUMs are present in three variants: the baseline MiG-29, the MiG-29UB combat trainer, and the MiG-29S FULCRUM-C. It is believed that a total of thirty FULCRUMs were delivered, broken down as follows:

MiG-29 - 20
MiG-29UB - 4
MiG-29S - 6

FULCRUM-Cs were delivered as SKD kits and assembled upon delivery to Sunchon. It was the FULCRUM-C which shadowed the USAF RC-135 flight off of the DPRK's eastern coast in 2003.

ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION

Feel free to discuss the current Image of the Week at the IMINT & Analysis Forum Image of the Week discussion thread found here.

SOURCES

-Satellite imagery provided courtesy of Google Earth

Mikoyan MiG-29, Yefim Gordon, 2006