This chapter connected sensor technology to the combat process:
- The fire control sequence — detection, identification, acquisition, tracking, engagement, kill assessment — demands more precision about fewer targets at each step; the sensor chain follows that logic from low to high frequencies.
- The early warning radar is built for range: low frequency, high power, low PRF, long (compressed) pulses, slow scan — and therefore coarse, slow and loud in the spectrum.
- The target tracking radar is its mirror image: high frequency, narrow pencil beam, high PRF, fixed on the target — with range, angle and velocity gates as its grip on the target and as its Achilles' heel against deception jamming.
- The angle-tracking techniques evolved from sequential lobing and conical scan (vulnerable to inverse gain jamming) to monopulse (angle error from a single pulse) and TWS/phased array (tracking without alerting the target).
- IR tracking follows silently and precisely, but lacks range and is weather-sensitive; sensor fusion of radar and IR/EO makes the chain robust against single countermeasures.
The chain ends with the weapon that has to be brought to the target. How that works — the guidance methods of missiles — is the subject of the next chapter.