The German Ministry of Defense has updated the list of military aid provided to Ukraine. It now has 20 Gepard anti-aircraft guns (+5 since last week) and one COBRA counter-battery radar. The problem is that back in April, Ukraine asked Germany for 40 (!) such radars!

The counter-battery radar COBRA (literally COunter Battery RAdar) is very expensive (the unit price is about €50 million), but it is a very effective system for detecting enemy artillery positions. This radar is considered one of the best in the world.

COBRA can conduct reconnaissance to a depth of 40 km in a sector of 90 degrees in azimuth, detecting up to 40 enemy batteries in 2 minutes. The system can classify found batteries by weapon type, the number of barrels, deployment width, and orientation. At the same time, the error is only 50 m per 15 km. What’s more, the radar can even determine the impact of friendly artillery shells and adjust its fire.

At the same time, the entire system is mounted on one chassis, has its own battery, and is serviced by only 3 soldiers. The deployment time of the radar is 5–15 minutes, and the folding time is 3–5 minutes.

All this is good and even one COBRA can process an area of up to 1,200 square kilometers, but the Armed Forces need much more. Of course, we will not receive the 40 units requested in April, only three to five such systems can be supplied from the Bundeswehr’s reserves.