Ever wonder how the Military tracks and defends from air threats such as mortars, artillery, and other missiles?

Within seconds, the AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radar system detects and backplots adversary weapons and provides pinpoint targeting information for the counterattack. The medium range Weapon Locating Radar in the Firefinder Family. The TPQ-36 automatically locates enemy medium range mortars, artillery and rocket launchers allowing pinpoint counter fire to be brought to bear. In use by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and by nations worldwide.

The Firefinder developed by Northrop Grumman is a very technologically advanced land based radar system that can acquire multiple targets simultaneously and relay that information to other weapons systems and troops to react to the threat accordingly. 113 of these systems have been delivered to the US Army and Marine Corps between 1997 and 2005, and upgrades are constantly being worked on.

The TPQ-36(V)8 Firefinder mobile ground based radar provides automatic, fast and accurate locations of artillery, mortars and rocket launchers. Firefinder handles simultaneous fire at multiple locations, detecting and reporting positions on the first round. Firefinder also supports rapid deployment missions, is C-130 transportable, and ground mobile on HMMWV vehicles.

According to Military and Aerospace Electronics: “Engineers at the Raytheon Technical Services Co. LLC in Indianapolis are set to rebuild three AN/TPQ-37 and two AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radar systems. Raytheon is doing the work under terms of a $13.7 million delivery order awarded Aug. 18 from the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command at Fort Monmouth, N.J. The contract number is DAAB07-00-D-H004.”