April 5, 2012:
Peru went shopping for a new air defense system and found one but got the components from three countries. The radar surveillance system will consist of three American AN/TPS-78 radars. Each of these weighs 8.1 tons and can be truck or trailer mounted. The AN/TPS-78 has a range of 445 kilometers and to a height of over 30.5 kilometers (100,000 feet). Up to a thousand targets can be tracked simultaneously.
Two missiles systems are being bought. The longer range one is the Israeli Spyder. This is a mobile, short range system using, as many such systems do these days, air-to-air missiles. Spyder launchers (truck mounted, with four box like launch cells each) can carry either the Python 5 heat seeking missile (3.2 meters/ten feet long, 105 kg/231 pounds, with a range of 15 kilometers) or the Derby radar guided missile (3.6 meter/11.2 feet long, 121.4 kg/267 pounds, with a range of 65 kilometers). The Derby is actually a larger Python, with more fuel and a different guidance system.
Peru is initially buying one Spyder system with six missile launcher trucks, a radar truck, and a missile re-supply truck. The Spyder radar system has a maximum range of 100 kilometers. The missiles can hit targets as high as 9,000 meters (28,000 feet) and as low as 20 meters (63 feet).
Poland will supply six Poprad self-propelled systems and 150 Grom missiles. Each Poprad vehicle carries four Grom missiles (range of 5.5 kilometers) and four reload missiles and a targeting radar.
Peru expects to have the new radars and anti-aircraft weapons operational within two years.