What is the primary purpose of Weapons Locating Radar (WLR)?

• A. Weather data collection for planning.
• B. Detecting, locating, classifying, reporting, and communicating the point of origin, point of impact, radar cross section, and velocity of enemy indirect fire systems.
• C. Directing air support operations.
• D. Archiving historical data.

Answer: (B)

Understanding the purpose of Weapons Locating Radar is to detect, locate, classify, and report the position and firing data of enemy indirect-fire weapons so that counter-battery fires can be directed quickly and accurately. WLR scans for artillery, rockets, and mortars, determines their origin (where they fired from), their impact location, estimates velocity, and uses radar cross section to help identify the type. All this information is then communicated to fire-direction centers to neutralize threats and protect friendly forces.

Weather data collection is outside its role and would be done by meteorological radars used for planning rather than targeting. Directing air support operations involves coordination for aircraft rather than ground-based indirect-fire threats. Archiving historical data isn’t the focus; WLR is for real-time detection and targeting support.