near_blind

Nope. I don't have the user's guide for the ALQ-131, 184, or either of the F-14's radars handy, and if I did I'd be going to prison, fun how classification works! Considering I've never heard of either pods being a significant deterrent for radars less powerful and equally sophisticated, I'd imagine odds for yeetification are good.

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/this-topgun-instructor-watched-the-f-14-go-from-tomcat-1725012279 At least quote somewhat reputable sources. By definition I'm an "independent defense consultant"

Which jammer? What is the pod's power output? How large is the jamming antenna? What deceptive techniques does it use? Who made it? When was it last updated? Without this information your question is meaningless. With it your question is merely not likely to be answered because ECCM data specific enough to give a discrete range for a given transmitter/jammer combination is restricted as heck.

Depends on how you shoot it and what you're shooting at. If you're supersonic and fire it above 25000 feet with a manual loft, the missile easily has the smash to reach 30 miles. At low altitude I've seen targets outrun shots as close as 5 miles. Range is a situational thing.

It was refactored to use ED's code in the fall, and we even got a fancy new H-Build Sparrow to boot.

I agree with you for a couple of reasons, but I've seen it happen in DCS

*Shrug*. The Hornet also has shorter range, less payload, less speed and a less durable construction. "Better" is always a relative thing. Like I said, if you want to read the Governments actual arguments, the report spelling it all out is easily found on Google.

1) ECM/ECCM capability and techniques are amongst the most classified information out there. How many angels fit on the point of a needle? 2) far enough 3) Essentially with the fall of the Soviet Union and the lessening of the threat facing the carrier fleet, the need for a high performance long range fighter was reduced. Likewise the Navy foresaw it's role shifting towards projecting power overland by using precision ground attack weapons to cripple enemies. It was decided hat the F/A-18 could carry a greater variety of existing or soon to exist precision standoff weapons. It would be cheaper to pursue a larger, upgraded Hornet that had somewhat greater capability than upgrading the older Tomcats to use the newer weapons. The GAO report where this is all laid out is online btw.

Agree to disagree. That the Sidewinder went a separate path is evident, but I struggle to see how upon delivery of the initial guided rocket with short range and extreme operational and maneuvering limitations, the Navy's first thought was "this is gonna kill so many fighters". The Navy never had problems killing fighters in the 40s and 50s, intercontinental strategic bombers on the other hand... To suppose the R-40 was in service in the early 60s is... interesting, and in any case it's range is still comparable to a Sparrow. How many MiG-25s would be in service in a given year starting in 1970? How many of those would be reserved for the PVO and how many distributed to the VVS? How likely would the PVO be to let loose what was at the time it's prime bomber deterrent to go play fighter pilot against NATO? Lots of what ifs there, but as far as the Navy was concerned their primary threat in the 70s was the MiG-21 and MiG-23 which made up the bulk of the VVS. Towards the end of the 70s the MiG-23 gained a credible BVR threat in the form of the R-23 and R-24. As the 80s progressed there were more and more MiG-23s, supplemented first by the MiG-29 and then the Su-27 with the Alamo. These aircraft are what shifted the thinking towards increased doctrinal use of the Phoenix because the R-27 and R-24 are broadly comparable to the contemporary Sparrows, and appeared in great enough numbers to cause concern. Right, sort of like VTAS, and AGILE? Which we had available in the 1970s, but chose not to pursue in lieu of more capable medium range missiles. The thing about modern dogfights with all aspect missiles is that as time goes on, the exchange ratio creeps ever closer to 1. That's a losing proposition if you're fighting a war of attrition with the Soviet Union. This is fun and all, but weren't we supposed to be arguing the assertion that "Phoenix big, therefore bad?". With the exception of a low altitude close range shot and the Navy's check book, in what regime is a SARH AIM-7 superior to a contemporary ARH AIM-54?

Can you name a single American Missile before the 1990s that wasn't designed to primarily shoot down bombers? Sidewinder and Sparrow were both designed to shoot down nuclear armed strategic bombers faster and more effectively than existing gun, Cannon and FFAR based systems. They were pressed into fighter killing due to ability and necessity. Upon introduction, the AIM-54A was superior to the contemporary AIM-7E in range and sensor, but also maximum G limit, and yes, better Pk. The AIM-54C was a vast hardware improvement and provided another increase in practical capability against smaller, more agile targets. There is a reason the AIM-120As guidance systems cribbed heavily from the Phoenix program. The reason the Navy preferred Sparrows during the 1970s and 80s is simply because they were cheaper the Soviet Union lacked a fighter with capability to sufficiently challenge the Sparrow, and the Phoenixes were earmarked for killing existential threats to the carrier. Why do you need something better than a Sparrow when your enemy only has rear aspect heat seekers? As the BVR threat began to materialize in the 80s, first with the AA-7, then the AA-10, Navy doctrine shifted to the enjoyment of Phoenix against fighter targets to maintain air superiority in the face of numerically superior Sparrow equivalent threats. By the 90s with the evaporation of the bomber/missile threat, thinking had shifted such that it was assumed the slotback/Alamo threat would be nuetralized by the -54.

I'm not sure if I explained it properly, but there are two notches here: Your radar and the Sparrow itself. You are correct that by using PSTT, your radar is better able to keep lock of targets with low closure relative to the ground, at least compared to the ground The second notch is the target's closure to the missile relative to the ground. If the target manages to fly perpendicular to the missile, the missile will lose the target in the ground clutter. This will occur independent of which radar mode is guiding it or what platform launched it. You can still have a good lock, with no chaff, and the missile still might go dumb due to the tyranny of geometry.

Hopefully they'll be able to give it a proper loft and remove the artificial G limits during the terminal phase. Can't have people getting an inaccurate picture of it's capabilities after all ;)

That's not what I'm saying. The AIM-7 has its own Doppler notch, if you fly perfectly perpendicular to it while it is above you, it will lose lock regardless of what the emitting radar is doing. I suspect it only takes into account ground speed and aspect which... Isn't exactly right, but hey! DCS. There is a separate debate over whether the CW antenna in the AWG-9 can produce a wave form the -7M can understand, but that's a separate conversation.

DCS gives missiles their own doppler gate, it's possible to notch the missile itself.

It's an ED thing, Doppler returns from the rotors don't exist, the only thing taken into account is the speed of the fuselage.

Nothing direct at hand sadly. If you Google the aerojet mk 60 motor you'll get a few articles and some technowonk forum threads (including one here). None of the sources I could find last night though cursory googling makes a distinction between the mk47 and Mk60 as far as appropriations are concerned, no staggered dates, no impression one is preferred over the other. It's just that both were so option for the AIM-54A. Compare that to the coverage in the 80s when the Navy pulled a similar move with regards to the AIM-54C, and much Ado is made of Raytheon's selection as a second source supplier. I check tonight if any of my hard copy sources mention anything more.

Patience. Heatblur is a small team and this is a second job for many of the developers. Even in the best of times, software deadlines are prone to slip as new issues arise, new perspective is gained, and work is re-prioritized.

My understanding is that the Mk-60 and Mk-47 were acquired at the same time during the AIM-54's IOC. So 1970. It wasn't considered an upgrade like we treat it, it was a strategy to source components from two separate suppliers to reduce possibility of a parts shortage.

Because it doesn't need to be declassified. I think we're getting confused about some nomenclature here. The AWG-9 is the system that handles radar detection, correlation, tracking and prioritization. It's not just the emitter and dish. My understanding is the AWG-15 takes information from the AWG-9 via the CSDC and configures weapons for release. This is like saying that a computer with a new i9 and a computer with a Pentium 4 are comparable because they use the same monitor. The AWG-9 is an analogue radar set with a few digital processors handling specific tasks for PD modes and TWS. Things like gain control, how sensitive the radar is to returns, how it handles clutter are all achieved by physical devices actually manipulating the analog electrical signals. This means to make drastic changes you have to physically alter the radar by swapping in new components. The APG-71 is a digital set, those same functions are achieved by digitally manipulating what is received by the radar using higher powered computers. Major updates are implemented via software that can be uploaded with much less hassle and supply chain. What this gives you is a radar that is able to react faster and better to what a target is doing. You have better gain control, better clutter rejection, better ECCM, are better able to determine what is a contact and what is noise, and better able to track it throughout the entire envelope. All PD modes on an AWG-9 have a doppler notch of something like +/- 100 knots. Pulse, which is LPRF is range limited. The APG-71 has a notch that's something below 20 knots or so, due to better processing and using MRPF. MRPF, better tracking of targets at all aspects without resorting to pulse which means less workload for the RIO and better tracking of notching targets at range. RWS that is more reliable than the AWG-9s (not an issue in DCS), more reliable TWS tracks and TWS search options that are able to be divorced of the two second scan interval forced on the AWG-9. More reliable PD-STT that can track a target closer to the notch. Things like radar memory to anticipate where a contact will reappear after the notch. It's not completely accurate analogy, but imagine all the nice things the F/A-18s radar does for you, now give it greater power output and range and that's a decent enough approximation as a starting point. It'll become clearer still when Razbam does their F-15E. Upgrading the stores system to be able to talk to JDAMs is a much cheaper proposition than a fleet wide wholesale radar replacement. In an era where the aircraft's primary role had shifted from fleet air defense to long range precision ground attack via the LANTIRN pod, the AWG-9 was sufficient to needs. If the Navy, or rather Tomcat community, were able to do everything it wanted in the 90s, the entire F-14 fleet would have been replaced wholesale with F-14Ds flinging AIM-120s and HARMs over all and sundry.

Especially considering that, unless I'm reading this chart wrong, the AWG15 is the system that handles interface between the aircraft and the stores and not the radar. :music_whistling:

I've never seen any evidence that the B was equipped with anything but the AWG-9. It would be a struggle to consider the older analogue set as capable as the APG-71.

The rectangles are hills. They're meant to reinforce to the pilot that part of the VDI represents the ground, and to try not to fly into it. Looks about right for all the F-14's i've seen in museums. It's pretty funny what twenty plus years of constant operation in a corrosive environment does to your aircraft. It's pretty yellow on my end :) Assuming you've found the correct lever (the yellow striped one inboard of the throttle). That is the emergency wing sweep lever, which directly controls the angle of wing sweep. You aren't supposed to use it during flight except in case of an emergency. It starts in oversweep to reduce the aircraft's footprint on a carrier. What you need to do is drag it all the way forward with your mouse, and right click it so that it drops further into the track it rides on. That sets the wings into computer control. Next you need to hit the CADC master reset button, which is the little white circle button on the left vertical panel that says MASTER RESET, and should be more or less directly in front of the emergency wing sweep lever. Next, you need to make sure the wing sweep control hat on the throttle is mapped. It is the Wing Sweep AUTO, BOMB, FORWARD, AFT thing in the controls, you need all of those. Once mapped, hit the AUTO button, and your wings are now gloriously automated, enjoy. http://www.heatblur.se/F-14Manual/

Is it possible the missile came in from outside your RWR's field of view?

Not a bug. The ACM cover is a shortcut for configuring the aircraft for a short range engagement. Logic goes that by throwing the most rounds into a single spot in the shortest time possible, this maximizes your chances of destroying the enemy (assuming your aim is decent), so the lifting the ACM cover automatically flips the cannon into high ROF.