SgtPappy

Thanks BIGNEWY! I noticed this bug as well when my friend tested the Mk 20s the other night in the Harrier on a bunch of infantry and none of them died even though they were completely enveloped by the explosions at each attempt. The APCs were also barely damaged though they used to explode every time a few patches ago. I'll see if I can get a track with this happening.

Same issue here. Second time the F-14 loads in, I freeze almost every time at least on MP servers (including my own). Thanks for looking into it, Cobra.

Yeah I'm basically only thinking about beaming while chaff as usual in these kinds of discussions. There are too many ways to break a target out if it has radial velocity relative to the targeting radar even before PD... crazy creative solutions even in Vietnam. Other than that one video where the RAAF Hornets are dogfighting and their HUDs are going crazy plus some info I got from retired fighter pilots, I still believe it should do something more but my suspicions more revolve around the S530 which is an 80s missile that seems super resistance to being trashed. Which Max1mus talked about below. This is very interesting and unexpected! I wonder if it should be so capable. Hard to say.

I noticed a few things here and would like your opinions/corrections/clarifications to the following: From what I understand so far, if your aircraft is in a resolution cell large enough, has a very small radial velocity relative to the targeting radar and is dropping chaff while maneuvering, there should be generally a great chance of break lock. This would usually happen further out where the res cell is larger. Ground clutter doesn't come into the requirement for break lock here. Pilot's I've talked to have mentioned chaff in the beam will have an effect in the typical ranges you'd expect to either merge or run even at high altitudes - no look down required. Testing in MP with others, it appears some radar and missiles have more of a problem with look-up, beaming chaff-popping targets than others. The M2k for example with the S530 seemed impossible to spoof in look-up 12 nm or less. We did not test beyond that range. Is notching and chaff up high a little nerfed in its effect in DCS in this specific scenario? Not sure, but I didn't expect not to be able to break lock at all. Any FC3 aircraft, and sometimes the Hornet and Tomcat will have their locks broken in the same situation. If you are close to the ground, then the ground clutter plays multiple roles. For one, it might be in the res cell while the target aircraft is beaming with very little radial velocity (you'd have to be but a few meters from ground clutter for the typical res cell's range size). Another factor of lookdown is all the sidelobe clutter return the targeting radar could get if it's flying close to the ground as well. Right now as GG mentioned earlier, either the attack radar or the missile itself in DCS has to look down for the break-lock/notch logic to function (can't remember which one or is it both?). This behaviour isn't correct because it's basically ignoring the range gating which all radars have nowadays to ignore the ground beyond the target aircraft. So here, the notching meta is overpowered in its effect. In the case of the AIM-120 (which might even use Ku band for targeting, FFTs, rejection of high-scintillation RCS returns, MPRF processing etc.) I can see that chaff and beaming would have a very tiny if not negligible effect but I'm not so sure for the older radar types. One thing is for sure is that the logic for look-down creating high chance of spoofing a missile is a bit inaccurate today. Thoughts?

I confirm also had this problem with my RX580 but I have not seen them since upgrading to a 1070.

I read about the low altitude error being introduced into the AIM-7 and AIM-120 logic. I was very pleased to read that! It seems very interesting but I do not exactly know what it does. Is it supposed to simulate the sidelobe clutter interference at low altitude from the illuminating radar? It appears that ED's efforts at improvement since there is now a distinction with low altitude missile guidance vs. older missile logic which seemed to just go for chaff when looking down in situations that range-gating should solve. This is a positive step in the direction toward realism. While your points are valid, I can't shake the feeling that you may have missed the point or did not read through the whole thread and are dismissing the posts based on the conclusion that the posters don't know what they're talking about (it's a lot of pages to get through, understandably). The issue which has been posted in the many tracks and videos here, it is undeniable that there is something wrong with blinking ECM + chaff when it comes to missile guidance. I fly almost exclusively air to air in the 80s servers and have witnessed many AIM-7's simply miss a hot aspect F-14 that's just popping chaff and banking/turning a bit from side to side from 3 nm away, hot, looking up. This is consistent, reproduceable and the same exact thing happens for the AIM-120's, SD-10s, etc. But maybe that's not exactly what you're arguing against. If so, I apologize but would like some clarification.

Absolutely stunning... there's so much new content to discover, both in ME and visually. ED did a great job! Can't wait to make new missions with all our new options

I just checked, it seems I still cannot detect a MiG-29A at anything less than ~70 nm out, hot, look up. Very quick and dirty so let's see what others have experienced.

No, just MiG-29 changes (unrelated to radar). Yet I still have hope because now they are fixing the R-27R and ER per the change log. So maybe one day, radar ranges will get a revamp too? It's a bit more of a problem now that the higher fidelity aircraft completely out perform the FC3 planes in detection range.

Can anyone confirm that these RCS figures are taken into account for FC3 aircraft? I have been told that fighters/helos are basically all the same to the FC3 radars and large aircraft are another - i.e. it's binary. But that's only a rumour I heard so I don't know for sure.

I'm naive but I still have hope... the thread says it's being investigated after all! Fingers are crossed that this gets addressed!

I'm talking specifically about missiles pulling G's toward chaff far away from the res cell while the target is correctly beaming/notching. I'm fairly sure I've read multiple threads of this but maybe my memory is fuzzy in terms of when. As for the issue of this thread itself (missiles spoofed by close range hot or cold target with blinking jammer + chaff), that is certainly new.

Yea, the AI has special a capability to spoof missiles far more easily, I guess since they are AI and can't fight like we do. But yes, missiles being affected by chaff far outside the resolution cell and also pulling crazy G's toward said chaff have always been a thing in DCS. Also, I could have sworn the AIM-120 used to pick targets up again if they immediately recommitted but I can't be sure since I'm usually on 1960s-80s servers. For sure, there was a time when the AIM-54's could pick you back up again but I haven't tested if that capability has returned.

Monopulse Processing for Tracking Unresolved Targets by W. D. Blair published by the USN's Naval Surface Research Center in 1997 goes into using the complex/quadrature measurements for monopulse signals as mentioned earlier. So far, I haven't heard of any other monopulse technique in other articles other than using this portion of the signal. I haven't completed the whole thing yet but a brief excerpt here so far suggests that there still is some difficulty in tracking a given target when there's more than one in the res cell, especially if the RCS fluctuates as it would for a maneuvering target. Figure 1.3 shows two closely-spaced helicopters moving apart in both x and y dimensions (top down view) and the resulting in-phase signals stop fluctuating wildly and manage to find the accurate position of each chopper. As they move apart and time passes, the quadrature signal starts to fluctuate from the initial value of 0 for target 1 (since AFAIK, when it sees the targets as one, there is no quadrature return) - suggesting the presence of multiple targets. Tracking one over the other is another matter as the text below describes: Edit: I should also add that reference [1.4] mentioned just above is a 1965 paper proposing resolving or achieving "at least recognition of the number of targets present". This paper is COMPLEX INDICATED ANGLES IN MONOPULSE RADAR - by S. Sherman, University of Pennsylvania.

This is what I'm thinking as well and some texts support that this the case but none explicitly prove it. The research continues

Yea I have the same text, it's a very good book. and yes, the angular portion of the res cell is determined by the wavelength size to the aperture ratio. The excerpt from the book shows an engagement range of 6 km = 3.23 nm - that's a very very short range and one which, as you said, would probably not be affected by chaff of a fast beaming target. At longer ranges, say, 8 nm or more (maybe as short as 5 nm), an X-band radar with an aperture of ~0.85 m would give an angular resolution in the order of ~2.5 degrees. At 5 nm, the crossing range in the cell is ~404 m and at 8 nm it's ~646 m. Not huge of course, but seeing as how rapid bloom chaff spreads to max RCS between 0.2-0.5 seconds, maneuvering while notching and adding chaff could have some effect. I'm not convinced that it would do much against the AIM-120C, but we have real world accounts of an F-15 pilot firing an AIM-120A and having it get notched by a MiG-29 between 12 and 7 nm or something like that. I'm still doing my research but as I understand, the quadrature component of the monopulse signals (historically only the in=phase was taken) need to be integrated in order to resolve targets that are closely spaced. Monopulse of course has a great capability to track an RCS centroid within values much smaller than the radar res cell, but I believe if the RCS is scintillating, this is made more difficult from what I've read so far. A maneuvering fighter will not have a constant RCS and neither will the chaff. Older radars would likely have issues with this but I'm thinking the AMRAAM may have this quadrature integration capability.

I would think angular resolution is the toughest one right? Range resolution especially with pulse compression from what I understand appears to give very good range resolution in the order of a few m. Meanwhile for A-A radars with fixed shape main lobes, I expect a beaming target being tracked would have a larger angular resolution cell in the order of 100's of m (I think) at a given range, especially for further ranges. Would you be at liberty to discuss your ideal modulation type here? I'm very curious. The ability of modern pulse radar processors to integrate pulse quadrature returns allows then to separate closely-spaced targets at separation distances smaller than the res cell angular spacing which is something I would think AMRAAMs and the like can do, but I am unsure that older radars would have had this ability since it is greatly enhanced by multiple (usually medium) PRFs that are usually present in modern digital MPRF modes. I would think this is why a fighter must maneuver in the beaming plane to spread chaff which has to be spammed to make it look like the rapid-blooming chaff is a part of the aircraft. Have I got the right idea? No idea how effective that would be these days.

Just a nitpick here, but I think that probability it expressed in decimals - not percent in this graph where probability, P(bl) = 1.0 is 100% probability. It's convention and I don't see why they'd make a graph where the maximum is 1% while showing an asymptotic rise in probability. So P(bl) = 0.01 is 1%. Much larger than 0.01%, but yes your point still stands. It looks like the break lock probability is tiny. I think I may have this very paper somewhere in my files but didn't really look into it since it's about conscan radars. I believe that the leading edge and trailing edge tracking techniques work in non-PD systems. You just cut the start or end of the pulse return so you reject chaff (depending on if the target is leaving or coming toward the radar while dropping chaff). This, I imagine, would significantly decrease SNR to a prohibitive value if applied to the smaller airborne radars in fighters. This is tough one, because I'm not confident that anyone can really prove that the AMRAAM was "too resistant" but then again I barely play on modern servers often so I don't know what others have experienced. As Nighthawk mentioned, the advancements in tech could really explain the AMRAAM's chaff resistance. Yes chaff will always have an effect on radar but would you actually be able to spoof AMRAAMs from 3 nm by spamming chaff and beaming? I'm inclined to believe no.

Thanks, Victory for the in-depth insight. This is the kind of thing that makes aviation so rich is the stories people have to share and the real world tactics that we don't get to see in games. The MP environment in DCS is interesting and airquake is fun in some aspects. Luckily there's a lot of diversity and a bunch of servers are dedicating more mission design to teamwork where 1v1's will get you shot down. Maybe one day far into the future planes like the EA-6 will play a large role in the simulation gaming world.

Only the F-4J radar system (AWG-10) had Doppler filter banks but I think GGTharos may be referring to SAMs which used edge tracking techniques. I am not aware if radars in the F-14, F-15, F/A-18 etc. use this technique to reject chaff. I think the F-15 and F/A-18 for example have very good Doppler sensitivity since they had RAM mode which (AFAIK) uses fine Doppler shifts to discriminate close targets that would usually be too fine for the resolution cell.

Not sure if it's widely understood yet, but chaff MP results will be a bit different from SP results. AI in SP will spoof missiles far more easily and their missiles will also be spoofed a bit more easily. A little weird, but this seems consistent when I tested spoofing AIM-54s, especially back when the chaff rejection of the AIM-54s was at AMRAAM levels.

This is such a great story, I can't get enough! It's so great to hear what aircraft transitions were like and how fiercely loyal people are with their favourite jets. Truth is the F-4s and the F-14 (especially the A) have so much history and endless combat accolades with both the US and other countries who used them in combat (i.e. Iran and Israel). They are ace makers. @Victory205 I am curious about something based on your post - maybe it's been asked before but how easy/hard was it to keep track of these low fighters in TWS? In DCS, I've understood that it's quite realistic for the AWG-9 to lose track fairly easily against a beaming target near the ground and that the RIO had to be good with Pulse to pick anything up (which I assume is very susceptible to chaff). Do you feel that meta is reflected well in DCS where AIM-54s are spoofed fairly regularly by a low closure targets?

I think these early A's also don't have the TF30-P-414A, they'd be the -412 - not sure if the differences are enough to model though.

I can't confirm if the F-14 blinking ECM was recent (I think it always blinked, TBH) but what is recent and has been stated a couple times is the missile API upgrade. In combination with blinking ECM and chaff, the API-upgraded missile effectively become duds. Therefore, exploiting this is new and this is why it's only popping up in servers now. And yes, the warmup time indeed is one proposal.

A bit of a tangent: Do I understand correctly that every single F-15C built except the final 43 (APG-70) had the APG-63 with PSP? Are these referred to now as the APG-63(v)0? Had a little trouble patching together what information I could google.