To ECM or not to ECM

[LtMacGowan]

When i should i turn the ECM music on during what situations? and what situations should i absolutely not use it?

[pr1malr8ge]

This subject has been discussed and searching will net you a lot of information.

 

How ever the jist of it is in dcs ECM is not portrayed correctly so you can use it the entire time if you're not worried about announcing roughly where you are at in space.

 

If you're playing on line it's wise not to have it on as soon as you take off or when you're infront of your own team and need assistance because your strobes can make it hard for someone to assist you or even know if you're friend or foe

[Oceandar]

ECM is good when you want to hide your heading and altitude but it's useless against Su-27 EOS.

 

Gam Zeh Ya'avor - King Salomon

[DarkFire]

When i should i turn the ECM music on during what situations? and what situations should i absolutely not use it?

 

I'll take this from my point of view, hypothetically flying against you in an Su-27, which will probably be your most common & dangerous 'red team' opponent.

 

The two things that ECM hides are your range and altitude. The range comes with a caveat: when my radar achieves burn-through the ECM is useless as I can then lock you up despite the ECM. It also sort-of masks your aspect but if I'm paying attention I can take a fairly educated guess on your aspect by changes in the bearing rate of the ECM strobe on my head-down display.

 

If we're approaching each other head-on my radar will achieve burn through at almost exactly 40 Km range, which puts you well outside of Rtr range for my R-27ER. I think the radar in your F-15 will achieve burn through at a slightly longer range, but this will also be outside of the optimum launch range for your AIM-120B/C.

 

Masking your range and altitude does give you options though: if I have my radar on, which is being detected by your RWR system, unless I'm flagged as a primary threat then it might be safe to assume that my radar hasn't burned through your ECM yet. This means I won't be able to tell if you change your altitude, nor will I know exactly what range you're at. Do you chose to climb up high and hope that I'm not scanning upwards with my radar? Do you chose to drop down in to the weeds so that my radar suffers a ~25% detection range degradation? Maybe you want to duck in to the terrain and set up a short range ambush for me. Very dangerous thing to do against an Su-27, but if I can't find you maybe you'll be able to launch against me giving me insufficient time to evade the missile.

 

ECM is of course highly situationally dependant. The one major down side to using it is that it will reveal your presence and bearing to a range well in excess of the range at which my radar would be able to get a primary skin paint on your F-15. I'd normally be able to detect you out to ~100Km head-on, but having ECM on will reveal your presence way out to the radar horizon.

 

I'd say that ECM can be useful in order to deny an engagement from a reasonable range (say ~45 Km and above) but at anything under burn-through range it becomes useless. It can also be a severe disadvantage under certain conditions: if I'm wandering around at low level with my radar off, and your jamming strobe appears on my head down display, I can use the bearing of the strobe to potentially go around you and carry out a stealthy attack from behind using my EOS.

 

A note on realism: apparently the built-in ECM on the Eagle has severe heat generation problems and eats up ~80% of the cooling capacity of the entire aircraft. Though some people do it, turning on the ECM 5 seconds after takeoff and leaving it on would appear to be highly unrealistic. This would also of course broadcast your presence for miles around as described.

 

The good thing for the F-15C is that the ECM is built-in, whereas if I want to use it on my Su-27 I have to sacrifice two of my R-73 missiles. Harder decision.

Edited April 7, 2016 by DarkFire

[Svend_Dellepude]

1 more thing is that ECM against a SU-27 increase the workload of the pilot because he can't use TWS in an ECM environment.

So if there is just one strope on his scope, doesn't matter if it's from you or somebody else, he has to fiddle a bit more with his buttons.

Maybe it's not a biggie for experienced Flanker drivers but i could imagine it made it a bit more of a challenge for the new ones.

[IASGATG]

I pretty much only use ECM when retreating as it makes tail chase locks almost impossible beyond 10nmi. For anything else I leave music off. A good pilot will be able to know your altitude and distance regardless of you having ECM on or not due to how the game works.

[DarkFire]

1 more thing is that ECM against a SU-27 increase the workload of the pilot because he can't use TWS in an ECM environment.

So if there is just one strope on his scope, doesn't matter if it's from you or somebody else, he has to fiddle a bit more with his buttons.

Maybe it's not a biggie for experienced Flanker drivers but i could imagine it made it a bit more of a challenge for the new ones.

 

Yes, good point. The TWS mode is totally disabled in an ECM environment whereas I think TWS mode on the F-15 still works..?

[IASGATG]

Yes, good point. The TWS mode is totally disabled in an ECM environment whereas I think TWS mode on the F-15 still works..?

 

Yes and no, you can see the target indication, but you have a real hard time locking them, the jamming target always takes priority.

[Svend_Dellepude]

Yes and no, you can see the target indication, but you have a real hard time locking them, the jamming target always takes priority.

 

I read in another thread that that might change (don't remember what thread though).

In a heavy ECM environment in the 15 it's not easy but doable. In a light ECM it's not a problem unless the strope is overlapping, whereas in the 27 if there is one strope on the scope TWS is not available.

[IASGATG]

I read in another thread that that might change (don't remember what thread though).

In a heavy ECM environment in the 15 it's not easy but doable. In a light ECM it's not a problem unless the strope is overlapping, whereas in the 27 if there is one strope on the scope TWS is not available.

 

Yeah you can refresh the radar quickly and try and tag the guy before the jammer strobe turns up in the eagle. As for changing anything, no. I mean I don't work for ED, but I'm 100% confident there will be no avionics updates for any FC aircraft.

[Svend_Dellepude]

It should work more or less the same way for the eagle - the WCS should prioritize a tracked target over the jammer. I'll report it but don't expect much :)/

 

That was the post and that was why i wrote ''might''. Maybe it should have been ''probably not''. :D

although it seems easier in 1.5 to bug closely spaced contact than pre 1.5 but that's maybe just me.

Sorry for the derail. Back on topic! :)

[Shadow KT]

Use jammer only if an enemy which is aware of you is using it, and turn it off as soon as he launches a missile. Also when running away from bandits and or cold off the battlefield in general. Also don't forget that notching doesn't work when jamming