Will EXP3 mode of air to ground radar be optimized and improved?

[Swift.]

We didn't prolifically use the ag radar because there were other tools that did the job better. It is that simple, nothing more, nothing less.

 

Thanks for the insight Lex

[ebabil]

bare in mind radar needs doppler shift, target area must be offset left or right.

The black area is basically a blind spot.

 

thanks

 

Bruh. I was trying to see exp3 details by going head on to target areas for two days. good to know this.

 

So then, let's say there is no visual contact ability due to bad weather. I have to find and attack target via ag radar. I find it going offset and marked it. then obviously I turned to target to perform a ccrp run. My radar image would go away due to blind spot thing unless I freeze the image. How will it work with that disadvantage?

[LastRifleRound]

Bruh. I was trying to see exp3 details by going head on to target areas for two days. good to know this.

 

So then, let's say there is no visual contact ability due to bad weather. I have to find and attack target via ag radar. I find it going offset and marked it. then obviously I turned to target to perform a ccrp run. My radar image would go away due to blind spot thing unless I freeze the image. How will it work with that disadvantage?

 

Your designation isn't really a radar designation, it's an INS designation of the spot on the radar map you chose. When you turn in and lose imagery, it doesn't effect you at all since the computer is using INS data at that point.

 

To actually track the spot with radar, you would S2 up after designating, then the radar would attempt Fixed Target Track (FTT). If successful, you can turn in on the target, as the radar is "painting" the target at that point providing slant range data. The display imagery would blank out and I believe (don't quote me here) you would just see an X on the display where the FTT is.

[LastRifleRound]

bare in mind radar needs doppler shift, target area must be offset left or right.

The black area is basically a blind spot.

 

thanks

 

Is there an optimal offset and altitude we should keep in mind?

[Kev2go]

I don't think the close range issue is really an issue, more of a limitation of the tech it's simulating.

 

Remember, in the time frame when the Air to Ground radar was most useful, you'd be rolling in pretty close with dumb bombs anyway. You'd be close enough to make a final precise targeting adjustment.

 

It's only now with AESA SAR etc that aircraft like the F-35 can make detailed SAR images from standoff ranges, to attack with a stand off weapon.

 

 

Not necessarily. APG70 of the Strike Eagle and somewhat lesser extent APG76 of the F4E Kurnas 2000 had quite good SAR resolution for their time if you look at thier cited resolution and patch sizes at a given range, and resolution especially relative to the APG73 ( which i think its the phase 1 not Phase 2 since the latter the manufacturer claims to have good enough SAR able to be used with JSOW and SLAM at standoff ranges) we see in DCS.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Kev2go

[Fri13]

I just wish that ED will implement a proper units concealments to hide them from radars and FLIR. Becomes almost impossible to track or detect them in battlefield even when they are on the move.

 

So back to eye balls.... But as well is almost impossible to detect visually.

 

We need units to have a On-Off function that can be triggered so crew starts concealments procedures and are required to stay stationary meanwhile.

[Fri13]

Not to detract from the point you are making or go OT as the real issue is of old DCS engine not being able to recognize ground obects.

 

There is code to know where are buildings and other similar objects. It is just not used in the A-G radar at this moment.

 

It is easy to see with the A-G radar that trees, buildings and such are not there. The buildings does show a tiny box where a 3D model origo exist. This can be seen as well in some of the ED screenshots.

 

I am let down that the A-G radar doesn't see trees, as it is noise/clutter for the pilot to see as well. Instead there is nice clear rivers, hills and all regardless they would be hidden behind the trees. Individual trees would be special boxes in it.

 

What comes to 3D models like buildings, it is again just using the building 3D models with the radar layer, so you would get a matching shape with radar shadow and all.

[Fri13]

and resolution especially relative to the APG73 ( which i think its the phase 1 not Phase 2 since the latter the manufacturer claims to have good enough SAR able to be used with JSOW and SLAM at standoff ranges) we see in DCS.

 

https://theaviationist.com/2018/05/08/check-out-this-interesting-video-showing-finnish-air-force-f-a-18c-d-hornet-mlu-2-jets-carrying-jassm-jsow-and-jdam-air-to-ground-weapons/

[Curly]

Not necessarily. APG70 of the Strike Eagle and somewhat lesser extent APG76 of the F4E Kurnas 2000 had quite good SAR resolution for their time if you look at thier cited resolution and patch sizes at a given range, and resolution especially relative to the APG73 ( which i think its the phase 1 not Phase 2 since the latter the manufacturer claims to have good enough SAR able to be used with JSOW and SLAM at standoff ranges) we see in DCS.

 

 

 

 

The APG 70 is capable of a 4 foot / 1 meter resolution map over an area of .33 nmi.

This made it possible to distinguish a SCUD TEL from a MAN truck and a ZIL command van 150 feet apart.

 

 

 

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a347534.pdf

 

8 foot / 2.5 meter resolution is available up to 20 nmi

 

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a319223.pdf

 

The Phase 2 RUG was delivered on all lot 20 aircraft.

 

I think we're limited to a 16.4 foot / 5 meter resolution over a 1.2 nmi range in DCS. If you keep the target designated in EXP 2 the resolution will increase until the gimbal limit. However I’ve yet to see anything below 1 nm.

 

Before the RUG 2 updates the 73 was limited by the airframe vibrations and movement and couldn’t calculate it’s position accurately enough to be capable of higher rez SAR maps. The upgrade included a custom imu, a new waveform generator and power supply. After this upgrade it was capable of ranges of the APG-70 and the U-2 ASARS.

 

If you look at the previous posted images from the CIP paper. That’s about a 1 meter resolution image. It's just over a larger area. Probably a ATARS spot map processed to a single image. So you could reasonable expect that level of detail just over a smaller area in a RUG 2 APG 70.

[jasonbirder]

We didn't prolifically use the ag radar because there were other tools that did the job better. It is that simple, nothing more, nothing less.

 

 

Obviously....no one disputes that given correct weather conditions/GPS availability/ISTAR assets etc etc the AG Radar is (by comparison) a sub-optimal sensor

 

 

The question everyone has about the AG Radar is this...its quite easy to speculate about scenarios where NONE of the above are available - Wet Weather is common in North-Western Europe, Southern China etc, Russia and China have either significant ASAT and/or GPS disruption assets, Off platform assets may not be available in heavily contest Air Defence Environments against Peer level adversaries...

 

 

Now yes, (in particular the Kosovo Air Campaign as an example) the SOP has been if those conditions exist...don't operate...leave it to say F15Es...BUT that's because 21st Century Air Campaigns have been relatively low intensity, low (or no) Troops on the ground, no existential threat to strategic allies, restrictive ROE's

 

 

In a desperate Campaign against a peer level adversary - say, an Invasion of one of the Baltic States or Taiwan...what happens when unfortunate circumstance gives No TGP (weather) No GPS, No off-platform ISTAR assets? Do the F16s and F/A18s REALLY stay grounded...given that bad weather strike was a staple cold-war mission for Planes at least a generation more primitive (Tornados, Aardvarks, Intruders etc) and with no smart weapons in the 1980's?

[LastRifleRound]

Obviously....no one disputes that given correct weather conditions/GPS availability/ISTAR assets etc etc the AG Radar is (by comparison) a sub-optimal sensor

 

 

The question everyone has about the AG Radar is this...its quite easy to speculate about scenarios where NONE of the above are available - Wet Weather is common in North-Western Europe, Southern China etc, Russia and China have either significant ASAT and/or GPS disruption assets, Off platform assets may not be available in heavily contest Air Defence Environments against Peer level adversaries...

 

 

Now yes, (in particular the Kosovo Air Campaign as an example) the SOP has been if those conditions exist...don't operate...leave it to say F15Es...BUT that's because 21st Century Air Campaigns have been relatively low intensity, low (or no) Troops on the ground, no existential threat to strategic allies, restrictive ROE's

 

 

In a desperate Campaign against a peer level adversary - say, an Invasion of one of the Baltic States or Taiwan...what happens when unfortunate circumstance gives No TGP (weather) No GPS, No off-platform ISTAR assets? Do the F16s and F/A18s REALLY stay grounded...given that bad weather strike was a staple cold-war mission for Planes at least a generation more primitive (Tornados, Aardvarks, Intruders etc) and with no smart weapons in the 1980's?

 

Think this is what Lex meant by theory-crafting. Any answer to these questions is purely conjecture.

 

The feature is here, see what you can use it for. I can tell you, with a set of coordinates and a TPOD, as you know, there is no reason at all to use it.

 

Now throw some fog on the deck, give yourself some crappy weather, don't give yourself coordinates when you pick a target and try to find it. Unless you have a pre-briefed map, you're going to have a hard time finding what you're looking for. You can't really use radar for TOO, you need to know what you're looking for.

 

I find looking at Sat view in ME, and sketching a rough map on my phone at the scales I plan to view the image at various zoom levels in the ME really helps me hone in rather quickly on what I'm looking for as long as I have a waypoint within 10nm or so. Testing myself I can target the right structure 9 out of 10 times. The Caucuses map seems to be the hardest one to read, maybe because of the tress. Mind you, I'm deliberately making things harder on myself. I don't know if this procedure was ever used in real life, but it seems logical and it seems to work in DCS.

 

If you want to simulate what you're talking about, when the INS is done and drift enabled, set up a scenario pre-GPS, give yourself a deep strike and no TPOD. You can definitely get it done in a Hornet, it's radar is better than all of those older model aircraft by virtue of its better processing power. But all those aircraft had TWO people in it, because searching through those blobs takes a lot of time away from flying. So who knows? At 30nm out I'm guessing you don't have all day to get that radar targeting right, and without a TPOD to confirm you've actually FTT'd what you think you did, I think things could get hairy. I find I always drop a stick of bombs when using the radar. Without FTT, I think it's probably more accurate than it should be, but that could be a stop-gap from ED until they get FTT working, or maybe I'm wrong and the INS interpretation is that good in the real thing.

 

Now, this is just from my experience in DCS. The radar is really fun to use. In some cases I prefer it as I get better at it. But if someone put a gun to my head and said I had to hit a target, I'd use:

 

1. TPOD

2. Coordinates/INS

3. Visual/CCIP

4. Visual/AUTO

5. Radar

 

In that order.

 

Now terrible weather (again, just talking about DCS, so I don't need to rely on theory, we can go in sim and test) leaves 2 and 5 on the table. We need to envision a scenario where you don't have 2 and then sure, you're left with 5. Would that happen in the real world? Who knows. What we do know is that it hasn't. And if it happens in DCS, you HAVE to use the ground radar, because for whatever reason you find yourself in this situation, it's the only tool DCS is going to give you.

 

TL:DR; I think we're talking past each other here. You could be right that AG Radar COULD have been useful, what Lex is saying is that it WASN'T. That's not dispositive. Your theory could be valid at the same time his statement of fact is.

 

So, let's model some of these scenarios and see what DCS does to us. Alternate histories are some of the most engaging things you can do in sim precisely because that's the only place they can ever happen, but let's not demand people agree that air to ground radar is or would have been completely necessary. There's just no way to know that and the real world hasn't borne that out for sure.

 

The original debate was that ED shouldn't model it because it's not useful. I don't agree with that. One of the coolest things about ED is they model as close to 100% of what they can, convenience, ease and usefulness be damned. Most of us love them for that. But that doesn't mean the guys saying it's not that useful in real life were wrong.

Edited August 21, 2020 by LastRifleRound

[Lex Talionis]

Ya, we just don't drop on targets we can see with the radar alone, it turns more into carpet bombing. The AG radar was not good enough to properly or consistently ID a target, that simple. There is no such thing as "BVR A/G" pre laser or GPS bombs.

 

Regarding the INS, to do a proper inflight alignment you had to have a visualy aquire-able ground reference with known gps numbers so you could fly over it and "reset" the ins with a knowen coordinate. It was ridiculous. If i didnt have faith in my ins staying tight i would just render the aircraft not mission capable and get another jet.

 

All that said, never had to do an inflight alignment. The INS was a rockstar (unlike the AG radar) I found it humorous when i realized drift was being modeled to creat a game dynamic we never really worried about.

 

In short: the scenario you describe operates on the premiss that the ground is obscured to the point the AG radar must be used to VID and drop on a target, but you need to be able to see the ground for a known location to do an in flight alignment. The scenario has mutually exclusive concepts.

 

This is how wikipedia and YouTube vids steers gamers wrong, you cant properly understand context from the learning individuals perspectives alone.

 

It isnt that they should stop work on the AG radar *if it needs it*, it is that theories are being crafted to justify asking the AG radar be made better than it was so it can facilitate a game play that didnt exist IRL. I mean, knock yourselves out, demand it be better so it will do what everyone is dreaming up. Just understand it was simply not used as has been discribed simply because it wasnt good enough to to so. Has nothing to do with mission or that "we only do CAS now" or any of the other popular theories. It is simply that it wasnt good enough. As i have said before, yes, if it is all you have it is better than nothing. But it isnt a pod and thinking you can just fly arround sweeping with the AG radar to drop on a target that was never visual identified, like your trying to BVR an aim120, is simply wrong employment of the equipment in real life.This topic is much like that for the over G switch

 

Since weather was brought up, i am amazed there are not posts like this one screaming for the fix of multiplayer cloud syncing. If you are looking for new and exciting ways to make flying more intresting, weather is the single most influential variable that changes how we fly. But it doesn't go boom so its not as important as the AG radar i guess.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Lex Talionis

[jasonbirder]

Regarding the INS, to do a proper inflight alignment you had to have a visualy aquire-able ground reference with known gps numbers so you could fly over it and "reset" the ins with a knowen coordinate.

Its not theory crafting to say that older generation all-weather attack Aircraft (such as Tornado's/Intruders etc) where able to do exactly that with Radar offsets though is it?

Indeed - remember GPS has only been available post-1995

[ExNusquam]

One of the nice additions would be Doppler shift for moving objects so that you can't easily drop a designation on them. Some basic info the impacts of target motion:

SAR processors take advantage of the Doppler frequency, which linearly changes from positive to negative values when the sensor passes a target object. Thereby, standard SAR-processing methods are based upon the assumption of a static scene or in other words the stationary of the detected objects. If the target has a velocity component, its doppler shift is changed compared with that from a stationary reflector. As a consequence the SAR gets confused and produces artefacts in the final image displacing the motion objects. The displacement depends on the moving direction of the individual objects: An object moving linearly in along–track (azimuth) direction causes a blurring in azimuth direction whereas an object moving in cross–track (range) direction causes mainly a displacement in azimuth direction.

[Fri13]

Now terrible weather (again, just talking about DCS, so I don't need to rely on theory, we can go in sim and test) leaves 2 and 5 on the table. We need to envision a scenario where you don't have 2 and then sure, you're left with 5. Would that happen in the real world? Who knows. What we do know is that it hasn't. And if it happens in DCS, you HAVE to use the ground radar, because for whatever reason you find yourself in this situation, it's the only tool DCS is going to give you.

 

Now taking a scenario where you have jammed/very limited data from others, the challenge is not to find a given coordinates from the map, but to actually know what you are targeting and attacking as all you see are blobs, where enemies and friends are all over the places and if you don't have means to communicate with the troops on the ground (as is in this scenario), you can't really operate well there as you might be attacking friendlies. And radar is not there helping the case much at all.

 

So, let's model some of these scenarios and see what DCS does to us. Alternate histories are some of the most engaging things you can do in sim precisely because that's the only place they can ever happen, but let's not demand people agree that air to ground radar is or would have been completely necessary. There's just no way to know that and the real world hasn't borne that out for sure.

 

Would be so nice to have in a DCS all kind units to simulate the more modern combat scenarios, like jamming systems, passive EW systems, IADS, requirements for ELINT and other recon missions, proper communication structure and methods etc.

 

But now we are suddenly talking about far more Combined Arms features and capabilities that should be high priority for ED to start modeling properly, as it is what creates the whole air branch as well, to support the ground troops.

 

The original debate was that ED shouldn't model it because it's not useful. I don't agree with that. One of the coolest things about ED is they model as close to 100% of what they can, convenience, ease and usefulness be damned. Most of us love them for that. But that doesn't mean the guys saying it's not that useful in real life were wrong.

 

I love that thing as well, give what there is regardless was it useful or not. Let the virtual pilot to find out that if it doesn't work.

 

Leave out the politics and "This was more effective than that, so we model this more effective one" attitudes (what I dislike in the Mi-24P selection over Mi-24V, but hey you get single pilot to fly helicopter effectively instead two players required for that thing!) let the pilot experience the negatives. Like example the F-16 received finally the LAU-88 launcher while never in use, but that should be there available to all aircrafts that can technically carry it, regardless what was the political attitude about it by some commanding officer, politician or ground crew chief that "it will blow tires" or "your ailerons are going to burn" etc. Let the pilots have that experience. Let them to go out there and really destroy their own aircraft with wanting to do something that had good reason not to do because the risks.

So let the people have the A-G radars, let them to think that they will get "Palantir" that will see everything that it gets pointed at and then it is just pilot will do they attack at something or not, and not the limitations of the technology and the radar capabilities to actually detect the units on the ground.

It is fun and all to think that A-G radars are so amazing things that they can replace everything else and become crucial when in such scenarios where everything else fails, but we need to as well remember that on the ground the potential enemy has been trained and used by all methods to conceal themselves from the enemy and all their surveillance and reconnaissance methods, optical, electronic or visual. And they do not just believe they can do that, they know they can do that as they are trained with own units using those same exact methods to conceal. The constant training for the goal where other needs to stay hidden, and other needs to find them. Both sides will get a point if they succeed in their task, but more points when you can hide your own troops from enemy.

 

Edit: The DCS World terrain engine is purely based currently for the air-to-air missions, what now somewhat good for helicopter use. But it is not suitable for the ground forces when it comes to their operative capabilities, or even as being a ground targets for aircraft threats. It is like a turkey shooting at this moment where ground units are all the red targets on the shooting range. This all affects a lot more now when we start to have a A-G radars and more use for FLIR etc. And as long ED doesn't really get the terrain engine to be far more detailed, it keeps over half of the simulation as "step-child". One can example check youtube for a "4.1: High Resolution Terrain Preview" and see what there should be possible be applied to DCS terrain engine.

Such a extra detail would turn a lot of things around in DCS when it comes anything related to ground.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Fri13

[Dunx]

I see <clip>no</clip> ships!

[Lex Talionis]

Its not theory crafting to say that older generation all-weather attack Aircraft (such as Tornado's/Intruders etc) where able to do exactly that with Radar offsets though is it?

Indeed - remember GPS has only been available post-1995

 

 

I dont know the capibilities of those aircraft radars for ground returns.

That you are comparing two different radars, in two different aircraft, assuming they are similar is a theory. Even the same radar will act differently bolted to a different aircraft.

 

One piece of gear should not be perceived better performance, or even equal, simply because of a time line or the perceived group they belong to. (In this case, miti role aircraft do not all perform the same simply because they are similar) Performance should be evaluated on an individual bases.

 

I see your point, it is simply apples and oranges.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Lex Talionis

[Fri13]

I see <clip>no</clip> ships!

 

We don't have a SEA mode yet.

[Kev2go]

The APG 70 is capable of a 4 foot / 1 meter resolution map over an area of .33 nmi.

This made it possible to distinguish a SCUD TEL from a MAN truck and a ZIL command van 150 feet apart.

 

 

 

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a347534.pdf

 

8 foot / 2.5 meter resolution is available up to 20 nmi

 

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a319223.pdf

 

The Phase 2 RUG was delivered on all lot 20 aircraft.

 

I think we're limited to a 16.4 foot / 5 meter resolution over a 1.2 nmi range in DCS. If you keep the target designated in EXP 2 the resolution will increase until the gimbal limit. However I’ve yet to see anything below 1 nm.

 

Before the RUG 2 updates the 73 was limited by the airframe vibrations and movement and couldn’t calculate it’s position accurately enough to be capable of higher rez SAR maps. The upgrade included a custom imu, a new waveform generator and power supply. After this upgrade it was capable of ranges of the APG-70 and the U-2 ASARS.

 

If you look at the previous posted images from the CIP paper. That’s about a 1 meter resolution image. It's just over a larger area. Probably a ATARS spot map processed to a single image. So you could reasonable expect that level of detail just over a smaller area in a RUG 2 APG 70.

 

Yea i have a pdf copy of those white papers DL somewhere . IM glad you shared them here as i didn't have the http links on hand. . Indeed really good stuff especially when considering the tech and timeframe of the APG70, but if im not mistaken as the paper says the 4 foot resolution was an upgraded improvement that came about around 1996/1997ish.

However comparatively APG76 is impressive for its time when it was capable of within a patch of 0.8 NM haivng a resolution of 1 foot. at 29.6 nautical miles.

 

With regards to the Hornet, If thats the particular resolution we are limited to in DCS at such a close at such a distance, and you agree the CIP images are right on the money of what a Phase 2 should look like than I think certainly we can agree the DCS APG73 is not performing to the accuracy its supposed to . That is assuming Lot 20's do in fact 100% certainty have RUG2's ( not doubting you but i just haven't seen any sources myself or definitive clarification or from ED on radar version).

Edited August 22, 2020 by Kev2go

[statrekmike]

Ya, we just don't drop on targets we can see with the radar alone, it turns more into carpet bombing. The AG radar was not good enough to properly or consistently ID a target, that simple. There is no such thing as "BVR A/G" pre laser or GPS bombs.

 

Regarding the INS, to do a proper inflight alignment you had to have a visualy aquire-able ground reference with known gps numbers so you could fly over it and "reset" the ins with a knowen coordinate. It was ridiculous. If i didnt have faith in my ins staying tight i would just render the aircraft not mission capable and get another jet.

 

All that said, never had to do an inflight alignment. The INS was a rockstar (unlike the AG radar) I found it humorous when i realized drift was being modeled to creat a game dynamic we never really worried about.

 

In short: the scenario you describe operates on the premiss that the ground is obscured to the point the AG radar must be used to VID and drop on a target, but you need to be able to see the ground for a known location to do an in flight alignment. The scenario has mutually exclusive concepts.

 

This is how wikipedia and YouTube vids steers gamers wrong, you cant properly understand context from the learning individuals perspectives alone.

 

It isnt that they should stop work on the AG radar *if it needs it*, it is that theories are being crafted to justify asking the AG radar be made better than it was so it can facilitate a game play that didnt exist IRL. I mean, knock yourselves out, demand it be better so it will do what everyone is dreaming up. Just understand it was simply not used as has been discribed simply because it wasnt good enough to to so. Has nothing to do with mission or that "we only do CAS now" or any of the other popular theories. It is simply that it wasnt good enough. As i have said before, yes, if it is all you have it is better than nothing. But it isnt a pod and thinking you can just fly arround sweeping with the AG radar to drop on a target that was never visual identified, like your trying to BVR an aim120, is simply wrong employment of the equipment in real life.This topic is much like that for the over G switch

 

Since weather was brought up, i am amazed there are not posts like this one screaming for the fix of multiplayer cloud syncing. If you are looking for new and exciting ways to make flying more intresting, weather is the single most influential variable that changes how we fly. But it doesn't go boom so its not as important as the AG radar i guess.

 

 

My impression has always been that ground radar (as it is implemented on multi-role jets like the Viper, Hornet, etc) is not really the "end all, be all" sensor but instead is just another useful tool in the toolbox. When I argue against the "ground radar is useless/wasted effort" crowd, I don't argue that it is something you should use as your sole sensor but instead as a option that will be more or less useful depending on the situation/context.

 

It is probably safe to assume that your own viewpoint (and the viewpoint of your peers no doubt) is shaped by the "airpower ecosystem" (for lack of a better term) that you worked inside. You had access to a lot of tools that were far, far more effective than just the ground radar on a Hornet. Sadly, DCS doesn't model a lot of those tools at all so it can get tricky to apply current, real world views on ground radar usefulness/practicality without running into issues.

 

At the risk of sounding like I am "theory crafting", in the real world, you probably had a JSTARS or something else on the radio that could tell you exactly where to go to find ground forces. You probably had a JTAC or some troops on the ground giving you (or someone who you might interact with) a good idea of where the targets are so that you can easily punch in where you want the pod to look. In real world conditions, the ground radar isn't going to be a super useful tool compared to the massive information structure that you had access to.

 

As I said before, DCS doesn't have a good chunk of that. We don't have JSTARS, we don't have tightly connected command and control, and we don't have the kind of datalink that you had access to. Without all those tools, finding a set of vehicles moving across a open desert with just your targeting pod and a waypoint isn't really practical. Suddenly that ground radar that isn't super useful in real life (nowadays) becomes very useful since it can help you point that targeting pod in the right place without having to scan miles of desert through what essentially amounts to a soda straw.

 

To be clear, I am not advocating for the ground radar to be given capabilities it doesn't have. I don't want it to be better than real life. That said, I don't think the dismissal I have seen in various DCS communities is a good idea either. Even your own statements in this thread will no doubt get twisted into something to the effect of "See, even this real world pilot thinks the AG radar is useless so why bother with it at all!" (even though that is not what you said).

[Curly]

Yea i have a pdf copy of those white papers DL somewhere . IM glad you shared them here as i didn't have the http links on hand. . Indeed really good stuff especially when considering the tech and timeframe of the APG70, but if im not mistaken as the paper says the 4 foot resolution was an upgraded improvement that came about around 1996/1997ish. IN any case im glad you brought it up because i didn't have the links at hand to cite those specific #'s from my head.

 

However comparatively APG76 is impressive for its time when it was capable of within a patch of 0.8 NM haivng a resolution of 1 foot. at 29.6 nautical miles.

 

With regards to the Hornet, If thats the particular resolution we are limited to in DCS at such a close at such a distance it not sound remotely as good as RUG 2 upgrades were suggested as being. That is assuming Lot 20's do in fact 100% certainty have RUG2's ( not doubting you but i just haven't seen any sources myself or definitive clarification or from ED on radar version).

 

 

From the 2001 training plan.

 

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/ntsp/f-18-a_2001.pdf

 

Page 19,

 

In FY98, Lot XX series F/A-18C/D Aircraft were delivered,integrating the Phase II AN/APG-73 RUG, ATARS, Joint Direct Attack Munitions, Joint Stand Off Weapon,

Initially The APG-76 was limited to a .8nm / 1.5 km patch with a resolution of 3 meters / 10 feet. Slightly less than resolution than the APG-70. Around the same time it recvived similar upgrades to 70 to achieve those resolutions.IE Upgardes to the IMU and more signal processing power.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3633660_Adaptation_of_ANAPG-76_multimode_radar_to_the_smuggling_interdiction_mission

Edited August 21, 2020 by Curly
added comments on the apg-76

[Kev2go]

From the 2001 training plan.

 

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/ntsp/f-18-a_2001.pdf

 

Page 19,

 

In FY98, Lot XX series F/A-18C/D Aircraft were delivered,integrating the Phase II AN/APG-73 RUG, ATARS, Joint Direct Attack Munitions, Joint Stand Off Weapon,

Initially The APG-76 was limited to a .8nm / 1.5 km patch with a resolution of 3 meters / 10 feet. Slightly less than resolution than the APG-70. Around the same time it recvived similar upgrades to 70 to achieve those resolutions.IE Upgardes to the IMU and more signal processing power.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3633660_Adaptation_of_ANAPG-76_multimode_radar_to_the_smuggling_interdiction_mission

 

:thumbup:

[LastRifleRound]

So we've established the Lot 20 most likely had the phase 2 radar. Lex, did you fly Lot 20's or later? Are you familiar with the upgraded map? Sorry I don't know much about your experience other than you and GB flew legacy Hornets.

[Curly]

So we've established the Lot 20 most likely had the phase 2 radar. Lex, did you fly Lot 20's or later? Are you familiar with the upgraded map? Sorry I don't know much about your experience other than you and GB flew legacy Hornets.

 

I'm not trying to answer for Lex, but even with the RUG 2 upgrades, I wouldn't expect the world. The displays in the cockpit are 480 by 480 pixels. Even with the increased capabilities of the SAR, you'll basically looking blobs.

 

 

 

1 meter resolution is still very grainy and given the display size the images wont resolve clearly.

 

 

 

Even down to .3 meter resolution it's is difficult to distinguish targets. The ultra high rez stuff that looks like photos, is likely 10 centimeter and below.

 

This is a set of targets at a .3 meter / 1 foot resolution at 128 by 128 pixels

Can You tell the bulldozer from the tank? Even that resolution is way beyond what the hornet is capable of.

 

Since were talking about a 1 meter resolution over .5 km on a 480 x 480 display a T-72 will resolve to a 9 by 3 pixel image.

 

The target strip comes from the MSTARS database, which is publicly available and often used in validation of auto target recognition software.

 

https://www.sdms.afrl.af.mil/index.php?collection=mstar&page=targets

[G B]

For security reasons, it would be inappropriate for Lex or myself to comment on any combat system or sensor. Even if those systems are old.