RWS is failing after last update?

[Tinchus2009]

Hello. Take a look at the tackview track I posted. Im facing a problem now where the F14 launches the AIM54s, at a very close distance (25/30 Nm???!!!), with no launch warning . Tha is expected because I guess AI is using the TWS launch mode. BUT, I should receive a RWS warning once the AIM54 heads activates its own radar. That is how it should works, how I think it was working at least 3 weeks ago. But now The misil is being lauched to me, and I get absolutely no warning at all. In the track I point my nose directly to the misil on purpuse to be sure that my RWS is on the same plane than the misil is. I got no warning at all

PD (I have cut the track so it is shorter, my pkane is the SU27 HANSO3D)

Tacview-20201226-001359-DCS-TF-74-Flanker_first.zip.acmi

 

Im flying DCS-openbeta, fully updated

Edited December 26, 2020 by Tinchus2009

[Ironhand]

It's a feature, not a bug.

 

You are correct. TRK attached. No alert, though, as far as I know, there should be once the AIM-54 goes active.

AIM-54_No Berioza Alert.trk

[Tinchus2009]

2 hours ago, Ironhand said:

It's a feature, not a bug.

 

You are correct. TRK attached. No alert, though, as far as I know, there should be once the AIM-54 goes active.

AIM-54_No Berioza Alert.trk 32.6 kB · 4 downloads

 

Fist of all, I want to thank you Ironhand for all your instructional videos, Im your fan.
I dont understand why is this called "a feature": I understand that launched in TWS mode, I should not receive a warning, but why Im not receiving anything once the missile goes active?

 

Update: I have seen you track, then you are confirming there is a bug here. That missile come straight to you and you received no warning when the missile went active

Edited December 26, 2020 by Tinchus2009

[Ironhand]

The problem is that the AIM-54 never goes active. In the attached TRK, the launching aircraft ceases to exist and the AIM-54 misses though I hardly changed course. It's not the Berioza. It's the missile.

AIM-54 Never Goes Active.trk

 

@Tinchus2009,

 

Sorry for the confusion. I just couldn't resist after Flyingeagle357's comment.

 

EDIT: POsted bug report here: 

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by Ironhand

[Cmptohocah]

Yup, the RWR should have been "bitchin'". I had something similar happen to me in multi player, but I assumed that the launch was out side of my RWR area of coverage - perhaps something similar happened to me also.

[Ironhand]

No. Turns out that this ARH missile isn’t going active. It just guides in on TWS as if it were SARH without the hard lock. Take the launching platform out of the equation and the missile goes stupid.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Ironhand

[Tinchus2009]

SO basically what we have here is an invincible oponent because the lauch happens before I even can shoot my R27s. Even using SD-10s woud not be possible here. Doing evassive maneouvers are also pointless since the AIM54 launched at that distance has more than enough energy to reach a maneouvering target.
This is like in real life is working?

 

But thinking a little more: this is not what Im observing: the F14 that is lauching these AIM54, launches the missile and the he just turn around, how is he keeping his TWS "lock" on my when he is giving me his 6 to me?

 

Also, the missile head shouldnt go active automatically or the pilot can choose to deactivate it and handle the missile all the way in TWS mode? Why The F14s are then just not using TWS mode all the time? the have more than enough time to keep enemy on the TWS before being shot.

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by Tinchus2009

[Cmptohocah]

34 minutes ago, Ironhand said:

No. Turns out that this ARH missile isn’t going active. It just guides in on TWS as if it were SARH without the hard lock. Take the launching platform out of the equation and the missile goes stupid.

 

There is no terminal guidance by the missile? Am I reading this correctly? Missile guided to its target through TWS?
 

[Ironhand]

If you watch my “never goes active” TRK, you’ll see the F-14 disappear and the AIM-54 go dumb just a few seconds before it would have otherwise impacted. In the bug thread I started, I posted a second TRK (virtually identical) in which the F-14 is not destroyed, and it guides right in on TWS.

 

Tinchus, if your F-14 turned away, then the issue is even worse because there is magical launching aircraft TWS guidance.

[Tinchus2009]

5 hours ago, Ironhand said:

If you watch my “never goes active” TRK, you’ll see the F-14 disappear and the AIM-54 go dumb just a few seconds before it would have otherwise impacted. In the bug thread I started, I posted a second TRK (virtually identical) in which the F-14 is not destroyed, and it guides right in on TWS.

 

Tinchus, if your F-14 turned away, then the issue is even worse because there is magical launching aircraft TWS guidance.

 

 

 

Here you have another tacview file: Im facing a F14, I shoot him my missile, a second later he shoots me his AIM54, and he immediately goes vertical to evade my missile. He even drp the tanks. I saw the AIM54 launch, and again I did my best to try to be in a good position to check if a warning would be triggered and also I did small evasive movements to the side so if the missile was not being guided by TWS, there is no chance the missile to follow those path changes, and if it did follow me using its head, for sure I should have gotten a warning: my bank angle was barely 5/10 degrees.

magical_aim54.zip.acmi

[Tinchus2009]

5 hours ago, Cmptohocah said:

There is no terminal guidance by the missile? Am I reading this correctly? Missile guided to its target through TWS?
 

 

Yes, that is what I think it is happening, OR the missile head is being active but there is no warning in the su27 defense systems

[Ironhand]

10 hours ago, Tinchus2009 said:

 

Yes, that is what I think it is happening, OR the missile head is being active but there is no warning in the su27 defense systems

They’re looking into what’s going on. The dev version seems to be working correctly but ours is not according to Bignewy.

[henshao]

as i understand things you should always get a warning when F-14 launches phoenix on you, even in TWS. the radar signal changes enough that a (good) RWR should be able to tell, with additional injected signals in the radar. but I could be wrong

[dundun92]

No, If RWRs gave datalink signal warnings for TWS launches, everyone in the general area (TWS scan area + sidelobes) would get an RWR warning. which is very much counter-productive in most scenarios.

[Cmptohocah]

1 hour ago, henshao said:

as i understand things you should always get a warning when F-14 launches phoenix on you, even in TWS. the radar signal changes enough that a (good) RWR should be able to tell, with additional injected signals in the radar. but I could be wrong

I don't know how it works in real life, but in DCS the RWR goes off when it detects the radiation from the active missile radar.

[Seaeagle]

On 1/5/2021 at 8:10 PM, dundun92 said:

No, If RWRs gave datalink signal warnings for TWS launches, everyone in the general area (TWS scan area + sidelobes) would get an RWR warning. which is very much counter-productive in most scenarios.

Actually  henshao may have a point. The F-14/AIM-54 is something of a special case and I am still a little baffled about how exactly it works.

 

But as far as I can gather, at least the initial version of the AIM-54 used semi-active radar for midcourse guidance(not INS/datalink). So I guess it employs a combined SARH/ARH seekerhead for the purpose, where the radar injects alternate target illumination(not sure whether PD or CW) for selected targets in TWS in order to guide the AIM-54 into target proximity after which ARH seeker mode is activated for terminal homing.

 

So I guess there could be a case for thinking that an RWR could detect this(midcourse guidance).

Edited January 10, 2021 by Seaeagle

[GGTharos]

It used datalink to point the sensor at the target, as well as a couple of other things like setting up doppler and range gates.   But the missile pretty much homed in all the way; it knew the doppler and range gate and where to look, which gave it the ability to pick up its own target via SARH and deal with guiding to it.

This mitigates INS errors to a great extent IMHO.  You don't need to inject anything into TWS for this - you've got TWS+DL.

 

The difference between this and STT+DL is that the RWR knows that this data-link is all about you, specifically, ergo cue the launch warning.  With TWS you have no idea who's being shot at, and your RWR certainly doesn't know you're the only ship within however large the scan volume is.

 

 

Edited January 10, 2021 by GGTharos

[Seaeagle]

Well if thats how it works - I just got the impression that the initial AIM-54 didn't have datalink. I also don't quite understand how the seeker can pick its own target in SARH without the launching radar providing any other target illumination than regular TWS operation.

 

 

[GGTharos]

It's picking up the momentary reflections while TWS is scanning.  This is used for mid-course only.

[henshao]

in my experience the AIM-54's midcourse guidance is good enough that it will hit you or get close enough to proxy fuze even if the launching f-14 is destroyed, if you don't maneuver. IIRC some variant of R-27 was actually designed to do this

[GGTharos]

No, this is a DCSism.  Any missile could theoretically fly to a target which is intermittently (but regularly) illuminated, but getting a hit from this would be pure luck.

Edited January 11, 2021 by GGTharos

[Seaeagle]

16 hours ago, GGTharos said:

It's picking up the momentary reflections while TWS is scanning.  This is used for mid-course only.

I know - what I meant was that with other SARH systems, the radar separates its emission between own target tracking and target illumination for the missile seeker or use an alternate waveform(CW) for the purpose.

[Seaeagle]

11 hours ago, henshao said:

in my experience the AIM-54's midcourse guidance is good enough that it will hit you or get close enough to proxy fuze even if the launching f-14 is destroyed, if you don't maneuver.

But the AIM-54 seeker uses active radar for terminal homing, which is not dependant on the launching radar and perfectly capable of chasing down a manouverable target.

11 hours ago, henshao said:

IIRC some variant of R-27 was actually designed to do this

You are probably thinking of the proposed R-27AE, but this had an ARH seeker.

[henshao]

8 hours ago, Seaeagle said:

But the AIM-54 seeker uses active radar for terminal homing, which is not dependant on the launching radar and perfectly capable of chasing down a manouverable target.

You are probably thinking of the proposed R-27AE, but this had an ARH seeker.

 

unlike the AIM-120, the AIM-54 must be ordered to go active by the launching aircraft. If the F-14 is destroyed while an AIM-54 is on the way, the missile will just fly its ballistic path until it times out or hits something. What I am saying is that if you are fired upon, fly straight and level, and kill the Tomcat/the Tomcat dies before it orders the missile to go active...you may still be struck by a completely blind AIM-54 on a ballistic path, because it was already on an intercept course...in my experience with DCS. What I have heard is that some semi-active R-27s were designed to also be able to strike non-maneuvering targets, with only intermittent updates from the launching aircraft.

Edited January 11, 2021 by henshao

[Seaeagle]

14 hours ago, henshao said:

 

unlike the AIM-120, the AIM-54 must be ordered to go active by the launching aircraft.

Yeah thats my understanding as well.

14 hours ago, henshao said:

If the F-14 is destroyed while an AIM-54 is on the way, the missile will just fly its ballistic path until it times out or hits something. What I am saying is that if you are fired upon, fly straight and level, and kill the Tomcat/the Tomcat dies before it orders the missile to go active...you may still be struck by a completely blind AIM-54 on a ballistic path, because it was already on an intercept course...in my experience with DCS.

Ok I understand what you are saying, but I would say there it would be a very slim chance(risk) of that, since the missile doesn't even have an INS to steer it to last known intercept point - just flying straight. The question is also whether the warhead is armed/proximity fuze activated in connection with the command to activate the terminal ARH mode on the real missile.

14 hours ago, henshao said:

What I have heard is that some semi-active R-27s were designed to also be able to strike non-maneuvering targets, with only intermittent updates from the launching aircraft.

I doubt it - not the R-27R/ER anyway. The only other SARH version of the R-27 would be the R-27EM, but development was abandonned decades ago and very little is known about.