AWG-9 track not breakable with jammer yet

[Max1mus]

On 12/3/2021 at 9:29 PM, Northstar98 said:

Right now, in DCS, there's a grand total of 1 RADAR on a module that features the effects of track breaking (gate-pull off), yes, that's right 1.

And AFAIK, only the FC3 aircraft, the Hornet and the Mirage 2000C feature the effects of noise jamming/range denial.

Most radars do this. Su-27, Su-33, J-11A, MiG-29A, MiG-29S, MiG-29G, F-15C and i believe even the MiG-21, M2000 and F-5 have their tracks broken by ECM.

The F-16 has its detection range cut by around 25% by ECM. On all modules, the AIM-120 stops lofting on a target using ECM.

By the way, i love the F-14. Out of all the western aircraft, its the one i would actually want to fly. Before i saw the pre-release build, i was going to preorder it. Unfortunately, its still way too incomplete. And this two-fold ECM issue is one of the major things still missing (blinking mechanic abuse with no effect on AWG-9 unlike the F-18s SPJ + AWG-9 being immune to enemy jammers and chaff).

Im sure some of you have tried the TWS modes in the Su-27, MiG-29S etc. Have you noticed how it immediately throws you out of the mode if there is any jammer on your scope (not the target, literally anywhere on the scope!)? This is because the old processor on these soviet radars. And those are from the 80s! While the DCS F-14 is from the mid-90s, the AWG-9 technology is even older than that of those old MiGs.

Surely, Heatblur can match the fidelity of a Flaming Cliffs 2 module from 10 years ago?

Edited December 4, 2021 by Max1mus

[Northstar98]

On 12/4/2021 at 8:45 PM, Max1mus said:

Most radars do this. Su-27, Su-33, J-11A, MiG-29A, MiG-29S, MiG-29G, F-15C

All of these are noise jamming only last time I checked, and the effects modelled is the result of noise jamming/range denial which is more of a brute force OECM technique, and not a DECM technique as would actually be employed by our modules.

HOJ modes and angle-on-jam are most effective against this mode as it's continuous, being little more than the equivalent of jamming a conversation by shouting over someone.

On 12/4/2021 at 8:45 PM, Max1mus said:

MiG-21, M2000 and F-5 have their tracks broken by ECM.

The Mirage 2000C's RADAR has gate-pull offs and noise jamming/range denial simulated, I've never had anything that I can remember on the F-5E and MiG-21bis, but I'll quickly run a check, whatch this space.

EDIT: Both the F-5E and MiG-21bis will also display a jamming strobe, but I've so far not seen it drop a track. I've seen them fail to establish a track (both would use a range gate, and noise jamming can deny range, which would cause the range-gate to not establish, provided these modules have their range-gates simulated).

But note, this track breaking technique is due to range denial from noise jamming, not a range gate pull-off technique as you'd find in a real DECM system.

On 12/4/2021 at 8:45 PM, Max1mus said:

The F-16 has its detection range cut by around 25% by ECM.

That's odd, noise jamming would make a target more obvious, just maybe no range information.

On 12/4/2021 at 8:45 PM, Max1mus said:

On all modules, the AIM-120 stops lofting on a target using ECM.

Seeing as apart from the F/A-18C, all jammers do noise jamming (which can have the secondary effect of denying range), this would be accurate - the AMRAAM shouldn't loft if it's being launched on a target with no ranging information AFAIK.

On 12/4/2021 at 8:45 PM, Max1mus said:

By the way, i love the F-14. Out of all the western aircraft, its the one i would actually want to fly. Before i saw the pre-release build, i was going to preorder it. Unfortunately, its still way too incomplete. And this two-fold ECM issue is one of the major things still missing (blinking mechanic abuse with no effect on AWG-9 unlike the F-18s SPJ + AWG-9 being immune to enemy jammers and chaff).

Right now only the Mirage 2000C has a RADAR that takes chaff into account and has suitable fidelity to implement things like track breaking through a gate pull-off.

On 12/4/2021 at 8:45 PM, Max1mus said:

Im sure some of you have tried the TWS modes in the Su-27, MiG-29S etc. Have you noticed how it immediately throws you out of the mode if there is any jammer on your scope (not the target, literally anywhere on the scope!)?

Not familiar with that unfortunately.

EDIT: Seeing it drop out of TWS, I'm guessing this due to the noise jamming strobe causing the creation of multiple track files that quickly surpasses the number of trackfiles their TWS modes can handle.

On 12/4/2021 at 8:45 PM, Max1mus said:

This is because the old processor on these soviet radars. And those are from the 80s! While the DCS F-14 is from the mid-90s, the AWG-9 technology is even older than that of those old MiGs.

Surely, Heatblur can match the fidelity of a Flaming Cliffs 2 module from 10 years ago?

Again, they might have a harder task on their hand due to how information is presented and the presence of ECCM controls.

FC aircraft are simplified, and so is their ECM and ECM effects. And right now there's only 1 RADAR in DCS equipped to handle track-breaking via gate pull-off.

Edited December 10, 2021 by Northstar98

[okopanja]

34 minutes ago, Northstar98 said:

1 hour ago, Max1mus said:

Most radars do this. Su-27, Su-33, J-11A, MiG-29A, MiG-29S, MiG-29G, F-15C

All of these are noise jamming only last time I checked, and the effects modelled is the result of noise jamming/range denial which is more of a brute force OECM technique, and not a DECM technique as would actually be employed by our modules.

I did not want to quote your whole quote, but are we talking here about 2 different things:

1. resistance to jamming of your own radar
2. your own ability the other radar

I think he is talking about 1 and you are replying to 2. The title of this post suggests that AWG-9 is too resistant to jamming. Also as for the promise that this is on the roadmap: I can place your wish on the roadmap and then simply never fulfill it (I can find at least 10 different excuses for not doing it!). If this extends for 2-3 years obviously ED needs to apply pressure on Heatblur to start moving.

Please note that F-14 did find itself banned or had their weapon load out reduced on major servers in the past, so we are not talking nonsense here.

IMHO: HB should provide the option for mission developers/servers to turn off the unrealistic ECM as a temporary workaround it least.

[Northstar98]

18 hours ago, okopanja said:

I did not want to quote your whole quote, but are we talking here about 2 different things:

1. resistance to jamming of your own radar
2. your own ability the other radar

"Your own ability the other RADAR"? Can you rephrase that, I genuinely don't know what you mean.

But regardless no, we're talking about jamming effects on your own RADAR (not necessarily resistance).

The FC3 aircraft, the MiG-21bis, F/A-18C, F-5E-3 and Mirage 2000C all have the effects of noise jamming/range denial implemented.

The Mirage 2000C also has gate pull-off simulated, and AFAIK, is the only one to have this so far.

So far only the Hornet's ECM actually behaves like a DECM system (track breaking) EDIT: but only against AI units, otherwise it behaves exactly like the same noise jammer/range denial systems of everything else (thanks QuiGon). The rest are all noise jamming/range denial, which is more of an OECM technique. The outlier again, is the Mirage 2000C, which when its in STT treats other jammers as track breakers.

18 hours ago, okopanja said:

I think he is talking about 1 and you are replying to 2. The title of this post suggests that AWG-9 is too resistant to jamming. Also as for the promise that this is on the roadmap: I can place your wish on the roadmap and then simply never fulfill it (I can find at least 10 different excuses for not doing it!). If this extends for 2-3 years obviously ED needs to apply pressure on Heatblur to start moving.

The problem is the Tomcat doesn't have any jamming effects modelled on its RADAR, and its ECCM controls are non-functional.

The Tomcat's ECM incidentally, according to its manual is merely the same noise jamming that DCS as a whole uses, but its transmit behaviour is governed by DECM logic (i.e it only transmits when a RADAR in a track/fire-control mode is detected, and it stops transmitting once this is no longer the case).

Edited December 5, 2021 by Northstar98
addendum based on QuiGon's comments

[QuiGon]

1 hour ago, Northstar98 said:

So far only the Hornet's ECM actually behaves like a DECM system (track breaking)

Only against AI units though. The Hornet jammer doesn't behave any different compared to other jammers in DCS if employed against a player controlled aircraft, because in that case the effects depend on the player aircraft that is being jammed and what jamming effects it has modelled.

Edited December 5, 2021 by QuiGon

[Northstar98]

1 minute ago, QuiGon said:

Only against AI units though. The Hornet jammer doesn't behave any different compared to other jammers in DCS if employed against a player controlled aircraft.

Indeed, thanks for the correction

[Max1mus]

Guys, the flaming cliffs and MiG-21 radars have their tracks broken when said target turns on its jammer above burnthrough range. The F-18 ECM turns on when locked and breaks their tracks, and by doing that, it disables its own radar temporarily.

I think it was already embarrassing that FC3 modules had a more in-depth ECM modelling than the F-14. Now, with even full fidelity modules starting to have those interactions modelled, i dont think Heatblur has an excuse to not get moving.

At the very least, the AIM-54 should stop lofting on jamming targets. This should be extremely easy to implement, given how fast ED did it.

Edited December 5, 2021 by Max1mus

[near_blind]

3 hours ago, Max1mus said:

The F-18 ECM turns on when locked and breaks their tracks, and by doing that, it disables its own radar temporarily.

Which also happens to be an incorrect implementation of how that jammer works, probably due to a misinterpreted manual graphic combined with a limited understanding of the system being plastered over a woefully underdeveloped EW "environment". I'd rather HB avoid that kind of "solution"

[Karon]

On 12/5/2021 at 2:33 PM, Max1mus said:

Guys, the flaming cliffs and MiG-21 radars have their tracks broken when said target turns on its jammer above burnthrough range. The F-18 ECM turns on when locked and breaks their tracks, and by doing that, it disables its own radar temporarily.

I think it was already embarrassing that FC3 modules had a more in-depth ECM modelling than the F-14. Now, with even full fidelity modules starting to have those interactions modelled, i dont think Heatblur has an excuse to not get moving.

At the very least, the AIM-54 should stop lofting on jamming targets. This should be extremely easy to implement, given how fast ED did it.

 

Right, a bunch of stuff here made me chuckle:

• ED and "fast" in the same sentence. The missile API was announced in October 2019. A very rough implementation applied by HB and  released in November 2020 and yet, here we are, in December 2021 waiting for features from ED that should make the AIM-54 more realistic. They may have done one thing fast, but I have the feeling this is part of the missiles overhaul that has been going on for years now (and announced years before).
  "Fast" is not really they modus operandi. They are not a huge company. I'm not complaining, though, they can take all the time they need, as long is it is done thoroughly.
• Heatblur and "an excuse to not get moving". The RIO has a number of controls aimed to somewhat "compensate" for the ECM in some conditions (it does not compensate for, but you get the point, hopefully). This means implementing an interactive ECM system, something DCS is probably not capable to deliver right now.
  If I were in HB, I wouldn't waste resources in a half-backed implementation that does not work and has to be redone from scratch later, especially since ED is now finally moving on the CM/ECM side. (IIRC they said the same thing about a decade ago, and only now they are delivering - ref previous point). Not to mention how disappoint would be for the dedicated RIO players.
• The F-14 should drop loft or something. I advise you to check the tests conducted on 12/04/1973, this is how I summarized it for my book:

  Quote

  12th April 1073

  Scored the longest known air-to-air guided missile intercept. The F-14 intercepted a simulated Tupolev T-22 Backfire. The target was flying at 52,000ft at a speed of Mach 1.55; the F-14 at Mach 1.45 at 45,000ft.
  The AWG-9 detected the Tupolev in Track-While-Scan at 132nm.
  The Phoenix was launched at 110 nm, the missile reached an altitude of 103,500ft (~31.5km), before passing 5ft from the target at 75nm.
  The simulated bomber was also using an on-off blinking noise jammer but failed to jam the AIM-54 Phoenix.

  Quoting directly Huges Aircraft Company:

  Quote

  [..] As would be expected in a real attack, the target was using an on-off blinking noise jammer to confuse radar defenses.
  [..] During flight, the Phoenix reached a high point in its trajectory of 103,500 feet. No other known air-to-air missile has ever flown so far and high and intercept its target.

  Thank god it should not loft according to you, otherwise it would have reached 200,000ft minimum lol
  Also, isn't the noise jammer pretty much what we have in DCS? It'd be a shame if the AWG9/AIM-54 would just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and carry on, innit?

 

Now, I get it, querying Google is hard and ranting on a forum is an easy way to vent off. But if you stop and think for 3", you should probably find a better solution than a waste of devs time on something that won't work. For example, you can go to ED and ask them to introduce a flag in the mission editor that disables every ECM in the game. If they don't want, perhaps the ME can set some malfunctions at spawn to the ECM devices to disable them. This will give everyone a way to disable the ECM until every module is up to the same good standard, and also give more time to the devs and ED to do it properly.

Personally, ECMs can be disabled entirely until they are ready to be released across the board. However, if the F-14 is to be affected by jammers, then I want to be able to use all the fancy tools I have in the backseat (which probably do little to nothing anyway) to find the source and do my best to fight it. I'd rather wait 5 more years than having a crap implementation.

Edited December 10, 2021 by Karon

[Northstar98]

On 12/6/2021 at 12:29 PM, Karon said:

Also, isn't the noise jammer pretty much what we have in DCS?

Yes, all jammers apart from the Hornet (though only against AI), are simulated as noise jammers, which also denies range. AFAIK (which really isn't much), this is more of a brute force OECM (offensive) technique, than a DECM (defensive) technique (though it might be useful in track breaking by upsetting a range gate).

With the Hornet its AN/ALQ-165 ASPJ (which should actually be an AN/ALQ-126B, AN/ALQ-165 ASPJ is a Superhornet thing AFAIK), functions as track-breaking DECM, but only against AI units (which have simplified sensors).

Most ECM systems that we have in DCS (at least for modules) IRL are DECM systems rather than OECM systems, and I imagine these will be mostly geared towards track-breaking.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Northstar98

[IronMike]

On 12/3/2021 at 10:08 PM, Csgo GE oh yeah said:

There's also only a grand total of 1 ECM that uses a mechanic (blinking) that is known to cause issues with DCS.

 

It is not causing issues to DCS. It is causing issues to you and your tactics.

The entire topic of jamming has already been acknowledged as WIP and will come in due time.

[_Hoss]

On 12/6/2021 at 6:32 AM, Northstar98 said:

Yes, all jammers apart from the Hornet (though only against AI), are simulated as noise jammers, which also denies range. AFAIK (which really isn't much), this is more of a brute force OECM (offensive) technique, than a DECM (defensive) technique (though it might be useful in track breaking by upsetting a range gate).

With the Hornet its AN/ALQ-165 ASPJ (which should actually be an AN/ALQ-126B, AN/ALQ-165 ASPJ is a Superhornet thing), functions as track-breaking DECM, but only against AI units (which have simplified sensors).

Most ECM systems that we have in DCS (at least for modules) IRL are DECM systems rather than OECM systems, and I imagine these will be mostly geared towards track-breaking.

 

You are almost correct, but you have a better understanding of DECM than most of the other comments I have read in this post. Question: If you are in a US Navy Aircraft and you go up against a IIAF F-4 or a F-14, what are you going to do? What is the piece of gear rushed into service to decieve those RADARS? This goes back to the Gulf War between Iran and Iraq. Operation Preying Mantis April 18, 1988. We actually had IIAF F-4's come out to intercept our Airwing while we were sinking their ships. I quickly had to learn how to operationally test this piece of equipment. DECM has a memory that's called a threat library, that I.D.s all the RADAR by their finger prints it has on file, (PRF/PW) of the received signals it sees. If the DECM signal received is not in that library the repeater will put out a noise technique that is continuous, instead of a pulse for pulse deception technique (they effect range and azimuth) designed to break lock. But only when the received signal reaches a predetermined input sensitivity in the receiver. It will also turn off (stop repeating) when the signal reaches another threshold. So, just because you switch from Receive to repeat does not mean it starts repeating. I read another post on APG-63 RADAR, the guy believed the power at the antenna was 12kw..the AN/APG-65, AN/APG-73 and also the AN/ALQ-126B all have the same exact output power, and its no where near 12kw. LMAO!

And I believe Karon is correct, I think you are just seeing noise from the enemy when he transmits on his DECM or ECM.

ANSWER: It was the AN/DLQ-3B and it was a pod hung on the wing.

I love these posts. 

Cheers 

Hoss

USN ret. 77-97

Edited December 11, 2021 by 352nd_Hoss

[Nu-NRG]

Also, BTW, anyone listened to the story about AIM-54 HOJ on tomcast? I'd have that implemented, since there is so much talk about jammers

Edited January 5, 2022 by Nu-NRG

[Southernbear]

On 5/7/2021 at 9:59 AM, Max1mus said:

Soviet, RuAf and PLAAF fighters above around 25 miles.

Maybe you should just switch to the IR R-27 given they've since had a range rework making them more effective now. No jamming, no problem.