Searching for proof of underperforming AN/APG-73 radar

[Tholozor]

27 minutes ago, hein22 said:

Is the F16 similar to the 18 now? Or is it still detecting targets like an F15?

F-16 had its radar adjusted in a similar manner a while back; slightly less range than the 18 though.

[Harlikwin]

2 hours ago, hein22 said:

 

Right now an AWACS, with its gigantic dish, is losing a contact that's cold at 25nm (in relation to the AWACS itself). That doesn't sound right at all. So Hornet accurate or not, the radar detection thing is officially broken IMHO.

It's no way possible that an AWACS has the same low aspect PD of a Hornet.

Is the F16 similar to the 18 now? Or is it still detecting targets like an F15?

 

So lets not fuddle up the thread with AWACS radars, those are rather different kettle of fish than fighter radars. If a target is cold then if a HPRF waveform is being used it could certainly vanish as HPRF has issues with cold and beaming targets. I don't offhand know the frequencies that the SPY-1/2 uses but the SPY-9 on the E2 is a UHF band radar not, X band like fighters, so comparisons in terms of range dish size etc become rather tricky.

 

As for the F18/16 yes the 16 is now a bit worse than the F-18. And supposedly the F15 range for Fc3 is being "upgraded".

 

 

 

[TLTeo]

And more importantly AWACS radars in DCS are handled by the AI and therefore modelled to much less fidelity than full fidelity modules anyway.

[Harlikwin]

4 minutes ago, TLTeo said:

And more importantly AWACS radars in DCS are handled by the AI and therefore modelled to much less fidelity than full fidelity modules anyway.

yup, there is no "Simulation" for those, just hey should this guy see it "rules" or not. so its likely if you are cold, the AI doesn't see you or has a % chance of not seeing you.

 

Edited October 28, 2021 by Harlikwin

[Harker]

yup, there is no "Simulation" for those, just hey should this guy see it "rules" or not. so its likely if you are cold, the AI doesn't see you or has a % chance of not seeing you.
 

AFAIK, high fidelity radars work the same. There is no radar simulation at all. It's all a set of attributes. Is there an aircraft in XYZ point? Is the player's radar pointing to XYZ? Is the target hot/cold/beaming etc? Is the PRF appropriate for the target's velocity? Is the target in range of that radar, in that PRF mode? Is the target jamming?

If everything above is satisfied according to the situation in question, then you get a brick or track on your radar display. The track info is also not provided by your radar, but by the target itself (the simulation tells your display to show that altitude, Mach, heading). There is no "radar", there are attributes and then your display in the cockpit.

Think about the fact that, the same aircraft, in the same scenario, is going to show up at exactly the same range, every single time you run a test.

It's even simpler for the A/G radar. MAP is just a terrain overlay with a LOS calculation for the radar shadow. Notice how we don't see trees, for example. GMT simply sees if a unit is close to ground, moves between certain speed limits and is not obscured by terrain. If those conditions are satisfied, a brick pops up.

[hein22]

59 minutes ago, Harker said:

AFAIK, high fidelity radars work the same. There is no radar simulation at all. It's all a set of attributes. Is there an aircraft in XYZ point? Is the player's radar pointing to XYZ? Is the target hot/cold/beaming etc? Is the PRF appropriate for the target's velocity? Is the target in range of that radar, in that PRF mode? Is the target jamming?

If everything above is satisfied according to the situation in question, then you get a brick or track on your radar display. The track info is also not provided by your radar, but by the target itself (the simulation tells your display to show that altitude, Mach, heading). There is no "radar", there are attributes and then your display in the cockpit.

Think about the fact that, the same aircraft, in the same scenario, is going to show up at exactly the same range, every single time you run a test.

It's even simpler for the A/G radar. MAP is just a terrain overlay with a LOS calculation for the radar shadow. Notice how we don't see trees, for example. GMT simply sees if a unit is close to ground, moves between certain speed limits and is not obscured by terrain. If those conditions are satisfied, a brick pops up.

Exactly my point. Thanks.

 

[Harlikwin]

5 hours ago, Harker said:

AFAIK, high fidelity radars work the same. There is no radar simulation at all. It's all a set of attributes. Is there an aircraft in XYZ point? Is the player's radar pointing to XYZ? Is the target hot/cold/beaming etc? Is the PRF appropriate for the target's velocity? Is the target in range of that radar, in that PRF mode? Is the target jamming?

If everything above is satisfied according to the situation in question, then you get a brick or track on your radar display. The track info is also not provided by your radar, but by the target itself (the simulation tells your display to show that altitude, Mach, heading). There is no "radar", there are attributes and then your display in the cockpit.

Think about the fact that, the same aircraft, in the same scenario, is going to show up at exactly the same range, every single time you run a test.

It's even simpler for the A/G radar. MAP is just a terrain overlay with a LOS calculation for the radar shadow. Notice how we don't see trees, for example. GMT simply sees if a unit is close to ground, moves between certain speed limits and is not obscured by terrain. If those conditions are satisfied, a brick pops up.

 

Ah, well you haven't seen the new razbam radar model. Not in game yet, but its promising. And I can't believe I'm praising them for doing it, but we will see how it goes once its in. But yeah you are likely correct on the rest of it, rules based, at least for the ED ones. Not sure what HB does. But it sort of underscores a serious problem of "different standards" for ED, 3rd party devs etc, when it comes to modeling A/A radars in general. We have an FC3 standard, then some mysterious and ever shifting ED standard, and then 3rd party standards. Which frankly makes MP kinda suck. ED needs to standardize this with some sort of API across modules, perhaps not easy, but more or it will be required at some point. I'm glad they did the AG radar API, but AFAIK they are the only ones using it.

4 hours ago, hein22 said:

Exactly my point. Thanks.

 

your point was something something something about awacs... Not much of a point really. But regradless of freq, HPRF should will have issues with cold targets. 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Harlikwin

[hein22]

43 minutes ago, Harlikwin said:

 

 

your point was something something something about awacs... Not much of a point really. But regradless of freq, HPRF should will have issues with cold targets. 

 

Lol, thanks for the punch.

I don't know why you keep mentioning high prf frankly. I just said that AWACS should detect a cold target at 25nm, that's all. Neither you or me know what prf setting the AI is using inside the awacs, and even more there is no reason for it to use a different one. Besides AI doesn't need prf, they just detect things, period.

Your point about radar simulation was incorrect as pointed out by harker, there is simply no simulation at all.

For the sake of good gameplay and immersion I think an AWACS should perform better, that's all.

If a hornet can detect a cold target at 20nm, then a giant AWACS can detect it at 25nm... I certainly think you'll agree with this.

Edited October 29, 2021 by hein22

[IkarusC42B Pilot]

What has this thread come to

[Harlikwin]

11 hours ago, hein22 said:

Lol, thanks for the punch.

I don't know why you keep mentioning high prf frankly. I just said that AWACS should detect a cold target at 25nm, that's all. Neither you or me know what prf setting the AI is using inside the awacs, and even more there is no reason for it to use a different one. Besides AI doesn't need prf, they just detect things, period.

Your point about radar simulation was incorrect as pointed out by harker, there is simply no simulation at all.

For the sake of good gameplay and immersion I think an AWACS should perform better, that's all.

If a hornet can detect a cold target at 20nm, then a giant AWACS can detect it at 25nm... I certainly think you'll agree with this.

 

 

Simply put, you think the awacs is the eye of sauron and should see a target at 25 miles. I merely pointed out its not and why it might not see that target. There are tons of examples of AWACS not seeing targets, or better yet misidentifying them leading to blue on blues, which mercifully isn't a thing in DCS due to our perfect IFF. 

 

[hein22]

10 minutes ago, Harlikwin said:

 

Simply put, you think the awacs is the eye of sauron and should see a target at 25 miles. I merely pointed out its not and why it might not see that target. There are tons of examples of AWACS not seeing targets, or better yet misidentifying them leading to blue on blues, which mercifully isn't a thing in DCS due to our perfect IFF. 

 

I never said an AWACS is magic. Get it? Magic? Callsign? Heheheheh, sorry I couldn't resist.

But really, I never said that nor I think that.

You are bringing a lot of confusion to the table and mixing topics here like IFF. Trust me, an AWACS will see a cold target at 25nm, they don't just use doppler shift for search. Anyway, let's not go offtopic, PM me if you'd like to go further on how an AWACS works.

I think we all hope the same thing: ED adjusting things so as to reflect as much as possible real life procedures and behaviors.

Edited October 29, 2021 by hein22

[Mr_Blastman]

I thought I was going insane with poor detection until I read this thread.  I come from BMS where radar felt like it worked a bit differently and targets I clearly could have detected at long ranges I cannot in DCS at all.  That I was not able to see a red AWACS target such as a Su-33, Mig-25 or Mig-21  turn into a detected blip at 40 NM in  Hornet was driving me insane.

 

I have noticed though that I have much better luck detecting things in RWS versus TWS.  TWS feels very sketchy and was often the go-to in the Viper.

 

Edited November 3, 2021 by Mr_Blastman

[WarbossPetross]

1 час назад, Mr_Blastman сказал:

I thought I was going insane with poor detection until I read this thread.  I come from BMS where radar felt like it worked a bit differently and targets I clearly could have detected at long ranges I cannot in DCS at all.  That I was not able to see a red AWACS target such as a Su-33, Mig-25 or Mig-21  turn into a detected blip at 40 NM in  Hornet was driving me insane.

 

I have noticed though that I have much better luck detecting things in RWS versus TWS.  TWS feels very sketchy and was often the go-to in the Viper.

Not too much of a surprise there. BMS has its roots all the way in 1998, and while I'm no expert on BMS (only played Allied Force) they may or may not have changed the radar code. In DCS radar code simulates target RCS, ground, clouds and what have you, while the Falcon implementation could hardly account for all this all the way back then. Ditto the Trick While Scam target retention. I also had massive problems seeing, well, anything until I started to fiddle with the scan zone and elevation.

[Mr_Blastman]

7 hours ago, WarbossPetross said:

Not too much of a surprise there. BMS has its roots all the way in 1998, and while I'm no expert on BMS (only played Allied Force) they may or may not have changed the radar code. In DCS radar code simulates target RCS, ground, clouds and what have you, while the Falcon implementation could hardly account for all this all the way back then. Ditto the Trick While Scam target retention. I also had massive problems seeing, well, anything until I started to fiddle with the scan zone and elevation.

The thing I have noticed is in my experience elevation rarely solves my detection issues.  As long as a target within the in hi/low value of the scan box then that should solve this issue, and they are and still can't be detected until really close.  What's odd is sometimes I'll be locked by a 29 or 33 when they are at 80 - 90 nm and I can't even see them on the scope, even in a Viper.

[GGTharos]

You shouldn't expect to see a fighter on radar much past 40nm in either the hornet or the viper.   As for Su-27's and Su-33 locks from afar - they may in fact not even be locking you, but that's a DCS AI thing.

Edited November 3, 2021 by GGTharos

[Harlikwin]

9 hours ago, Mr_Blastman said:

TWS feels very sketchy and was often the go-to in the Viper.

 

 

RL pilots seldom use TWS in the Viper cuz its janky apparently. 

8 hours ago, WarbossPetross said:

Not too much of a surprise there. BMS has its roots all the way in 1998, and while I'm no expert on BMS (only played Allied Force) they may or may not have changed the radar code. In DCS radar code simulates target RCS, ground, clouds and what have you, while the Falcon implementation could hardly account for all this all the way back then. Ditto the Trick While Scam target retention. I also had massive problems seeing, well, anything until I started to fiddle with the scan zone and elevation.

LOL, no... Where did you get that silly idea? Also in DCS IR missiles work through clouds as does IRST (not so IRL)

[WarbossPetross]

43 минуты назад, Harlikwin сказал:

RL pilots seldom use TWS in the Viper cuz its janky apparently. 

LOL, no... Where did you get that silly idea? Also in DCS IR missiles work through clouds as does IRST (not so IRL)

MiG-21 radar shows clouds if you leave the weather filter off.

[hein22]

2 hours ago, WarbossPetross said:

MiG-21 radar shows clouds if you leave the weather filter off.

I think that's a Heatblur code, not DCS.

[Cepheus76]

11 hours ago, WarbossPetross said:

. Ditto the Trick While Scam target retention. I also had massive problems seeing, well, anything until I started to fiddle with the scan zone and elevation.

I know that you probably fell victim to some  auto-correct function, but I just love the notion of having a trick-while-scam radar

[WarbossPetross]

21 минуту назад, hein22 сказал:

I think that's a Heatblur code, not DCS.

Magnitude 3 then, they develop the module.

6 минут назад, Cepheus76 сказал:

I know that you probably fell victim to some  auto-correct function, but I just love the notion of having a trick-while-scam radar

No, pun intended! It's just that in TWS the radar is forced to divide its attention between multiple targets and look at their anticipated location to check whether they're still there, so if the target does some of that pilot sh-t it may effectively disappear and break the lock so you will have to reacquire.

[Weasel]

You shouldn't expect to see a fighter on radar much past 40nm in either the hornet or the viper.   As for Su-27's and Su-33 locks from afar - they may in fact not even be locking you, but that's a DCS AI thing.

I don‘t want to hijack this thread but may I ask a question: Why is it that dificult to detect an airplane like a Mig-29 or Su-27 past 40nm?

[GGTharos]

22 minutes ago, Weasel said:

I don‘t want to hijack this thread but may I ask a question: Why is it that dificult to detect an airplane like a Mig-29 or Su-27 past 40nm?

Because the APG-73 is a small radar with limited power.

[Harlikwin]

2 hours ago, Weasel said:

I don‘t want to hijack this thread but may I ask a question: Why is it that dificult to detect an airplane like a Mig-29 or Su-27 past 40nm?

Cuz thats about the range of your radar. 

2 hours ago, WarbossPetross said:

Magnitude 3 then, they develop the module.

No, pun intended! It's just that in TWS the radar is forced to divide its attention between multiple targets and look at their anticipated location to check whether they're still there, so if the target does some of that pilot sh-t it may effectively disappear and break the lock so you will have to reacquire.

Actually it was a Leatherneck module, which then split into M3 and Heatblur. So technically it was likely what became heatblurs code for the radar.

[TLTeo]

On a semi related note,

looks like the Jeff is getting its radar performance normalized to other fighters which is nice. Looks like radars are more or less getting tuned in the right direction.

Edited November 3, 2021 by TLTeo

[hein22]

51 minutes ago, TLTeo said:

On a semi related note,

looks like the Jeff is getting its radar performance normalized to other fighters which is nice. Looks like radars are more or less getting tuned in the right direction.

 

Wow!

So where are we standing right now? Let's see:

1. Hornet's radar range adjusted to actual values
2. Viper's radar range adjusted to actual values
3. Jeff's radar range adjusted to actual values
4. Mirage?
5. Tomcat?
6. Others?