Aim-54 CCM

[GGTharos]

1 hour ago, DCSoping said:

Excuse me but I also don’t see how technology from 1994 could have ever ended up in a missile of which the last one was made in 1983 ??
(I am not only talking about chaff resisting, this is about general tracking ability of the phoenix - A variant being 'on par' with the 20 years younger 120 B amraam.)

Right, that's a fair question so let's state a couple of important things:

1) The 'big thing' about the AIM-120 was the miniaturization of the 54's capability into that missile.  This is very, very significant and is a different type of jump than analog -> digital

2) The AIM-54 both in the A and C versions has been constantly upgraded.  The A required upgrade immediately, and it got them.

So, the idea here is that the AIM-54C has a lot of volume, literally, to have 'as much capability' as a younger missile.  The capability won't be the same, but if you think of what we're talking about - eg. capability vs chaff, I mean ... chaff isn't terribly special.

1 hour ago, DCSoping said:

The aim 120B and the Phoenix A are at least 20 years apart. And the phoenix A version was decomissioned 10 years before the aim120B was even introduced. 

Yes, but the Phoenix A isn't a 50's or 60's missile either.   It's an analog missile and has challenges and limitations - ie. not reprogrammable, voltage drift and feedback may be a much bigger issue in the electronics (Which leads to guidance instability) etc.  However, the basic techniques of reject chaff are, again, not magical.  If anything, this type of missile would have less resistance to CMs overall in more complex scenarios, but these aren't present/made possible in DCS today.  With the missile locked onto your aircraft though ... who can say what the difference is?

So let's talk about DCS instead of IRL:  In an attempt to differentiate older from newer, the older missiles get a 'worse' CCM capability.  But there are problems here too - this number only matters for the things the missile can see.  What if it moves really fast or its iFoV is small?  Then things you want it to see exist the FoV a lot faster and they may not be as effective (fun fact:  same thing in IRL).

I don't believe there's going to be either a good answer or solution to any of this until ED at minimum comprehensively revisits the counter-measure algorithms themselves, and huge bonus points if at the same time they figure out how to manage technological differences (analog vs digital for example, reprogrammable vs not) as well as revisiting the 'physical' simulation of physical countermeasures, ie. building chaff clouds etc.  

[IronMike]

30 minutes ago, GGTharos said:

I don't believe there's going to be either a good answer or solution to any of this until ED at minimum comprehensively revisits the counter-measure algorithms themselves, and huge bonus points if at the same time they figure out how to manage technological differences (analog vs digital for example, reprogrammable vs not) as well as revisiting the 'physical' simulation of physical countermeasures, ie. building chaff clouds etc.  

Which still, as you pointed out as well so nicely, will not necessarily mean that an older missile might not actually perform better in certain situations than a new one, etc... The point being: ability is not proportional to time either.

Thank you for your added remarks, GG.

[Harlikwin]

4 hours ago, IronMike said:

This.

By the same logic suggested as to when something was made, the F-15C should then also be capped at the technology of 1984? Or 1979 even?

In a post I did not allow (for various reasons) someone suggested that the F14 was just built 25 years after the last ww2 fighter fought over Germany. While a 2000s fighter jet would be 30 years younger even. Aka, the difference should compare like an F14 compares to a P-51...

This is not how logic works. There are so many more factors, than just time or timestamp of origin.

A) Technology advancements become increasingly faster over time and include retrofits the longer the time progresses. Say someone would build a P-51 today (for normal use, not for historic accuracy), it would likely come with a glass cockpit, a G3000 and whatnot..

B) It depends who built it, and if that someone kept updating his creation. The answer in our cases is almost always yes.

C) It depends how long it has been kept in service, for what purposes, etc.

D) technological jumps in the 20th century were much greater at first, and become smaller and smaller as time progresses, too, although the impact can vastly differ from insignificant to a complete new rebranding of how we perceive the world, no matter how big the jump is.

... and so much more.

This is why "but it was built in 1970" is not an arguement at all. Go figure, the brandnew car that you buy today, has been built already 8 years ago... at least. And with time progressing, technology becomes increasingly retrofittable, compatible, etc. - ofc depending if wanted. 

Let us please collectively move on from this arguement, as it will not change our mind and speaks against everything we know.

 

 

So not open a huge can of worms here, and I never did see the "original" logic you guys presented to ED (link if there is one would be great if you explained it before). 

But, if the issue here seems to be one of missile capabilities vs "time". We all know the 1975 phoenix was less upgraded than an 80's one and also most likely less capable than the C, I don't think anyone is contesting that. But you guys per ED have decided to model a "late model" phoenix. Wouldn't it be easy enough to offer an "early" variant like what iran used and that would fit the 70's scenarios some people want? Like just have 70's phoenix A with worse CCM, 80's phoenix A with better CCM or whatnot. 

 

 

 

 

[Spurts]

Yeah, in that topic when the IRIAF F-14A is released it will be the best "red-for" plane in the game in terms of modeling.  It would be nice if ED allowed an early A Phoenix.

[TLTeo]

You could probably solve that by having the Mk 47 -A be an early model, the Mk 60 be some in between, and the -C model represent the most modern ones.

[Harlikwin]

3 hours ago, TLTeo said:

You could probably solve that by having the Mk 47 -A be an early model, the Mk 60 be some in between, and the -C model represent the most modern ones.

 

Well not really if the CCM and other seeker params are all the same.

4 hours ago, Spurts said:

Yeah, in that topic when the IRIAF F-14A is released it will be the best "red-for" plane in the game in terms of modeling.  It would be nice if ED allowed an early A Phoenix.

I don't understand why this is hard to do, except if there is no actual data on what differentiates an "OG" phoenix from an 80's one. And this might actually be the case. 

On the upside at least there is a bunch of data on the 7E and earlier sidewinders. 

 

[IronMike]

Not sure how often we need to say this? They should not be susceptible to the chaff in DCS, they are, because it is a DCS-ism. They are by design in this regard very similar to the aim120s. They have in fact under certain circumstances even better chances, because of the radar dish they use, etc. They have been upgraded. But even if they would not have been upgraded, they would still perform similar, as mentioned above, the aim120 was an evolution of the phoenix made smaller and yes upgraded and more advanced, but not necessarily better/ worse regarding the type of chaff in DCS. How good or bad a missile is against this type of chaff (especially when 90% of its guidance path is by a PD aircraft-radar), has nothing to do with when it was released. 

When we mention tracking abilities: DCS does not allow for such an indepth division of seekers, guys. It has active, semi-active, etc. Which in the aim54s case only affects terminal guidance. We can only set them to what exists. And they behave as actives in the terminal guidance. If you want more realism, we can very well make them 99% resistant against chaff... The only reason they are susceptible to this type of chaff, is to cater to the existing DCS game-play of chaff adding an RNG game to throw a missile off or not.

Please accept this finally and let us move on. We are not going to change it, and there are much bigger fish to fry regarding the aim-54s and its current bugs.

Edited December 12, 2021 by IronMike

[IronMike]

2 hours ago, DCSoping said:

"Upgrading" and transporting them around sounds expensive and very inefficient when you could use that money to just produce your newer (C) missiles instead.

 

Which is why no one does that. You receive parts and you install them. The Navy was also not discarding its stockpile. They kept their stockpile, which kept being upgraded, precisely because they kept them around. The C did not replace the A in service. It was added to it.

There are no indications that the AIM-54A that Iran received was specifically prone to chaff. It would be yet another pure gameplay implementation and one more missile to maintain. the A-mk47 already is set as "worse" than the A-60 or the C, which suffices in terms of how it should behave in comparison. Please mind you, the IRIAF F-14 is a bonus on top of a bonus, and we will not spend time on it beyond making it available, we will not create special weapons for it, we will disallow weapons for it, TCS, Lantirn, etc, it will receive Iranian skins, and not more. We're already over-delivering as is, and we need to draw the line somewhere.

Edited December 12, 2021 by IronMike

[okopanja]

@IronMikeis there a more technically detailed paper on chaff slowing instantly down? The book is nice, but more oriented toward end user. E.g. I would expect together with that statement they provide a some theory (e.g. fluid dynamics) and at least a diagram. E.g. if I reviewed this as a paper to be published, I would demand more technical details.

Also, what about the wakes?

Is this the only material you based the modeling on?

Also note F-35 has chaff, dispensers, why does it need them?

[IronMike]

1 hour ago, okopanja said:

@IronMikeis there a more technically detailed paper on chaff slowing instantly down? The book is nice, but more oriented toward end user. E.g. I would expect together with that statement they provide a some theory (e.g. fluid dynamics) and at least a diagram. E.g. if I reviewed this as a paper to be published, I would demand more technical details.

Also, what about the wakes?

Is this the only material you based the modeling on?

Also note F-35 has chaff, dispensers, why does it need them?

I am sure there is, however I am sure it is not available to the public, let us put it like that.

We have an active-service radar specialist working for us (no, we do not receive classified information, and we would never accept it, but his expertise suffices for our purposes without it), we had the missiles designed by folks who work with this stuff in real life. It is by far not the only material we based this on. It is a plethora of inputs, facts, expertise, in other words, an entire knowledgebase that guides us to our decisions. Please understand that we cannot and will not share most of it, naturally.

There are different types of chaff, you can bet that the F-35's chaff is more advanced than what we have in DCS. Again, chaff in DCS is self-protection chaff, and is not even, in that sense. It is a little RNG game that throws off your missiles and provides some visual effects, purely for the sake of gameplay. And within this gameplay, based on all the information that we have, we place the aim-54s as we do, with the values provided to us by ED.

Let me add to this: if ED would implement real chaff, and different types of chaff, and it would become a thing across the board, then we would immediately start implementig realistic chaff effects. For example showing it on the DDD with MLC off, etc. However: the big outcry in the community would be that for self-protection chaff, most missiles would not get spoofed by it. The community bases a lot of its knowledge on DCS-isms, which can sometimes be as far from reality as it gets. More realistic chaff would add things, but also take away large parts of the gameplay that currently exists.

The same goes for jammers, btw. A topic where even less public knowledge is available, for a good reason. Honestly, if it was up to me: I would not have jammers in DCS at all. You will ever only be able to make them gamey.

I will give a good example of a DCS-ism being taken as a fact by large parts of the community: "you should use a semi-active, if a friendly is merged with a bandit". IRL this is not true at all. IRL a semi-active can switch targets just as easily and misguide on a wrong target just as easily as an active missile. But because it is like this in DCS, folks take it at face value. While it is utterly, utterly wrong.

Edited December 12, 2021 by IronMike

[okopanja]

1 minute ago, IronMike said:

We have an active-service radar specialist working for us (no, we do not receive classified information, and we would never accept it, but his expertise suffices for our purposes without it), we had the missiles designed by folks who work with this stuff in real life. It is by far not the only material we based this on. It is a plethora of inputs, facts, expertise, in other words, an entire knowledgebase that guides us to our decisions. Please understand that we cannot and will not share most of it, naturally.

Yes, I understand its a bit of black magic, when it comes to these things.

I am a bit confused when you use term "specialist", where I come from this means the mechanic/electronic technician who maintains the thing. Did you mean that or actual engineer? ( I would expect them to be well into 80s-90s)

Personally I am fascinated by F-14 (watched the Top Gun movie as a kid, lol), specifically AWG-9/AIM-54 as a pinnacle of the 60s analogue technology that demonstrated its potential in the 80s.

Is there any comprehensive list of F-14 successful/unsuccessful engagements in Irag/Iran war? I found some on the internet, but surprisingly I found them describing engagements on 20-10nm. E.g. my desire is to sort them out in systematic way as the conflict timeline progressed, together with additional information on engagement (e.g. enemy platform, ECM, chaff, aspect, range, etc). I gather you had to do the same thing, am I right?

[Northstar98]

14 hours ago, Harlikwin said:

But you guys per ED have decided to model a "late model" phoenix.

Doesn't that make sense though, seeing as we have late Tomcats? F-14B is what, late 80s to early 2000s? And our current A is somewhere around there too? (The very limited information I have available suggests AN/ALR-62(V)2 came in the mid 90s - no idea if that's accurate or not), throw in LANTIRN and you've got 1998 - early 2000s.

14 hours ago, Harlikwin said:

Wouldn't it be easy enough to offer an "early" variant like what iran used and that would fit the 70's scenarios some people want? Like just have 70's phoenix A with worse CCM, 80's phoenix A with better CCM or whatnot.

Personally, it would be better to do an early Phoenix, for the earlier Tomcat variants, that are actually representative (or at least much better representative) of that period. And even better would be what IronMike suggested, but that is on ED.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Northstar98

[IronMike]

1 minute ago, okopanja said:

Yes, I understand its a bit of black magic, when it comes to these things.

I am a bit confused when you use term "specialist", where I come from this means the mechanic/electronic technician who maintains the thing. Did you mean that or actual engineer? ( I would expect them to be well into 80s-90s)

Personally I am fascinated by F-14 (watched the Top Gun movie as a kid, lol), specifically AWG-9/AIM-54 as a pinnacle of the 60s analogue technology that demonstrated its potential in the 80s.

Is there any comprehensive list of F-14 successful/unsuccessful engagements in Irag/Iran war? I found some on the internet, but surprisingly I found them describing engagements on 20-10nm. E.g. my desire is to sort them out in systematic way as the conflict timeline progressed, together with additional information on engagement (e.g. enemy platform, ECM, chaff, aspect, range, etc). I gather you had to do the same thing, am I right?

He's an engineer, boy oh boy, don't ever call him a mechanic, or he'll come whooping your ass. BTW, he is active duty, different service. So, no not 80s-90s, haha. Also all our Tomcat maintainer SMEs, electricians, engineers, mechanics, weapon specialists - the oldest one of them is 50 and a couple, and the younger ones are advancing on their fourties. Don't forget, the Tomcat still flew 15 years ago, and when in service, these guys are somewhere between 18 and 25..

I would recommend Tom Cooper to you. He writes a lot about the Iranian conflict. Or you can join the golden crown community (swedish, with Iranian background), and you can fly with Col. (ret.) Mazandarani - the pilot who scored most kills in the F-14 in the world. Yes, he flies DCS.

[IronMike]

BTW, we do show chaff in Pulse modes. If a target is spamming chaff while you are tracking it in Pulse on the DDD, you will see small blocks falling off behind it on the DDD. I would not know of any other module that does that, beside our Viggen, where chaff is also shown on its radar. Please correct me, if there are other modules that model that.

[Northstar98]

28 minutes ago, IronMike said:

BTW, we do show chaff in Pulse modes. If a target is spamming chaff while you are tracking it in Pulse on the DDD, you will see small blocks falling off behind it on the DDD. I would not know of any other module that does that, beside our Viggen, where chaff is also shown on its radar. Please correct me, if there are other modules that model that.

Mirage 2000C as far as I know, which since its major RADAR update last month, also models things like gate pull-offs, and several other things.

See this post:

Edited December 12, 2021 by Northstar98
grammar

[IronMike]

Just now, Northstar98 said:

Mirage 2000C as far as I know, which also models gate pull-offs.

Thank you, this shows how long it is since I last flew it, heh. I wish I still had time to fly as much like back in the day...

[okopanja]

6 minutes ago, IronMike said:

He's an engineer, boy oh boy, don't ever call him a mechanic, or he'll come whooping your ass. BTW, he is active duty, different service. So, no not 80s-90s, haha. Also all our Tomcat maintainer SMEs, electricians, engineers, mechanics, weapon specialists - the oldest one of them is 50 and a couple, and the younger ones are advancing on their fourties. Don't forget, the Tomcat still flew 15 years ago, and when in service, these guys are somewhere between 18 and 25..

I would recommend Tom Cooper to you. He writes a lot about the Iranian conflict. Or you can join the golden crown community (swedish, with Iranian background), and you can fly with Col. (ret.) Mazandarani - the pilot who scored most kills in the F-14 in the world. Yes, he flies DCS.

Well I did not mean to call him a mechanic, I just wanted to know if we are talking about same term, as terms such as specialist and even engineer are ambiguous, depending on the country. 

Thanks for book recommendation.

[IronMike]

5 minutes ago, okopanja said:

Well I did not mean to call him a mechanic, I just wanted to know if we are talking about same term, as terms such as specialist and even engineer are ambiguous, depending on the country. 

Thanks for book recommendation.

I know, all good, haha. I indeed used it as a synonym to expert, not as a military term.

[IronMike]

42 minutes ago, Northstar98 said:

Mirage 2000C as far as I know, which since its major RADAR update last month, also models things gate pull-offs, and several other things.

See this post:

 

 

Ah, I see, it was a very recent update. Thank you for the link, I just read it. Looks like a really great update for the Mirage indeed. 

Hopefully we get around to implementing jamming effects soon, too.

EDIT: @Northstar98 - it is possible that we do model gate pull-offs regarding chaff (forgive me, it is over 3 years ago that we implemented this), but this would only come into effect under very rare and specific circumstances, such as the target having a closure close to zero (abeam position). If closure is non-zero, the chaff sould not fool the STT, as it has some expectation of target velocity, etc. The gate pull-off mentioned in the mirage update, as I read it, is also in relation to jamming effects, not chaff. We will revisit gate pull-offs once we start implementing jamming effects. But likely regarding chaff not much will change, if anything at all.

Edited December 12, 2021 by IronMike

[GGTharos]

2 hours ago, okopanja said:

@IronMikeis there a more technically detailed paper on chaff slowing instantly down?

There exist research papers, you can google for them.  There are figures on chaff speed and bloom.

2 hours ago, okopanja said:

Also note F-35 has chaff, dispensers, why does it need them?

They are used as briefed vs. specific SAMs.  Stealth makes it so much more effective (you might add enough noise in the air to drop your signature below the noise floor, but that's just a guess on my part).   And there are situations where you could find yourself next to a SAM and at that point stealth counts for very little if anything, if you recall the F117 shoot-down.

[Northstar98]

1 hour ago, IronMike said:

EDIT: @Northstar98 - it is possible that we do model gate pull-offs regarding chaff (forgive me, it is over 3 years ago that we implemented this), but this would only come into effect under very rare and specific circumstances, such as the target having a closure close to zero (abeam position). If closure is non-zero, the chaff sould not fool the STT, as it has some expectation of target velocity, etc.

Okay, I've heard people mention a similar thing where chaff can cause STTs to drop, but it's not something I've tested for myself yet.

I imagine this is more effective against P-STT vs PD-STT.

1 hour ago, IronMike said:

The gate pull-off mentioned in the mirage update, as I read it, is also in relation to jamming effects, not chaff. We will revisit gate pull-offs once we start implementing jamming effects. But likely regarding chaff not much will change, if anything at all.

As I understand it yes.

When in a search mode, the Mirage 2000C treats all jammers as noise jammers (much like everything else that has jamming effects simulated i.e presenting a strobe, or similar), but when you STT a target, there's a chance for it to perform a gate pull-off (much like track breaking DECM), and you'll see your track on the RADAR move erroneously, and your lock will break.

[GGTharos]

3 hours ago, IronMike said:

The gate pull-off mentioned in the mirage update, as I read it, is also in relation to jamming effects, not chaff. We will revisit gate pull-offs once we start implementing jamming effects. But likely regarding chaff not much will change, if anything at all.

RGPO is complex and chaff may help with it a little, but the whole thing is also irrelevant.  RAZBAM decided to display the break-lock as 'RGPO' but it's merely one technique among many and the only thing that matters is the track-break, especially in DCS.  Most DECM will blind angles and range simultaneously AFAIK, so there's nothing or more like 'everything' to lock onto so that the track breaks.   DECM don't do 'noise' at all AFAIK, they're just not powerful enough.

Edited December 12, 2021 by GGTharos

[Northstar98]

1 hour ago, GGTharos said:

RGPO is complex and chaff may help with it a little, but the whole thing is also irrelevant.  RAZBAM decided to display the break-lock as 'RGPO' but it's merely one technique among many and the only thing that matters is the track-break, especially in DCS.

While I'm not the one you're replying to, and we're drifting off-topic here (though I'm the one who brought it up, so I can take the blame here) having RGPO at least represented is at least a step in the right direction, as basically every other module hasn't got anything simulated besides noise jamming (which sometimes stops you from establishing a lock in the first place).

1 hour ago, GGTharos said:

Most DECM will blind angles and range simultaneously AFAIK, so there's nothing or more like 'everything' to lock onto so that the track breaks.

True, at least if this is anything to go by, even 60s AN/ALQ-41/51, can perform RGPO, VGPO, inverse con-scan, and monopulse cross polarisation simultaneously, and can respond to 20+ RADARs simultaneously.

Maybe if RAZBAM make it such that your track moves erroneously in azimuth and not just range, they can approximate angle deception.

1 hour ago, GGTharos said:

 DECM don't do 'noise' at all AFAIK, they're just not powerful enough.

At least according to @352nd_Hoss , some DECM systems do this in a fall-back mode when a threat emitter isn't recognised, though still using DECM logic (so much like how the F-14 works currently).

I have seen some DECM sets referred to as noise/deception jammers if that's anything to go by, though sources are obviously very hard to come by.

Quote

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.

Source.

The other thing is preemptively detonating radio proximity fuses or making them duds.

[Harlikwin]

So this is a thing, where the radar is locking chaff... In DCS even. 

https://streamable.com/2vx02j

 

Edited December 13, 2021 by Harlikwin

[IronMike]

2 hours ago, Harlikwin said:

So this is a thing, where the radar is locking chaff... In DCS even. 

https://streamable.com/2vx02j

 

 

Yeah, 3 years after we implemented chaff effects on our radar in pulse modes (or 5 years in the Viggen's case). The effect here seems exaggerated though - I'll say that carefully as I don't know the mirage too well. RGPO against this kind of chaff is however very unlikely in STT, especially since this is not a proper beam, but a high altitude notch, where the closure rate is not close to zero. If Razbam chooses to do that, it is their perogative and I am sure they have their reasons, as I said, I cannot speak to how it would be in the mirage. It looks nice, but in teh AWG-9s case it is unrealistic to chaff away an STT when the target is quickly moving sideways, it would be more realistic if the target was moving away, as the chaff would have the same angular momentum, or at the least if the target was beaming (properly) and thus maintaining a closure rate close to zero (and even then very unlikely). 

We will revisit RGPO when we introduce jamming, as I said, but with chaff this is a rather unrealistic scenario against the AWG-9. RGPO with jammers is more likely, like the Hornet is doing it against SAMs. Again, chaff currently isn't even really a world object, and stays around as a temporary object for 12s. To model more indepth chaff-effects, it would need a more indepth chaff model for us. But even then, you won't see a lot of RGPOs unless under very specific, very rare conditions. We won't introduce "chaff gameplay" that goes against all we know would be realistic, just because some would like to have it. 

Edited December 13, 2021 by IronMike