Dispute surrounding ATFLIR and Lightning II acurracy in self targeting to deploy JDAM

[FuY]

Hey, 
I´ve gotten into an Argument with someone surrounding the accuracy to pull coordinates from ATFLIR and Lightning II at reasonable standoff distance to then deploy JDAM´s on that self targeted Location. 

In DCS it is quite simple and accurate to deploy a JDAM on a coordinate that has been determined by the TGP, 
even at long range and low altitude, 
which would make the process of how the TGP determines where its looking at less precise in the real world.

My question is:
How accurate is the representation of the TGP in DCS when it comes to self targeting practicality.
Is self targeting JDAM´s with ATFLIR and Lighting II standard practice IRL 
or is DCS in the way they represent this method to generous and accurate?

Sources to your answers would be nice.
Thank you.    

Edited September 3, 2021 by FuY
typo´s

[Aluminum Donkey]

You're asking a bunch of stuff the answers to which are probably classified out the wazoo, so if anyone on this gaming forum could answer them with any meaningful accuracy, they'd probably have to kill you afterward

 

DCS World is for the entertainment of the unwashed masses. It's safe to say that it's a pretty convincing representation of what you're up against when trying to fly a military aircraft, but worrying/speculating about how "accurate" it is, especially with regards to very fine, specific details, is little more than groping in the dark.

 

GPS guided weapons such as a GBU-38 seem to get within a few meters of the targeted location most of the time when using the pod. That's probably all right for a game. Laser guided ones do better than that, which they certainly should, just as in real life.

 

DCS is an absolutely insanely complex piece of software for a bloody video game, it's a convincing representation of military aircraft for those who will never fly the real thing never mind become intimately familiar with its systems, and it's an incomplete, buggy mess and probably always will be.

 

But a military-grade training simulator, it is certainly not!

 

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[nighthawk2174]

On 9/3/2021 at 8:38 AM, FuY said:

Hey, 
I´ve gotten into an Argument with someone surrounding the accuracy to pull coordinates from ATFLIR and Lightning II at reasonable standoff distance to then deploy JDAM´s on that self targeted Location. 

In DCS it is quite simple and accurate to deploy a JDAM on a coordinate that has been determined by the TGP, 
even at long range and low altitude, 
which would make the process of how the TGP determines where its looking at less precise in the real world.

My question is:
How accurate is the representation of the TGP in DCS when it comes to self targeting practicality.
Is self targeting JDAM´s with ATFLIR and Lighting II standard practice IRL 
or is DCS in the way they represent this method to generous and accurate?

Sources to your answers would be nice.
Thank you.    

 

I see no reason it wouldn't be more than accurate enough, its capable to ranging the target with its laser which would give a very precise location.  So long as the jets INS is functional to give the bomb coordinates it should be fine.  Even without the laser ranger it should still be decently accurate, if you know the angular position of what the pod is looking at and your altitude/heading/location you can almost certainly get accurate enough target coordinates.  It isn't complicated math.

[AOG]

I can’t speak to targeting pods but i’ve done FLIR turret integration into SAR helicopters in my younger days. We had the capability of marking  a survivor on the FLIR and passing the position to the flight controls for use as a hover point. The problem in the real world is that the FLIR requires the ship’s position to figure the angle math to the target. The position you get from your INS,GPS, FMS etc isn’t your actual position. it’s the center of a circle (it’s actually a flattened sphere but we will keep it 2D for this discussion) that you are somewhere inside of. The diameter of the circle is the estimated position uncertainty (EPU). The EPU is a function of the accuracy of  the navigation sensors. The FLIR is using the reported position. the further the aircraft is from the reported position the more the mark point will be off. Physics being universal I would guess that the targeting pods are subject to the same issues. I would be curious to know if and how EPU is modeled in DCS

Tony