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Cat vs Flanker or Fulcrum at BFM Range


Horns

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vor 1 Minute schrieb Naquaii:

And I was just joking. If that was seen as anything but, I apologize. That's all it was.

Sometimes it would be good if people gave the other side the benefit of the doubt, they're not always out to get you.

I'm sorry too for reacting thin-skinned to that, but I was really take aback by Tharos' "tone" to an IMO innocent post (I was in mere conversation mode), and your post was immediately following his which made me perceived that as piling on.

I guess I felt I was being put in the same category as the "troll we all know and love". 

 

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2 minutes ago, Jayhawk1971 said:

I'm sorry too for reacting thin-skinned to that, but I was really take aback by Tharos' "tone" to an IMO innocent post (I was in mere conversation mode), and your post was immediately following his which made me perceived that as piling on.

I guess I felt I was being put in the same category as the "troll we all know and love". 

 

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No worries.

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On 12/5/2021 at 8:27 PM, Horns said:

 

Edit 2: Stepped on my deck with that one. The AIMEVAL/ACEVAL tells us there is unacceptable risk in a neutral merge with someone who can shoot you in the face, it doesn’t clarify anything about the Archer vs Sidewinder comparison.

 

This is indeed what i thought was the conclusion as well. Archer or Winder, i just doesn't matter. If a bandit can shoot you in the face, it will. There won't be any merge and this no opportunity to utilize HOBS. And during the same evaluation, tactics were developed and experimented with, to see what the best counter is. It turns out, the most consistent success was achieved with a FOX3 capability (at the time only available to the F-14) because it required least commitment from the firing platform. 

Modules: FC3, Mirage 2000C, Harrier AV-8B NA, F-5, AJS-37 Viggen, F-14B, F-14A, Combined Arms, F/A-18C, F-16C, MiG-19P, F-86, MiG-15, FW-190A, Spitfire Mk IX, UH-1 Huey, Su-25, P-51PD, Caucasus map, Nevada map, Persian Gulf map, Marianas map, Syria Map, Super Carrier, Sinai map, Mosquito, P-51, AH-64 Apache

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37 minutes ago, captain_dalan said:

This is indeed what i thought was the conclusion as well. Archer or Winder, i just doesn't matter. If a bandit can shoot you in the face, it will. There won't be any merge and this no opportunity to utilize HOBS. And during the same evaluation, tactics were developed and experimented with, to see what the best counter is. It turns out, the most consistent success was achieved with a FOX3 capability (at the time only available to the F-14) because it required least commitment from the firing platform. 

Yes if I recall a certain exercise, F-5's were able to kill more capable jets by getting to within AIM-9 range and shooting shortly before being killed themselves with a Sparrow already on the way. Loss of life aside, attrition would favor the side not throwing away phantoms or eagles

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2 hours ago, henshao said:

Yes if I recall a certain exercise, F-5's were able to kill more capable jets by getting to within AIM-9 range and shooting shortly before being killed themselves with a Sparrow already on the way. Loss of life aside, attrition would favor the side not throwing away phantoms or eagles

They were able to kill more capable jets because the RoE for those jets required visual ID before taking the shot.

If they were cleared BVR, the F-5's didn't really stand much of a chance, though there are tactics for that sort of thing as well.

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12 hours ago, GGTharos said:

They were able to kill more capable jets because the RoE for those jets required visual ID before taking the shot.

If they were cleared BVR, the F-5's didn't really stand much of a chance, though there are tactics for that sort of thing as well.

Also worth noting that (if memory serves) in some engagements (depending on initial conditions), even "BVR" Sparrow shots had to be supported long enough to bring the larger planes inside a possible Winder retaliation shot. Which given the fire and forget nature of the Winder, again, made the exchange ratio less in favor of the expensive plane. 

Modules: FC3, Mirage 2000C, Harrier AV-8B NA, F-5, AJS-37 Viggen, F-14B, F-14A, Combined Arms, F/A-18C, F-16C, MiG-19P, F-86, MiG-15, FW-190A, Spitfire Mk IX, UH-1 Huey, Su-25, P-51PD, Caucasus map, Nevada map, Persian Gulf map, Marianas map, Syria Map, Super Carrier, Sinai map, Mosquito, P-51, AH-64 Apache

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I don't believe so.  It made it in favor of the overwhelming number of larger aircraft.  This is what acceptable merge ratio is about.  It's possible that at that time cranks weren't being practiced, so one shot, maybe two would be the best you'd get with a sparrow.

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I think the F-Pole had not yet been fully realized in the scenario I recall, so it was just hauling ass straight in. I still don't understand why apparently only the UK thinks it's worthwhile to be able to slew their radar a full 90 off axis, with the gimbaled AESA in the Typhoon

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8 hours ago, GGTharos said:

I don't believe so.  It made it in favor of the overwhelming number of larger aircraft.  This is what acceptable merge ratio is about.  It's possible that at that time cranks weren't being practiced, so one shot, maybe two would be the best you'd get with a sparrow.

If i happen to find the reports (fat chance that) i'll post them. Don't hold me to it though, if there is one thing older then my brain, it's my hardware and i've went through quite a few disks over the years 😄

Modules: FC3, Mirage 2000C, Harrier AV-8B NA, F-5, AJS-37 Viggen, F-14B, F-14A, Combined Arms, F/A-18C, F-16C, MiG-19P, F-86, MiG-15, FW-190A, Spitfire Mk IX, UH-1 Huey, Su-25, P-51PD, Caucasus map, Nevada map, Persian Gulf map, Marianas map, Syria Map, Super Carrier, Sinai map, Mosquito, P-51, AH-64 Apache

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13 hours ago, captain_dalan said:

If i happen to find the reports (fat chance that) i'll post them. Don't hold me to it though, if there is one thing older then my brain, it's my hardware and i've went through quite a few disks over the years 😄

I've tried to find them too, it's a PITA and after a while I gave up 😄

In any case, the specific details really matter here.  It was very clear that being able to shoot at radar blips before seeing anything was a huge advantage.

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The OPs question is not that unreasonable. There have been plenty of situations where for whatever reasons fighter jets with stand-off BVR weapons have found themselves in WVR territory for whatever reason (rules of engagement, blind luck, whatever). As a theoretical question it's not within the realms of fantasy. The answer as always though is, it depends and more often than not it usually depends more on the pilot/crew than on the airframes in question. 


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  • 2 weeks later...
I think the F-Pole had not yet been fully realized in the scenario I recall, so it was just hauling ass straight in. I still don't understand why apparently only the UK thinks it's worthwhile to be able to slew their radar a full 90 off axis, with the gimbaled AESA in the Typhoon
I don't get it either. It's nice to reduce the amount of moving parts, but surely not at the expense of a really useful capability.

That said, Sweden and Brazil apparently see the benefit as well, as the Gripen E is equipped with a radar of about 100 degrees off boresight capability. I don't know about the Eurofighter AESA radar, but the Gripen E radar antenna is not mounted on a gimbal but instead mounted at a fixed angle and then rotated around the longitudinal axis. I'm sure this setup hurts the detection range on targets that are straight ahead, but probably not by much.
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On 12/19/2021 at 4:07 PM, Callsign JoNay said:

100-deg off bore capability should've been a no brainer from the earliest days of the look down PD radar era. Not sure how or why 60-70 deg was considered good enough for decades.

Because you're not considering the engineering and material limitations of the weakest link in a gimballed radar assembly under the expectation of high loads:

The gimbal.  

The follow-on is that you're not considering how steered arrays work to get around the limitations of gimbal directed systems- namely, the corner of the maximum train angle achieved by the antenna itself.  It's dead simple to make an ESA radar point at 110 degrees on a 60's era 60 degree gimbal.  You need two of those gimbal angles to do it pre-ESA.  

Youre also not considering the experience of aircraft that were expected to receive side facing radar, and that ultimately did not due to budgetary restrictions and performance of the system already installed- and the follow-on was recognized as not needing it after experience showed it unnecessary.


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23 hours ago, lunaticfringe said:

Because you're not considering the engineering and material limitations of the weakest link in a gimballed radar assembly under the expectation of high loads:

The gimbal.  

The follow-on is that you're not considering how steered arrays work to get around the limitations of gimbal directed systems- namely, the corner of the maximum train angle achieved by the antenna itself.  It's dead simple to make an ESA radar point at 110 degrees on a 60's era 60 degree gimbal.  You need two of those gimbal angles to do it pre-ESA.  

Youre also not considering the experience of aircraft that were expected to receive side facing radar, and that ultimately did not due to budgetary restrictions and performance of the system already installed- and the follow-on was recognized as not needing it after experience showed it unnecessary.

 

If I had to guess, another limitation is that if you wanted the biggest antenna size for the finest and most aerodynamic nose cone, then that means you would be limited theoretically to how much you could move that big antenna around right? I would imagine the trade-off is better performance and resolution for a given power output vs being able to notch and guide a missile at the same time. The latter capability was limited in use because as GG said, there's no need to lone-wolf in real life. Doctrine in general meant working as a team.

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40 minutes ago, SgtPappy said:

If I had to guess, another limitation is that if you wanted the biggest antenna size for the finest and most aerodynamic nose cone, then that means you would be limited theoretically to how much you could move that big antenna around right? I would imagine the trade-off is better performance and resolution for a given power output vs being able to notch and guide a missile at the same time. The latter capability was limited in use because as GG said, there's no need to lone-wolf in real life. Doctrine in general meant working as a team.

We're talking about missile guidance rather than SA, yeah? If it was tough to build a gimbal that could physically steer that far that would have been a reality they just had to live with, but was there a squad tactic that could support a missile while the launching aircraft notched? For countries with AESA now that haven't opted for 90 degree OBS slew, is it because transitioning crank-to-notch after a fox 3 goes active is considered adequate, or is a wingman guiding a missile while the launch aircraft notches the standard tactic now?

 

 

 

Modules: [A-10C] [AJS 37] [AV8B N/A] [F-5E] [F-14] [F/A-18C] [FC3] [Ka-50] [M-2000C] [Mig-21 bis] [NTTR] [PG] [SC]

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1 hour ago, Horns said:

We're talking about missile guidance rather than SA, yeah? If it was tough to build a gimbal that could physically steer that far that would have been a reality they just had to live with, but was there a squad tactic that could support a missile while the launching aircraft notched? For countries with AESA now that haven't opted for 90 degree OBS slew, is it because transitioning crank-to-notch after a fox 3 goes active is considered adequate, or is a wingman guiding a missile while the launch aircraft notches the standard tactic now?

You're still thinking lone-wolf believe it or not.   So, one aircraft guiding an other's missile is possible, the problem is that this opportunity is a) unlikely and b) if you had to use both radars and attack targets simultaneously the missiles and radars operating on the same frequency would suffer EMI and severely reduce Pk.  IRL Vietnam/Korea experience - and exactly why radars in a flight are offset in frequencies to prevent interfering with each other (and therefore guiding each other's missiles)

You have plenty of aircraft in your flight to help you attack your opponent with advantage and if you don't, the gimmick likely won't help you much.  The missile meanwhile is pretty much guiding itself.  Once it goes active you can do whatever, and the other guy has to respect the shot as well.

And of course, today we have datalinks so hauling all that gimbal might not be all that advantageous and you can haul more antenna instead.

 

There is a lot more to air combat tactics than just going head to head and throwing missiles at each other with a crank/notch added in.


Edited by GGTharos

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23 minutes ago, GGTharos said:

You're still thinking lone-wolf believe it or not.   So, one aircraft guiding an other's missile is possible, the problem is that this opportunity is a) unlikely and b) if you had to use both radars and attack targets simultaneously the missiles and radars operating on the same frequency would suffer EMI and severely reduce Pk.  IRL Vietnam/Korea experience - and exactly why radars in a flight are offset in frequencies to prevent interfering with each other (and therefore guiding each other's missiles)

You have plenty of aircraft in your flight to help you attack your opponent with advantage and if you don't, the gimmick likely won't help you much.  The missile meanwhile is pretty much guiding itself.  Once it goes active you can do whatever, and the other guy has to respect the shot as well.

And of course, today we have datalinks so hauling all that gimbal might not be all that advantageous and you can haul more antenna instead.

 

There is a lot more to air combat tactics than just going head to head and throwing missiles at each other with a crank/notch added in.

 

I follow re guidance being provided by wingmen not being ideal, I hadn't thought about it in frequency terms, cheers.

If I could ask about your last comment - I guess my mistake is that I'm assuming fire-crank-notch would be the standard approach unless there was some specific reason not to do that. I guess in actuality your wingman should have you covered well enough that you don't need to get to the notch that quick to prevent the target getting a good shot off on you after defending against your missile? That does make some sense, given that one could only notch after a fox 1 shot was trashed...

 

 

Modules: [A-10C] [AJS 37] [AV8B N/A] [F-5E] [F-14] [F/A-18C] [FC3] [Ka-50] [M-2000C] [Mig-21 bis] [NTTR] [PG] [SC]

Intel i7-12700F, Nvidia GTX 3080, MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi, 32GB DDR4 @ 1600 MHz, SteelSeries Apex Pro, Razer Basilisk 3

VKB Gunfighter 3 w/ F-14 grip, Thrustmaster Warthog throttle, Thrustmaster MFD Cougars x2, MFG Crosswind,

DSD Flight Series button controller, XK-24, Oculus Rift (HM-A)

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5 hours ago, Kula66 said:

Weren't the 22s planned to have chin arrays?? I assume these would have been used for tracking targets when in the notch ... did they every get them?

 

i don't know if I'd call them "chin" arrays but rather "cheek" arrays. it has room for left and right side-looking AESAs but they are not installed AFAIK. In other words it was a capability worthy to build into the plane should it become desirable

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6 hours ago, Kula66 said:

Weren't the 22s planned to have chin arrays?? I assume these would have been used for tracking targets when in the notch ... did they every get them?

Yep, they decided they were unnecessary.  The room to expand is there of course.  The Raptor will probably be phased out pretty quickly with NGAD coming in, but the F-35 didn't get cheek arrays either.

Consider that they also require significant cooling and power while being smaller and thus far less powerful than the main array ... and they're probably not adding anything that having a wingman doesn't get you already.

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I used to play flight sims like you, but then I took a slammer to the knee - Yoda

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6 hours ago, Horns said:

I follow re guidance being provided by wingmen not being ideal, I hadn't thought about it in frequency terms, cheers.

Not just not ideal, back in the day they'd get missiles detonating way off target due to the EMI 🙂

6 hours ago, Horns said:

If I could ask about your last comment - I guess my mistake is that I'm assuming fire-crank-notch would be the standard approach unless there was some specific reason not to do that. I guess in actuality your wingman should have you covered well enough that you don't need to get to the notch that quick to prevent the target getting a good shot off on you after defending against your missile? That does make some sense, given that one could only notch after a fox 1 shot was trashed...

Ok, I'll philosophize this one a bit. What do we really know about IRL tactics?  Not much really, and I'm pretty sure that what we believe to be mutual support would be viewed as a gamer-induced ignorant view on things which don't reflect reality ... because we really don't know anything.

With that in mind, consider this:  Why crank and notch if you can keep pressure on your opponents?  Ok, as a single plane you can't do this, but IRL this just isn't the case. You've got a flight of 4 giving you ability to fly 2 elements from different directions, for example, and execute well-timed and coordinated drag-and-bag maneuvers.  I suspect very few DCS players truly know how to do this.   It's not that it doesn't happen, it's that the detailed knowledge and understanding of the entire process isn't something that's really common knowledge.  I believe there aren't a lot of detailed explanations or descriptions of section tactics even, everything that's out there for us to find is very very basic and just a building block for further knowledge.

With this in mind, and considering the significant effort in money and engineering required to get you a radar that's looking in a direction where your weapons aren't capable of firing in, combined with autonomous missiles that don't really need your contribution any more, as well as wingmen who will be supplying you with a picture (verbally or datalinked), coming from different directions or spacing such that not everyone needs to have their sensors pointed away from the targets at the same time, combined with tactics that break your bandits up so they start giving you a numbers advantage (temporary and localized but still an advantage) ... what do you need the side-looking A2A radar for?

So again I submit these ideas come from game experience which is very lone-wolfy (it simply is what it is) compared to IRL where these things end up giving you only marginal advantages, IMHO.  And it is my opinion that this is the case because so far, any and all side-looking arrays seem to be either geared towards A2G, Recon or otherwise if for A2A, they seem to pop up here and there (as well as the hugely gimballed radars) but they're not that common.

There is some advantage for SA with AESAs because they can sweep large volumes of space very quickly, where MSAs simply could not, but it's really a matter or flying 90-deg turns to sweep vs 45-deg turns, and in the end your GCI/AWACS will be providing you with what you need anyway. 

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Reminder: SAM = Speed Bump :D

I used to play flight sims like you, but then I took a slammer to the knee - Yoda

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4 hours ago, GGTharos said:

Not just not ideal, back in the day they'd get missiles detonating way off target due to the EMI 🙂

Ok, I'll philosophize this one a bit. What do we really know about IRL tactics?  Not much really, and I'm pretty sure that what we believe to be mutual support would be viewed as a gamer-induced ignorant view on things which don't reflect reality ... because we really don't know anything.

With that in mind, consider this:  Why crank and notch if you can keep pressure on your opponents?  Ok, as a single plane you can't do this, but IRL this just isn't the case. You've got a flight of 4 giving you ability to fly 2 elements from different directions, for example, and execute well-timed and coordinated drag-and-bag maneuvers.  I suspect very few DCS players truly know how to do this.   It's not that it doesn't happen, it's that the detailed knowledge and understanding of the entire process isn't something that's really common knowledge.  I believe there aren't a lot of detailed explanations or descriptions of section tactics even, everything that's out there for us to find is very very basic and just a building block for further knowledge.

With this in mind, and considering the significant effort in money and engineering required to get you a radar that's looking in a direction where your weapons aren't capable of firing in, combined with autonomous missiles that don't really need your contribution any more, as well as wingmen who will be supplying you with a picture (verbally or datalinked), coming from different directions or spacing such that not everyone needs to have their sensors pointed away from the targets at the same time, combined with tactics that break your bandits up so they start giving you a numbers advantage (temporary and localized but still an advantage) ... what do you need the side-looking A2A radar for?

So again I submit these ideas come from game experience which is very lone-wolfy (it simply is what it is) compared to IRL where these things end up giving you only marginal advantages, IMHO.  And it is my opinion that this is the case because so far, any and all side-looking arrays seem to be either geared towards A2G, Recon or otherwise if for A2A, they seem to pop up here and there (as well as the hugely gimballed radars) but they're not that common.

There is some advantage for SA with AESAs because they can sweep large volumes of space very quickly, where MSAs simply could not, but it's really a matter or flying 90-deg turns to sweep vs 45-deg turns, and in the end your GCI/AWACS will be providing you with what you need anyway. 

Awesome, thanks. I agree wholeheartedly that we don’t really know what IRL means here and I feel naïve every time I use the term, I just meant that I didn’t wish to limit the discussion to what’s necessary or effective within the confines of gaming.

The explanation re notching not being necessary every time makes sense too. Given that defending against a missile often involves a break turn, it does seem logical to consider the possibility of seeking a favourable position for a follow-up shot rather than slavishly notching even if an opponent obviously isn’t seeking an offensive position. Thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions, it really is appreciated.

 

 

Modules: [A-10C] [AJS 37] [AV8B N/A] [F-5E] [F-14] [F/A-18C] [FC3] [Ka-50] [M-2000C] [Mig-21 bis] [NTTR] [PG] [SC]

Intel i7-12700F, Nvidia GTX 3080, MSI MPG Z690 Carbon WiFi, 32GB DDR4 @ 1600 MHz, SteelSeries Apex Pro, Razer Basilisk 3

VKB Gunfighter 3 w/ F-14 grip, Thrustmaster Warthog throttle, Thrustmaster MFD Cougars x2, MFG Crosswind,

DSD Flight Series button controller, XK-24, Oculus Rift (HM-A)

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