Advantages of TWS

[Gunfreak]

So besides being able to spamram does the TWS have any other advantages?

I remember vaguely something about the enemy not getting radar lock warning? And only get warning once the missle is launched? But that was TWS in the F15  is the same true in the F16?

[Q3ark]

If you launch in TWS the target doesn’t get a launch warning and only receives a warning when the missile goes active

[Ignition]

I usually use RWS (DTT), for me its faster and more reliable. I occasionally use TWS but never for attack.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Ignition

[llOPPOTATOll]

They dont use TWS irl anymore in the F-16, they just use SAM, DTT and STT pretty much

[Dragon1-1]

AFAIK it was never particularly reliable on the Viper. It's great on the Tomcat, but the Viper's small antenna is just not enough to make the most of it. In ideal conditions, you'd be able to hose off your AMRAAMs at four different targets. In practice, conditions are seldom ideal, although if you were intercepting a large package of big bombers not protected by EW aircraft, you'd likely want to use TWS. For most other situations, RWS and DTT are good enough.

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

It is way better than the TWS on F/A-18C, imho.

[Aquorys]

6 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

So besides being able to spamram does the TWS have any other advantages?

Better situational awareness if there is no AWACS to provide a picture

[Steel Jaw]

Biggest advantage of TWS is that it supports multiple Slammers in the air at once.

[Exorcet]

TWS gives you the most options when it comes to attacking enemies, provides the most SA, and makes it harder for the enemy to react to you. I use it almost exclusively when engaging in BVR.

My usual workflow is to scan with radar set to 80 NMI scale at full azimuth and bars, then when I detect something I reduce azimuth to 30 and bars to 2 for quicker TWS updates. I'll try to track as many contacts as possible and then cycle between them to launch on the most important 2 (or more if necessary).

[SCPanda]

12 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

So besides being able to spamram does the TWS have any other advantages?

I remember vaguely something about the enemy not getting radar lock warning? And only get warning once the missle is launched? But that was TWS in the F15  is the same true in the F16?

First, TWS on US jets does not give radar lock warning OR enemy launch warning. Your enemy only receives missile warning from the Aim-120 when it goes active. Second, SAM (aka DTT aka soft lock) on the F-16 doesn't give radar lock warning or launch warning to your target neither, and it's faster than TWS, so feel free to use SAM instead of TWS in the F-16. TWS in the F-16 is probably only useful when you are trying to enage more than two bandits at the same time (SAM/DTT allows you to enage two at the same time in case you did not know), but you will rarely find yourself facing this kind of situation. 

[llOPPOTATOll]

So TWS has the lowest Track Quality out of all the modes in the viper. In TWS your target is not receiving the same amount of attention as the rest of the scope, so you have no better track quality than some random target your not attempting to engage. In SAM your radar gives more attention to the target you have bugged which leads to a higher track quality. In STT your radar is giving the bugged target the radar's FULL attention giving the highest track quality. IRL TWS is not used like at all. They even removed the TMS Right long to switch between RWS/TWS and replaced it with an auto sort function for SAM in newer tapes.

[Exorcet]

28 minutes ago, llOPPOTATOll said:

IRL TWS is not used like at all.

 

[Hobel]

vor 15 Stunden schrieb Q3ark:

If you launch in TWS the target doesn’t get a launch warning and only receives a warning when the missile goes active

is also so in the RWS

[Dragon1-1]

Yes, but RWS SAM mode dwells on the target, which will manifest as more frequent chirps on RWR. It'll seldom be a factor unless the target is actively trying to figure out what you're doing and paying particular attention to RWR tones, but if you want total surprise, TWS is better. That said, low track quality makes it inferior to RWS SAM in most situations.

[Q3ark]

3 hours ago, Hobel said:

is also so in the RWS

Yeah but that uses latent track while scan,  full TWS can support more AMRAAM’s at a time, you can fire 4 at a time in TWS, useful agains mass bomber formations. 

[Hobel]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Dragon1-1:

Yes, but RWS SAM mode dwells on the target, which will manifest as more frequent chirps on RWR. It'll seldom be a factor unless the target is actively trying to figure out what you're doing and paying particular attention to RWR tones, but if you want total surprise, TWS is better. That said, low track quality makes it inferior to RWS SAM in most situations.

oh wow okay and that's also in DCS? i'll have to take a closer look.
 thx

[llOPPOTATOll]

 

He fires in STT

[Ignition]

7 hours ago, Exorcet said:

 

That's 15 years before the block we have in DCS.

[Frederf]

More than 2 simultaneous missile targets is only possible in TWS. Display of more than 2 simultaneous tracks is only possible in TWS. Six missiles against six targets is a capability.

[Exorcet]

3 hours ago, llOPPOTATOll said:

He fires in STT

I think it's still relevant that TWS was used initially. There was no need for multifire capability in this case so going STT in the end makes sense.

3 hours ago, Ignition said:

That's 15 years before the block we have in DCS.

That's part of the point. TWS was used with what I'm sure is a worse radar than what we have.

[Ignition]

2 hours ago, Exorcet said:

I think it's still relevant that TWS was used initially. There was no need for multifire capability in this case so going STT in the end makes sense.

That's part of the point. TWS was used with what I'm sure is a worse radar than what we have.

15 years ago DTT may not be implemented yet.

Sorry but the video didn't say anything, it was cool though.

Edited May 30, 2022 by Ignition

[Exorcet]

58 minutes ago, Ignition said:

15 years ago DTT may not be implemented yet.

What does DTT have to do with this? TWS and DTT aren't the only radar modes.

58 minutes ago, Ignition said:

Sorry but the video didn't say anything, it was cool though.

 

It shows that TWS was used at least once in actual combat.

[Ignition]

4 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

What does DTT have to do with this? TWS and DTT aren't the only radar modes.

It shows that TWS was used at least once in actual combat.

This thread is about the benefit of TWS vs RWS, DTT is a submode of RWS and it can replace TWS but I don't know when DTT was implemented. If it wasn't implemented before 1992 then that may be the cause of using TWS instead. Other cause may be he didn't know how many bogueys to expect so he used TWS just in case, he switched to stt for the last half of the engagement.

TWS doesn't give much benefits over RWS other than the posibility to engage more than 2 targets at the same time at the expense of more unreliability.

[Exorcet]

2 hours ago, Ignition said:

This thread is about the benefit of TWS vs RWS, DTT is a submode of RWS and it can replace TWS but I don't know when DTT was implemented. If it wasn't implemented before 1992 then that may be the cause of using TWS instead. Other cause may be he didn't know how many bogueys to expect so he used TWS just in case, he switched to stt for the last half of the engagement.

The bold bit is one reason why TWS remains relevant then. The post I originally responded to implied TWS is basically never used. One instance of TWS in use obviously doesn't totally refute that, but I'd like to see something to back up the claim.

2 hours ago, Ignition said:

TWS doesn't give much benefits over RWS other than the posibility to engage more than 2 targets at the same time at the expense of more unreliability.

How unreliable? If it's not by much then there isn't much of a downside.

[llOPPOTATOll]

29 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

The bold bit is one reason why TWS remains relevant then. The post I originally responded to implied TWS is basically never used. One instance of TWS in use obviously doesn't totally refute that, but I'd like to see something to back up the claim.

I think you are forgetting that there was more than one friendly aircraft in that scenario. Had there have been 4 bandits I think if Benji was a 2 ship , no 1 and no 2 would use DTT. Im not sure if DTT existed back then so that may have been the reason that TWS was initially used.