F14 Jammer

[CBenson89]

Does the jammer on the tomcat actually do anything or is it just there for show?

 

 

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[DSplayer]

The jammer works on the Tomcat.

[JupiterJoe]

The jammer is the domain of the RIO.  If you learn the backseat you will see how the jammer operates.  The mysterious world of the backseat is something I'll  attempt to tackle this year.  

[ValhallaAB]

10 hours ago, DSplayer said:

The jammer works on the Tomcat.

I always thought it did something but does it just reduce the engagement range of sams and enemy jet radars and make a jamming target on PVP radars etc? I also don't know which directions it works, must be 360 right? I always use it when strafing ground sams (Shilka, Rapier & SA-8) or fly near sam networks. Does it HOJ missiles like the R-27ER or AIM-120C etc?

Does it have a cooldown after use or overheating? What is the general burnthough by a SA-11 or a MiG-29 radar? Is it stupid to use against a modern jet like a F-16C or F/A-18 in PVP because it reveals your location? When should you use it? Too many questions on my part but always were interested by the DECM like the early ALQ-100 and ALQ-126.

The ALQ-100:

''AN/ALQ-100 would simultaneously deceive radars in one or more frequency bands or modes of operation.  It would also detonate or dud continuous wave proximity fuses in SAM, AAM, or AAA projectiles.''

The ALQ-126:

''A trackbreaker designed to defeat pulse-mode SAM and AAA radars,''

I don't know if this one has the extra ALQ-162 track breaker or the B model of the ALQ-126. More of a F-4 jammer combo. 

[draconus]

DCS F-14 had the jamming capability since the realease.

http://www.heatblur.se/F-14Manual/general.html#an-alq-100-and-126-decm-defensive-electronic-countermeasures

Only recently it got also jamming effects inflicted on us by other jammers.

 

[QuiGon]

23 hours ago, ValhallaAB said:

I always thought it did something but does it just reduce the engagement range of sams and enemy jet radars and make a jamming target on PVP radars etc?

All jammers in DCS do exactly the same, so the Tomcat Jammer has the exact same effects than that of the Viper, Hornet or any other aircraf tin DCS.
 

23 hours ago, ValhallaAB said:

I also don't know which directions it works, must be 360 right? I always use it when strafing ground sams (Shilka, Rapier & SA-8) or fly near sam networks. Does it HOJ missiles like the R-27ER or AIM-120C etc?

I think it has 360° coverage and yes, missiles with HOJ capability will home in on it.
 

23 hours ago, ValhallaAB said:

Does it have a cooldown after use or overheating?

No
 

23 hours ago, ValhallaAB said:

What is the general burnthough by a SA-11 or a MiG-29 radar? Is it stupid to use against a modern jet like a F-16C or F/A-18 in PVP because it reveals your location? When should you use it? Too many questions on my part but always were interested by the DECM like the early ALQ-100 and ALQ-126.

It's all the same as it is with all the other jammers in DCS (at least the ones on full fidelity modules), so burnthrough against other player controlled aircraft for example is at about 28 nm.
 

23 hours ago, ValhallaAB said:

The ALQ-100:

''AN/ALQ-100 would simultaneously deceive radars in one or more frequency bands or modes of operation.  It would also detonate or dud continuous wave proximity fuses in SAM, AAM, or AAA projectiles.''

The ALQ-126:

''A trackbreaker designed to defeat pulse-mode SAM and AAA radars,''

I don't know if this one has the extra ALQ-162 track breaker or the B model of the ALQ-126. More of a F-4 jammer combo. 

Doesn't matter for DCS as DCS doesn't simulate frequencies. Electronic warfare (EW) in DCS is very simplistic.

Edited January 19, 2023 by QuiGon

[ValhallaAB]

50 minutes ago, QuiGon said:

 

I think it has 360° coverage and yes, missiles with HOJ capability will home in on it.

-Nice. Is it best to just turn it off when there is a air missile in the air? It would break the HOJ lock atleast, maybe if it's active it won't matter? So outside around 28nm it could be effective to trash missiles if you crank or run away from modern air missiles or atleast reduce the effective loft/range of enemy missiles?.

It's all the same as it is with all the other jammers in DCS (at least the ones on full fidelity modules), so burnthrough against other player controlled aircraft for example is at about 28 nm.

-Alright. Same for SAM's or it depends? Does SAM's have HOJ too, for example the SA-11 or is it always effective to employ the DECM then?

Thanks for the good answers.

Edited January 19, 2023 by ValhallaAB

[QuiGon]

9 minutes ago, ValhallaAB said:

I think it has 360° coverage and yes, missiles with HOJ capability will home in on it.

-Nice. Is it best to just turn it off when there is a air missile in the air? It would break the HOJ lock atleast, maybe if it's active it won't matter? So outside around 28nm it could be effective to trash missiles if you crank or run away from modern air missiles or atleast reduce the effective loft/range of enemy missiles?.

I'm not an expert on A-A tactics or HOJ behaviour, so I'm not sure. I don't know if missiles can switch back and fourth between HOJ and normal guidance midflight or if the guidance mode is set upon missiles launch for the remainer of the missiles flight. HOJ reduces the effective range of missiles though, as they can't lead the target.
 

9 minutes ago, ValhallaAB said:

It's all the same as it is with all the other jammers in DCS (at least the ones on full fidelity modules), so burnthrough against other player controlled aircraft for example is at about 28 nm.

-Alright. Same for SAM's or it depends? Does SAM's have HOJ too, for example the SA-11 or is it always effective to employ the DECM then?

It depends on the type of SAM. Some SAMs are more susceptible to jamming than others. Generally, the more modern SAMs are less susceptible to jamming than the older ones. There are some posts and videos on the internet, where people tested jamming against various SAM systems in DCS. Generally, jamming against SAMs reduces their lock-on/launch range and can also break the lock if distance is great enough.
I actually don't know if there are SAMs in DCS with HOJ capability. That's a good question.
 

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by QuiGon

[okopanja]

28 minutes ago, QuiGon said:

I actually don't know if there are SAMs in DCS with HOJ capability. That's a good question.

IRL S-75 (SA-2) did introduce the HOJ capability during Vietnam war as response to USA deploying jammers. Not sure how to create a test case to verify if this exists in DCS or not. One indication could be missing lead.

It is also worth nothing that SAMs in DCS generally miss the support vehicles and components, so the fidelity of their implementation is likely not high.

Edited January 19, 2023 by okopanja
added remark

[Kondor77]

From experience the jammer does not have a huge impact on SAMs, especially modern ones where their WEZ is smaller than burn through distance (~29nm). It might buy you several seconds from like an SA-10 max range, but that's it.

Where IMO it shines - in its current state (correct or not) is in A2A BVR engagements. The jammer will prevent long range TWS shots - which is nice especially if you are against a non-jamming target. If the parameters are good for a long range 54 shot (both very high, with high closure - to maintain track) you can shoot and hit your target before you reach burn through. Additionally you can STT lock a jamming target, and manually loft your 54 - since it will not loft on it's own on a jamming target. All of this is also possible with the 54A, with the C it's easier since it's not reliant on keeping track until missile gets the go active command from the radar. 

[ValhallaAB]

2 minutes ago, Kondor77 said:

From experience the jammer does not have a huge impact on SAMs, especially modern ones where their WEZ is smaller than burn through distance (~29nm). It might buy you several seconds from like an SA-10 max range, but that's it.

Where IMO it shines - in its current state (correct or not) is in A2A BVR engagements. The jammer will prevent long range TWS shots - which is nice especially if you are against a non-jamming target. If the parameters are good for a long range 54 shot (both very high, with high closure - to maintain track) you can shoot and hit your target before you reach burn through. Additionally you can STT lock a jamming target, and manually loft your 54 - since it will not loft on it's own on a jamming target. All of this is also possible with the 54A, with the C it's easier since it's not reliant on keeping track until missile gets the go active command from the radar. 

Awesome, I remember some week ago when I launched a 50+nm AIM-54C Mk-47 at a Russian A-50 AWACS over a SA-11 site, I heard SAM launches just as I launched and flipped over and ran away to base, I turned of my DECM just as I went feet wet and cold, no idea if it made them leave HOJ and loose track. 

[Gibo]

If you are interested there are a lot of information about jamming in the F14 in FlyAndWire. 

https://flyandwire.com/2022/12/07/electronic-countermeasures-missiles-employment-part-iii/

[The_Tau]

Jammer in F14 is very effective vs FC3 MiGs29s and Su27s it is breaking their lock and they are literally unable to fire at you. 

On other hand Su27 jammer is also very good and you only get burnthrough range at like 22nm 

[QuiGon]

17 hours ago, Kondor77 said:

From experience the jammer does not have a huge impact on SAMs, especially modern ones where their WEZ is smaller than burn through distance (~29nm). It might buy you several seconds from like an SA-10 max range, but that's it.

It really depends on the type of SAM. Against the SA-5 the jammer can reduce the launch range from ~63nm to ~18nm (flying at 30.000 ft at 350 kts)! That's a huge difference!

[Kondor77]

4 hours ago, QuiGon said:

It really depends on the type of SAM. Against the SA-5 the jammer can reduce the launch range from ~63nm to ~18nm (flying at 30.000 ft at 350 kts)! That's a huge difference!

Interesting. Has that been tweaked recently? I haven't experienced that kind of reduction in range. I'll have to test it out later, thanks!

[QuiGon]

56 minutes ago, Kondor77 said:

Interesting. Has that been tweaked recently? I haven't experienced that kind of reduction in range. I'll have to test it out later, thanks!

Hmm, I'm not aware of such a change in the past 6 months, but I don't want to rule it out either

[cheezit]

For a while, many players cursed with an emotional attachment to the AIM-120C5 being some sort of wunderwaffen complained that the blitting/blinking mode of the F-14's jammer trashed the missile, since ED's implementation of HoJ would basically make the things waggle at the frequency that the F-14's jammer blinked on and off and thus bleed energy very quickly.

 

I think ED eventually fixed this broken HoJ transition logic, though it should be noted that building miss distance to kinematically defeat a missile this way is definitely part of a self-protection jammer's playbook.

 

Many of these same players complained that the AIM-54 (on the old missile API, vice the new API that the AIM-120 was on by this point) was either unaffected or much less affected.  Nb. that the AIM-54C, way back in the test phase in 1980/1981, was being designed to defeat and tested against multiple simultaneous standoff blinking jammers, blinking self-protection jammers, etc. and got a new dual-principle target detection device (to avoid a single-principle TDD from getting spoofed by a bomber's self-protection jammer and prematurely detonating outside lethal distance) and lots of other ECCM goodies that largely weren't in-scope for the AIM-120A, which (as the Air Force strenuously emphasized during hearings) was at that time meant only to replace the AIM-7, which had dramatically less ECCM capability than the AIM-54A.

 

Of course, the AIM-54C latter got the ECCM/Sealed upgrade, the "High-Power Phoenix" upgrade (travelling wave tube stage in the antenna, consolidation of a bunch of older digital components into a smaller number of faster and more capable ones, etc), an eventual combination of these two upgrades, and had reprogrammable code and data memory from the get-go to allow continuous updated to the ECCM logic (and other aspects of the missile).  And the AIM-120A was replaced by the AIM-120B, AIM-120C and its subvariants and so on which eventually gained reprogrammable memory and generally became more kinematically capable and more ECCM-capable as technology improved and it became more feasible to fit enough DSP capability into the available board space, as well as more necessary to improve the AIM-120 to pick up the slack from the cancelled AIM-152 and the AIM-54 which was slated for retirement by then.

Edited January 20, 2023 by cheezit