investigating Jamming Causes Datalink Symbol to Become Angle-Only

[CaptPickguard]

When the DCS F-16 picks up a jamming target, the datalink symbol for that target warps under the jamming symbol and you lose all the ranging information your datalink had for the target. In the video linked below, you can see the effect of the jamming on the datalink symbol as I switch from NORM to SILENT and back.

The datalink info has no business warping to under the jam symbol. It should be entirely separate, as the jet would have no idea that the jamming target is the same target as broadcast on datalink. The jet lacks ranging information due to the jamming, so it would not have enough data to correlate the two tracks. The datalink should continue to come in displaying the information from Link-16, and the jammer symbol should show at the top of the display.

The current implementation is just not logical. I'm sorry I don't have a track right now, but I sure do have a video showing off the issue and I hope it is sufficient to demonstrate it. This is 100% reproducable, and all you need to do is pick up a jamming target from beyond burn through range and look at the datalink symbol.

[BIGNEWY]

Hi, 

can you PM me any public evidence that it is wrong or how it should be. I am happy to run it by the team but I have to have more than opinion. 

thank you

[llOPPOTATOll]

9 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hi, 

can you PM me any public evidence that it is wrong or how it should be. I am happy to run it by the team but I have to have more than opinion. 

thank you

How does the system correlate a contact that you don’t know the range of? You have to use common sense for this, jamming and stuff like that is all classified. How does the jet correlate it to the datalink track 20nm away instead of the one 40nm away,  how does the jet know? It doesn’t, so it shouldn’t correlate

[CaptPickguard]

Hi, 
can you PM me any public evidence that it is wrong or how it should be. I am happy to run it by the team but I have to have more than opinion. 
thank you

Hi Bignewy, my evidence is that this is impossible.

Datalink info comes in, jamming signals come in, there is no way for the plane to know the two are the same. In DCS right now, the moment someone starts jamming, their Datalink symbol warps under the jam symbol, when the plane cannot possibly have any idea that Datalink symbol is the same as the jamming symbol.

Jamming comes in, Datalink comes in, two separate things entirely. Right now the jamming takes over all the info we have on the target, when it should only affect the radar itself.

Sent from my SM-F711W using Tapatalk

[Default774]

Trackfile

16_surv_jam.trk

[CaptPickguard]

On 2/10/2023 at 5:20 PM, Default774 said:

Trackfile

16_surv_jam.trk 87.97 kB · 2 downloads

Thanks for the track. Having replayed it, I just want to note that the datalink symbols would have returned to their correct place if the radar were turned to silent and stopped picking up the jamming signals, as shown in the video in the initial post.

[TEOMOOSE]

I think there are other related issues has been reported like
 

 

[SaladinoSaurus]

Any update ? This has seemingly been on "investigating" for nearly a year now.

Edited January 31, 2024 by SaladinoSaurus