Tactics: low or high level interception?

[Gorn557]

Hello all:

Tactical question for you. Apologies if this has been discussed a hundred times before as I'm sure it has. Basically it comes down to this: at what altitude should I be flying intercept missions- high or low? What did real pilots do? The source of the question is that I've been trying to get as high as possible, 25-30k feet, to give myself as long a horizon as I can for LOS to targets. But I'm finding I often don't see targets on the AWG-9 until they're right on top of me (this is over water), and I know the AWG-9 struggled a bit with clutter. So what this really boils down to is: I know the AWG-9 is 60s analog electronics, etc., highly susceptible to ECM, etc.- will I get better detection performance down at lower level because I'm losing targets in the clutter, or is the radar really "that bad" (and I mean in an historical sense, not criticizing the simulation of it). 

 

TL;DR: what's the best altitude for long-range detection and engagement of targets over water? High or low? 

[draconus]

First, intetception does not mean a kill exclusively. You have ROE and mission orders.

If you know there's some aircraft to intercept it's usually because of detection from AWACS or ships, so use DL and don't worry about detection range.

If you're being jammed the altitude won't affect the burnthrough range (about 28nm).

Generally you want to be high and fast, especially if you think about employing Phoenixes without VID.

There's no penalty for lookdown in the Tomcat anyway and its radar is very good, at least in DCS.