RWR ALR-56M in DCS World

[kotor633]

Hi,

Might be interesting for some virtual F-16 pilots:

 

[Prime]

Indeed interesting

[WHOGX5]

On 3/30/2024 at 10:25 PM, kotor633 said:

Hi,

Might be interesting for some virtual F-16 pilots:

 

12 hours ago, Prime said:

Indeed interesting

The thing is that the DCS F-16C manual is 100% correct, it's just the in-game implementation that's incorrect, and it's due to a slight misunderstanding of the manuals by the DCS F-16C developers.

It is 100% correct that the concentric rings correspond to the different lethalities of the detected emitters, where Ring 1 indicates search, Ring 2 indicates tracking, and Ring 3 indicates missile guidance. What this means in real life, is that if an emitter is in Ring 1, your RWR can detect it's emissions, and through threat identification, known max range of that identified threat radar, its detected signal strength, and other factors, your RWR determines that the detected emitter is so far away, that it can't see you, but you can still detect its emissions. When an emitter gets close enough to end up in Ring 2 it is within tracking range. This means that it can now actually pick you up on its radar, but you're still outside of its weapon engagement zone. Finally you have Ring 3, within which you're inside the weapons engagement zone of the detected emitter. As an emitter gets closer or further away from you, it will move gradually between these rings. This is one of the amazing features of the AN/ALR-56M, as it allows you to react extremely quickly to pop-up threats. As soon as a new emitter pops up on his RWR display, the pilot can tell, at a glance, the level of lethality that emitter poses to him.

The issue with the current implementation is that every emitter which isn't locked on to you and isn't shooting at you will end up at the center of Ring 1. Its level of lethality doesn't matter, threat type doesn't matter, max track/engagement range doesn't matter, signal strength doesn't matter, it can be 1nm or 1000nm away from you; it will still show up in Ring 1. As soon as it locks on to you, it will teleport to Ring 2. Then as it fires, it will teleport to Ring 3. This makes the current AN/ALR-56M implementation in DCS quite useless as it doesn't give the pilot any useful information except bearing to threat, like an old 70's RWR. All even remotely modern RWR's (including the AN/ALR-56M) already have ways to indicate whether an emitter is locked on to you or guiding a missile towards you using various symbology and sounds, it does not need to put the emitter symbol at a specific location on the RWR to indicate these things.

For comparison you can look at the AN/ALR-56C which Razbam implemented into the F-15E. Unlike the M-variant, the C-variant only shows raw distance, where the outer edge of the RWR display corresponds to 60nm. This means that the pilot has to know, in his head, at which distances certain things are lethal to him. His situational awareness from the RWR is therefore much lower because he has to calculate all of these lethality levels himself, rather than having it be supplied by the RWR.  For extremely long range threats like SA-5's, S-300/400/500, etc., an F-15E pilot won't even know when he's within range until he gets locked and launched at from >60nm distance.

The main development of the AN/ALR-56M is its extreme sensitivity which allows it to detect emitters at incredible distances, and give the pilot increased situational awareness via the RWR. This is why BAE Systems (company who makes the AN/ALR-56C & M), on their own website, say that the M-variant provides "Situational awareness for long-range response strategy/threat avoidance.", which is something they don't say for the C-variant, because you can't do long-range threat avoidance with an AN/ALR-56C because of the aforementioned reasons. This is why the US Air Force chose to equip the F-16CM, their premiere SEAD platform, with the AN/ALR-56M, to allow it to operate in dense high threat environments with greatly increased situational awareness and survivability. As it is in DCS currently, the F-15Es AN/ALR-56C provides the pilot way more situational awareness than the F-16Cs AN/ALR-56M, which is completely backwards of how it is in real life.

[Hobel]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb WHOGX5:

The thing is that the DCS F-16C manual is 100% correct, it's just the in-game implementation that's incorrect, and it's due to a slight misunderstanding of the manuals by the DCS F-16C developers.

It is 100% correct that the concentric rings correspond to the different lethalities of the detected emitters, where Ring 1 indicates search, Ring 2 indicates tracking, and Ring 3 indicates missile guidance. What this means in real life, is that if an emitter is in Ring 1, your RWR can detect it's emissions, and through threat identification, known max range of that identified threat radar, its detected signal strength, and other factors, your RWR determines that the detected emitter is so far away, that it can't see you, but you can still detect its emissions. When an emitter gets close enough to end up in Ring 2 it is within tracking range. This means that it can now actually pick you up on its radar, but you're still outside of its weapon engagement zone. Finally you have Ring 3, within which you're inside the weapons engagement zone of the detected emitter. As an emitter gets closer or further away from you, it will move gradually between these rings. This is one of the amazing features of the AN/ALR-56M, as it allows you to react extremely quickly to pop-up threats. As soon as a new emitter pops up on his RWR display, the pilot can tell, at a glance, the level of lethality that emitter poses to him.

The issue with the current implementation is that every emitter which isn't locked on to you and isn't shooting at you will end up at the center of Ring 1. Its level of lethality doesn't matter, threat type doesn't matter, max track/engagement range doesn't matter, signal strength doesn't matter, it can be 1nm or 1000nm away from you; it will still show up in Ring 1. As soon as it locks on to you, it will teleport to Ring 2. Then as it fires, it will teleport to Ring 3. This makes the current AN/ALR-56M implementation in DCS quite useless as it doesn't give the pilot any useful information except bearing to threat, like an old 70's RWR. All even remotely modern RWR's (including the AN/ALR-56M) already have ways to indicate whether an emitter is locked on to you or guiding a missile towards you using various symbology and sounds, it does not need to put the emitter symbol at a specific location on the

wow interesting, as I understand it.

so ring 1 shows the emitters that are illuminating me but are not in tacking/lock range or at least he can recognize me.
Ring 2 shows emitters that can theoretically lock/track me,
and ring 3 when the enemy system is in theoritical firing range?

So even if the system is not Lock/shooting the threat in the RWR jumps through the rings?
with this logic, Target Separation button would work again

With SAM, i.e. ground air defense, this is still quite clear
But what about enemy jets?
if a Su27 flies 1000feet above the ground, the threat and range of the weapons is significantly different than if it is 40,000 feet, is that taken into account to some extent?

vor 3 Stunden schrieb WHOGX5:

For comparison you can look at the AN/ALR-56C which Razbam implemented into the F-15E. Unlike the M-variant, the C-variant only shows raw distance, where the outer edge of the RWR display corresponds to 60nm. This means that the pilot has to know, in his head, at which distances certain things are lethal to him. His situational awareness from the RWR is therefore much lower because he has to calculate all of these lethality levels himself, rather than having it be supplied by the RWR.  For extremely long range threats like SA-5's, S-300/400/500, etc., an F-15E pilot won't even know when he's within range until he gets locked and launched at from >60nm distance.

The main development of the AN/ALR-56M is its extreme sensitivity which allows it to detect emitters at incredible distances, and give the pilot increased situational awareness via the RWR. This is why BAE Systems (company who makes the AN/ALR-56C & M), on their own website, say that the M-variant provides "Situational awareness for long-range response strategy/threat avoidance.", which is something they don't say for the C-variant, because you can't do long-range threat avoidance with an AN/ALR-56C because of the aforementioned reasons. This is why the US Air Force chose to equip the F-16CM, their premiere SEAD platform, with the AN/ALR-56M, to allow it to operate in dense high threat environments with greatly increased situational awareness and survivability. As it is in DCS currently, the F-15Es AN/ALR-56C provides the pilot way more situational awareness than the F-16Cs AN/ALR-56M, which is completely backwards of how it is in real life.

 

but i have to say that the DCS F15E RWR gives perfect SA, because i have all the ranges of the different SAM systems and jets in my head, when i see that a SA11 is on the "30nm marker" in the AN/ALR-56C in combination with my own altitude i can immediately classify the threat without thinking about it.
there is also the question here, the weapon range differs significantly from my current altitude against SAMs so when I am low the threat emitter should jump back into RING 2, should the ALR-56M take into account the own altitude or that of enemy jets in any way?

here an example all these emitters are ~50nm away from me, only the SA-10 gets my increased attention here.
Should the SU27 gradually approach the 30nm mark, this would be the next potential higher  threat.

 

the limits start as you say with systems like S-300, there it would of course be practical to recognize whether I am in theoretical attack range, but usually you know the position of such systems and then tend to stay away from them, but in general systems that track and shoot below 60nm are more common in DCS and therefore you always have perfect SA with the F15E RWR, at least in DCS.

Edited April 1 by Hobel

[Raptor9]

As this topic has been addressed many times in the past, let me bring up some counterpoints in this debate that tend to be conveniently ignored within the online folklore.

First and foremost, no one has supplied any evidence to support the claims that the ALR-56M behavior in DCS F-16C Viper is functioning in an inaccurate manner. As always, if anyone has any public unclassified information that supports these claims, feel free to message BigNewy or NineLine. Otherwise, if no one has actual evidence that the ALR-56M is modeled inaccurately, then such claims are purely speculative.

Second, the fact that RWR systems measure signal strength of detected emitters does not imply that the signal strength affects how the symbols are displayed on the RWR display. In fact, many RWR systems measure signal strength, which may be used to detect a change in operating mode of the radar in preparation for firing a missile, among others. RWR systems use a variety of parametrics (depending on their sophistication) to process threat radar signals, such as frequency, pulse repetition frequency, pulse repetition interval, waveform, etc. But how a given RWR system presents these threats to the pilot is widely different between each system, and may even differ between different software versions or configuration within a given nation's military.

It is also true that some RWR systems do in fact display symbology to the pilot that indicate relative signal strength. Many older RWR systems that lacked the processing power or radar threat "library" of modern RWR's displayed signal strength and bearing to a radar signal, and it was up to the pilot to interpret this information to determine what threat level the signal posed and whether the radar was potentially tracking the aircraft or guiding a missile toward it. However, as RWR systems became more sophisticated and the pilot's workload to interpret suck symbology to determine threat level could be reduced, many opted to display symbols in a more concise manner to indicate to the pilot the specific type of radar that was out there and when they were under attack, so the pilot could take appropriate defensive action.

To that end, most RWR systems are not intended to provide overall situational awareness; rather they are relatively simple devices to provide a pilot the necessary cues to take defensive actions when being tracked or engaged by a radar threat, the nature of such actions may vary based on the type of threat (airborne, SAM, AAA) that is tracking the aircraft. The lack of a way to ascertain signal strength on the RWR display is not aspect of RWR sophistication or generation; it is a byproduct of how a given RWR model and software configuration is designed according to a military's intended requirements to support their pilots and the mission. On the US Air Force F-16 Block 50, a platform designed for Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, the presence of the HARM Targeting System and the level of integration and situational awareness that the HTS and its related functions provides certainly supports the SEAD mission.

Finally, there does indeed seem to be a bug that is present with the F-16 RWR as demonstrated in this video, in that a tracking radar is being displayed in the inner ring, rather than the middle ring as described in the DCS Early Access Guide. Thank you for bringing this to our attention so it can be reported and corrected.

Once again, if anyone has any public unclassified evidence to support their claims that the RWR in the DCS F-16C is modelled inaccurately, please DM one of the community managers and we will gladly review it. Otherwise, such claims of inaccuracy are no different than any other claims made by community members that are heresay, speculation, or gameplay preferences.