A discussion of how much EW content we can get based on publicly available information

[rocaf2003]

Since ED began to announce the production of F35, I have been looking up some difficulties about the production of F35 almost every day. I think it is not completely hopeless that ED can produce some EW content; Through the integration of various materials in the past two weeks, I have obtained some working logic of F35 IEWS EA:Like the ALQ184 on the F16CM, the IEWS performs an electronic attack in a highly automated manner: the ASQ239 detects the enemy radar signal and geocalizes it with high precision, transmitting the location data to the APG81, which then performs electronic jamming based on that location data.Noise jamming is used to physically destroy the enemy radar receiving equipment (destroy the LNA), Deception jamming is used to interfere with the enemy radar by providing false target information.If the enemy radar band is low or outside the jamming Angle of the APG81, the ASQ239's built-in antennas perform jamming (due to the size of these antennas, they can only perform self-protect jamming).The whole process is highly automated and the pilot does not need to do anything. The core function of the entire system is that the aircraft can automatically pinpoint enemy radar via RWR(APG-81 MFA/ASQ239 ESM receiver) and control the ECM system(APG-81 MFA/ASQ239 jamming transmiter) to conduct targeted electronic attacks (ECM interference) based on this location data, which is very practical, it saves a lot of jamming energy, and makes it possible to physically destroy enemy radar receiving equipment by jamming noise.

The aircraft might able to determine when and in what mode (SP/EA) and how (ASQ239 antenna /MFA) to interfere by the pilot's setting of some TWD options,which may be related to the "OPER" symbol at the top of the TWD page (similar to the ECM PWR switch on the F16?) and the "SEP" symbol at the bottom (toggle EA/SP?).   The "INIT" symbol displayed in the TWD thumbnail may represent a working state that interferes with the system (perhaps initiated?    Similar to the green ECM ENBL light on F16?)    As for the "COOL" symbol, I really don't know what it might mean...

Edited February 9 by rocaf2003

[NytHawk]

On 2/10/2025 at 12:40 AM, rocaf2003 said:

 As for the "COOL" symbol, I really don't know what it might mean...

 

It could be displaying the cooling state of the DAS sensors? Not sure.

[rocaf2003]

4 hours ago, NytHawk said:

It could be displaying the cooling state of the DAS sensors? Not sure.

The COOL symbol was used on previous USAF aircraft to represent the cooling of AIM9X. This means that when COOL appears, the weapon is ready and ready to fire. From this point of view, it may represent a state of ECM launch readiness?like the green A that appears on the button on the F16 ECM panel.

[Pilum]

To answer the question in the OP, “how much EW content we can get based on publicly available information”, this will be close to 0 %.

Because everything about the EW for the F-35 is still top secret and will be for the foreseeable future.

And this is the problem with “simulation” modeling of any in-service aircraft, and not just the F-35: The information you need to model the radar and EW with anything approaching realism is still classified and will inevitably result in a game- and not a simulation-model.

I worked for more than 10 years in the defense industry with EW for fighter aircraft and my sig has not been chosen at random. 

[Hobel]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Pilum:

To answer the question in the OP, “how much EW content we can get based on publicly available information”, this will be close to 0 %.

Because everything about the EW for the F-35 is still top secret and will be for the foreseeable future.

And this is the problem with “simulation” modeling of any in-service aircraft, and not just the F-35: The information you need to model the radar and EW with anything approaching realism is still classified and will inevitably result in a game- and not a simulation-model.

I worked for more than 10 years in the defense industry with EW for fighter aircraft and my sig has not been chosen at random. 

And reasonable assumptions and suppositions based on public knowledge on the subject of EW. It doesn't have to work exactly like IRL on aircraft XY.

Just continue the known concepts and the more modern the more efficient.

Other games/sims already do it this way to some extent, even if it's not perfect, the scope is unfortunately already more complex than is currently the case with DCS.

 

 

 

[BIGNEWY]

1 hour ago, Pilum said:

To answer the question in the OP, “how much EW content we can get based on publicly available information”, this will be close to 0 %.

Because everything about the EW for the F-35 is still top secret and will be for the foreseeable future.

And this is the problem with “simulation” modeling of any in-service aircraft, and not just the F-35: The information you need to model the radar and EW with anything approaching realism is still classified and will inevitably result in a game- and not a simulation-model.

I worked for more than 10 years in the defense industry with EW for fighter aircraft and my sig has not been chosen at random. 

We will only use publicly available information for anything we do in DCS, and while we endeavour to be as real as possible DCS is a for entertainment product, it is worth remembering that. 

[EchoOneOne]

3 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

We will only use publicly available information for anything we do in DCS, and while we endeavour to be as real as possible DCS is a for entertainment product, it is worth remembering that. 

Why didn't you use publicly available information for modeling SPJs in F-16C?

[BIGNEWY]

9 minutes ago, EchoOneOne said:

Why didn't you use publicly available information for modeling SPJs in F-16C?

please dont derail this thread, if you think there is a problem feel free to pm me 

[BIGNEWY]

EDIT: Just to add EW is something we want to improve in DCS, including SPJ but wont happen just yet, it will take time. 

[NineLine]

Let's make sure we keep this topic on the F-35A here, thanks!

[Muchocracker]

There's plenty of literature out there in radar and Electronic Warfare theory textbooks to do "first principle" approaches for many of the EA and EP techniques, they're not hard to find. You can do many of the deception jamming modes like Barrage, Spot, Cover Pulse, RG/VGPO, Range and Range/Doppler MFT, Inverse Gain, and AGC Capture without getting too close to the sun on classified material.

The challenge is you need to completely overhaul the radar modelling to truly simulate most of these. ED is on the way there, but it's still a long way to go. 

Edited March 22 by Muchocracker

[Jessepain]

On 3/21/2025 at 1:14 AM, Muchocracker said:

There's plenty of literature out there in radar and Electronic Warfare theory textbooks to do "first principle" approaches for many of the EA and EP techniques, they're not hard to find. You can do many of the deception jamming modes like Barrage, Spot, Cover Pulse, RG/VGPO, Range and Range/Doppler MFT, Inverse Gain, and AGC Capture without getting too close to the sun on classified material.

The challenge is you need to completely overhaul the radar modelling to truly simulate most of these. ED is on the way there, but it's still a long way to go. 

Hello, mind sharing any textbooks that you have personally liked and found interesting regarding the topic? 

 

 

[Muchocracker]

3 hours ago, Jessepain said:

Hello, mind sharing any textbooks that you have personally liked and found interesting regarding the topic? 

 

 

-Stimsons introduction to airborne radar 3rd edition (gets you started on base concepts and digital signal processing. Touches on EA/EP concepts but not in depth)

-Electronic Warfare Signal processing by James Genova

-EW 100 series by David Adamy

 

There's plenty more that you can find through google searches.

Edited April 13 by Muchocracker

[buceador]

On 3/19/2025 at 12:04 PM, Hobel said:

Other games/sims already do it this way to some extent

The aircraft in question is already available in that civilian FS.

[Pilum]

On 3/21/2025 at 12:14 AM, Muchocracker said:

There's plenty of literature out there in radar and Electronic Warfare theory textbooks to do "first principle" approaches for many of the EA and EP techniques, they're not hard to find. You can do many of the deception jamming modes like Barrage, Spot, Cover Pulse, RG/VGPO, Range and Range/Doppler MFT, Inverse Gain, and AGC Capture without getting too close to the sun on classified material.

The challenge is you need to completely overhaul the radar modelling to truly simulate most of these. ED is on the way there, but it's still a long way to go. 

 

5 hours ago, Muchocracker said:

-Stimsons introduction to airborne radar 3rd edition (gets you started on base concepts and digital signal processing. Touches on EA/EP concepts but not in depth)

-Electronic Warfare Signal processing by James Genova

-EW 100 series by David Adamy

 

There's plenty more that you can find through google searches.

Sorry, but referring to open sources when modeling the F-35 EW is an exercise in futility for the simple reasons you yourself mention:  These are general principles only and say absolutely nothing concrete about how the EW-systems in the F-35 are implemented.

But please do tell, based on these open source general principle textbooks you refer to, how should the F-35 radar model in DCS react to the “RG/VGPO, Range and Range/Doppler MFT etc” jamming you mentioned? Should it be fooled? Or should it via its ECCM filter out this and retain lock? And in which cases should this occur and for which enemy systems?  And vice versa, how should the F-35’s jamming affect other in-game DCS aircraft’s radars?

Sorry, but the only thing we know with any certainty is that the F-35 has a state of the art EW-system that is still deeply classified and that this of course will be pretty sophisticated. But since there is absolutely no solid data to go on regarding how its jamming and ECCM works, you simply can’t model it with anything approaching realism. In addition, in-game in DCS, how should the RWR’s in other DCS aircraft react when being painted by an F-35 LPI radar? Should they always miss it or should some of them detect it and if so at what range?

I was not planning to post anything more in this thread but as a former professional EW-engineer, when I read “There's plenty more that you can find through google searches” connected to the F-35’s EW, I just felt I needed to react.

[Muchocracker]

Who said anything about concrete or 100% accuracy? We all know that the APG-81 is too classified to get hard data. The point is to get as close as possible through knowledge of first principles and what you can glean through open sources. Idk about you but i would much rather have a 60% approximation than none at all. 
 

2 hours ago, Pilum said:

But please do tell, based on these open source general principle textbooks you refer to, how should the F-35 radar model in DCS react to the “RG/VGPO, Range and Range/Doppler MFT etc” jamming you mentioned? Should it be fooled? Or should it via its ECCM filter out this and retain lock?

You're the claimed EW Engineer, how about you tell us? I know you're asking these questions in bad faith so you'll probably scoff and dismiss the answer like this is some kind of black magic forbidden knowledge. But i'll go ahead and list some of the stuff stimson's touched on anyway. 

- Pulse Compression in its normal forms 
- Pulse Compression using pseudorandom codes in more secure formats
- PRF Jitter/Switching
- Pulse to Pulse/CPI to CPI frequency agility
- Phase shifting elements to null antenna gain in the direction of a jammer to counter high power jamming signals.
- Leading Edge Tracking to counter gate stealers

It boils down to being unpredictable. If the jammer can't know what waveform to send back or isnt sophisticated enough to match parts of the waveform then signals get rejected. 
 

2 hours ago, Pilum said:

In addition, in-game in DCS, how should the RWR’s in other DCS aircraft react when being painted by an F-35 LPI radar? Should they always miss it or should some of them detect it and if so at what range?

You use parameters that you know, and fill in the blanks with first principle knowledge, idk what is hard to understand about this concept. Sensitive receivers will detect low power pulses from longer range than noisier ones, more advanced detection algorithm's can decode higher complexity compression and frequency hopping schemes. And for that matter who says it would be exclusively transmitting LPI waveforms? It's not a free lunch has associated costs that can be detrimental to overall detection performance. 

You're trying to gish gallop me in attempt dismiss and discredit the broader point that you can in fact get more than "closer to 0%" by working on first principles of RF/DSP/Phased Array/EW theory to build a really damn good Electronic Warfare simulation that isn't TS/SCI. The game itself has a long way to go in RF modelling to get where it should be, and i said as much in the OP. But it's not "impossible". 

[Dr_Pavelheer]

Don't let perfect be enemy of good, open source information can go a long way in creating a fairly convincing simulacrum of the real thing without anyone risking window cleaning accident or permanent vacation in certain Cuban resort.

Also it's just a video game, a lot of aspects can be abstracted, you don't always need to simulate how something works to get decent enough results. Just take a look at Mavericks or targeting pods, there is no contrast locking in DCS, it just points at valid objects in the scene with some constraints applied like range, clear LOS, time of day, we don't have to deal with "tactical bushes" other than other objects on the map like buildings or lampposts.

Though of course if devs do decide to go more in depth effects can be quite spectacular, like F4 radar for example

Edited April 13 by Dr_Pavelheer

[Pilum]

3 hours ago, Muchocracker said:

Who said anything about concrete or 100% accuracy? We all know that the APG-81 is too classified to get hard data. The point is to get as close as possible through knowledge of first principles and what you can glean through open sources. Idk about you but i would much rather have a 60% approximation than none at all. 
 

You're the claimed EW Engineer, how about you tell us? I know you're asking these questions in bad faith so you'll probably scoff and dismiss the answer like this is some kind of black magic forbidden knowledge. But i'll go ahead and list some of the stuff stimson's touched on anyway. 

- Pulse Compression in its normal forms 
- Pulse Compression using pseudorandom codes in more secure formats
- PRF Jitter/Switching
- Pulse to Pulse/CPI to CPI frequency agility
- Phase shifting elements to null antenna gain in the direction of a jammer to counter high power jamming signals.
- Leading Edge Tracking to counter gate stealers

It boils down to being unpredictable. If the jammer can't know what waveform to send back or isnt sophisticated enough to match parts of the waveform then signals get rejected. 
 

You use parameters that you know, and fill in the blanks with first principle knowledge, idk what is hard to understand about this concept. Sensitive receivers will detect low power pulses from longer range than noisier ones, more advanced detection algorithm's can decode higher complexity compression and frequency hopping schemes. And for that matter who says it would be exclusively transmitting LPI waveforms? It's not a free lunch has associated costs that can be detrimental to overall detection performance. 

You're trying to gish gallop me in attempt dismiss and discredit the broader point that you can in fact get more than "closer to 0%" by working on first principles of RF/DSP/Phased Array/EW theory to build a really damn good Electronic Warfare simulation that isn't TS/SCI. The game itself has a long way to go in RF modelling to get where it should be, and i said as much in the OP. But it's not "impossible". 

I'm not claiming to be a former EW-engineer. I am one and I've worked with multiple EW-systems. And I'm not trying to gish gallop you whatever that is, I'm just giving you my professional opinion and you can do with it what you like.

But I'm sure that that won't stop you since you're now building straw men claiming I'm saying it's not possible to build an EW simulations and that it's black magic. But that is not what I'm saying at all: What I'm doing is answering the question in the OP and saying that it's IMHO impossible to do one worthy of the name simulation for the F-35 because so much surrounding it is still highly classified.

But this is going nowhere and we simply have to agree to disagree and leave it at that. But on an ending note I can't help but notice that it's funny how people in these type of aviation forums are always so deferential to pilots and usually take what they say as gospel truth but when it comes to technical matters and engineering questions, there is always some armchair expert who has no qualms about lecturing professionals.

Edited April 13 by Pilum

[Muchocracker]

On 3/19/2025 at 4:45 AM, Pilum said:

To answer the question in the OP, “how much EW content we can get based on publicly available information”, this will be close to 0 %.

Because everything about the EW for the F-35 is still top secret and will be for the foreseeable future.

And this is the problem with “simulation” modeling of any in-service aircraft, and not just the F-35: The information you need to model the radar and EW with anything approaching realism is still classified and will inevitably result in a game- and not a simulation-model.

I worked for more than 10 years in the defense industry with EW for fighter aircraft and my sig has not been chosen at random. 

 

On 4/13/2025 at 12:36 PM, Pilum said:

But I'm sure that that won't stop you since you're now building straw men claiming I'm saying it's not possible to build an EW simulations and that it's black magic

These are your own words are they not? 

Edited April 17 by Muchocracker

[skywalker22]

Whats he trying to tell you @Muchocracker that F-35 is out of this world, and it's systems doesn't base on any princilpes we know here on earth. 

If so, ED really can't get out of 0,9% of accuracy and it's all pointless.

But just in case if not... who knows  

 

[HWasp]

On 3/19/2025 at 12:04 PM, Hobel said:

And reasonable assumptions and suppositions based on public knowledge on the subject of EW. It doesn't have to work exactly like IRL on aircraft XY.

Just continue the known concepts and the more modern the more efficient.

Other games/sims already do it this way to some extent, even if it's not perfect, the scope is unfortunately already more complex than is currently the case with DCS.

 

 

 

I have no problem with ED using reasonable assumptions and public knowledge to create a sim game module, just don't call it full fidelity then. 

And since reasonable assumptions are on the table, go ahead and create a J-20 and Su-57 etc with it in the forseeable future, so that this becomes a proper part of the game that is fun to play on the long term.

[BIGNEWY]

On 4/14/2025 at 5:53 AM, skywalker22 said:

Whats he trying to tell you @Muchocracker that F-35 is out of this world, and it's systems doesn't base on any princilpes we know here on earth. 

If so, ED really can't get out of 0,9% of accuracy and it's all pointless.

But just in case if not... who knows  

 

Are you saying it was "Aliens?" ( Sorry couldnt resist )

We have done a lot of research and there is a lot of public information out there, as well as known physics and calculations. 

We are confident we can do it justice in DCS. 

thank you 

[skywalker22]

12 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

Are you saying it was "Aliens?" ( Sorry couldnt resist )

We have done a lot of research and there is a lot of public information out there, as well as known physics and calculations. 

We are confident we can do it justice in DCS. 

thank you 

I was also kidding. Even F-35's systems base on well known (publicly available) principles, they only raised the bar to a higher level. So even if some guessing is needed to use, you won't miss much I suppose.

[draconus]

On 4/13/2025 at 7:36 PM, Pilum said:

What I'm doing is answering the question in the OP and saying that it's IMHO impossible to do one worthy of the name simulation for the F-35 because so much surrounding it is still highly classified.

That's a bold statement we can't call DCS aircraft simulator just because there's no fully simulated IFF and EW.

[Pilum]

4 hours ago, skywalker22 said:

I was also kidding. Even F-35's systems base on well known (publicly available) principles, they only raised the bar to a higher level. So even if some guessing is needed to use, you won't miss much I suppose.

Well again, if you bothered to read the resume I linked to above you will know that I'm a former EW engineer who has worked on the EW systems for the AJ 37 & JA 37 Viggen and JAS 39 Gripen systems and that I come to a somewhat different conclusion. And frankly, I don't see how "some guessing" and utilizing "well known (publicly available) principles" will allow the modeling of a highly classified F-35 EW system. 

And believe me, I would like nothing better than not having to reply to posts like yours but they just keep on coming: And one internet expert after another seems to be lining up to explain to me how EW systems work and how they can and should be implemented in DCS and how the results will be just dandy.

3 hours ago, draconus said:

That's a bold statement we can't call DCS aircraft simulator just because there's no fully simulated IFF and EW.

First of all you're twisting my words: IMO many aircraft modeled in DCS are very much simulators even though the EW on most is pretty basic. However, the F-35 is a highly classified system that will form the backbone of the West's AF's for a long time to come so it's a completely different ballgame to model the systems on that compared to say a Mig-21 or F-4 for which there is a ton of declassified data to go on.

Edited April 17 by Pilum