HOJ burn through ECM attention all

[BIOLOG]

Right. From what I know once the radar locked on the target and missile has been launched (Active or Semi-active), radar sends out radio signals to the missile to guide it towards the target initially. These can be intercepted by target, and can provide indication of a missile launch... Same is quite possibly true for HoJ missiles. It is also quite possible that AMRAAM/ADDER go active once they "guess" (from info you inputted into flight computer), that target is withing their seeker's aquiring range. Homing on jamming signal can't always be very accurate...

Above is pure speculation btw... Well, I did hear a real pilot saying that you get a launch tone, but I can't remember his exact words, so I won't tell you anymore. I might ask a friend of mine If I speak to him any time soon

[Pilotasso]

who knows, maybe they can use UV and IR detectors to spot the exhaust plume of incoming missiles and feed it into their systems. Considering they already have stuff like EOS it wouldn't surprise me.

 

LOL then if you had wingmen...you would have pairs of incoming missiles traveling in paralell to each other on your threat panel. :D

 

You know, the system has got to be smarter than that.

[GGTharos]

It is smarter than that ... by filtering UV it can filter out flares, and by sensit the rocket 'flash' ingition it can tell which object is a missile and which object is just afterburning. That's all there is to it. Can it be confused? Heck yes. False positives are always an issue.

[S77th-GOYA]

Don't forget, it's more than just a launch warning, F-15s give a lock warning when locked onto a jam signal. Nothing passive about that.

[169th_DedCat]

Right. From what I know once the radar locked on the target and missile has been launched (Active or Semi-active), radar sends out radio signals to the missile to guide it towards the target initially.

 

That depends on the missile, and a lot of the publicly available logic behind it is highly speculative. My understanding of the current Sparrow and the AMRAAM is that neither use radio controlled guidance for their initial flight phase, but the Adder and the Alamo do. The AMRAAM apparently uses purely inertial guidance for its initial phase, meaning it flies straight and blind to its designated TTA point, then turns on its radar to find the target. The Sparrow apparently employs a number if different guidance methods. Some versions of the Sparrow merely ride the radar beam towards target before reaching specified distance X and attempting an intercept... however the characteristics of the shooter's STT radar emissions apparently have unique properties that are detectable by a smart RWR... perhaps the specific frequencies bombarding the target enhance the scattering properties of the reflected radar beams allowing them to be more easily detected by a missile on an intercept flight path, but that's just my own wild imagination at work.

 

I once had the opportunity to ask a Jane's associate and a Hornet driver why SARH missiles relay a launch warning beyond the STT warning tone to the target's RWR a number of years back. The Jane's associate gave me a response to the effect of what I outlined above, and the Hornet driver just smiled and said he was glad someone else could answer the question for him because he couldn't think of a way to answer without giving away the real reason.

 

The TEWS and SPO are extremely smart devices, and they do a lot of highly classified things besides just detect the direction and strength of radar emissions.

[169th_DedCat]

Don't forget, it's more than just a launch warning, F-15s give a lock warning when locked onto a jam signal. Nothing passive about that.

 

It didn't used to do this in 1.02 before the Eagle achieved burn-through. I often tested this when locked by an Eagle at a distance to see if my jammer strobe was being tracked. I'd turn my jammer on, and the lock warning tone would disappear, turn it back off, and the tone would immediately reappear.

[169th_DedCat]

Be aware that such [iRH missile detection] systems do exist, and have done for a while.

 

Yes they do, but the way they were modeled in LOMAC 1.01 made them infallible if not omnipotent. They detected a missile launch at any angle, distance, and aspect. Even the TEWS/SPO has angle/aspect limits for detecting radar emissions.

[GGTharos]

That depends on the missile, and a lot of the publicly available logic behind it is highly speculative. My understanding of the current Sparrow and the AMRAAM is that neither use radio controlled guidance for their initial flight phase, but the Adder and the Alamo do. The AMRAAM apparently uses purely inertial guidance for its initial phase, meaning it flies straight and blind to its designated TTA point, then turns on its radar to find the target. The Sparrow apparently employs a number if different guidance methods. Some versions of the Sparrow merely ride the radar beam towards target before reaching specified distance X and attempting an intercept... however the characteristics of the shooter's STT radar emissions apparently have unique properties that are detectable by a smart RWR... perhaps the specific frequencies bombarding the target enhance the scattering properties of the reflected radar beams allowing them to be more easily detected by a missile on an intercept flight path, but that's just my own wild imagination at work.

 

The AMRAAM is smarter than the Sparrow, and it doesn't fly blind: It's datalinked on its way, and inertial guidance merely means that its own position is known to it via well .. intertial guidance, as opposed to 'homing on target'. This means that any corrections done by a datalinked update are handled by the inertial guidance.

 

The sparrow normally uses beam-riding guidance, but the latest version, AFAIK, uses datalink with terminal homing like the R-27 series apparently to the extent where you can launch it in TWS and go STT at the last few seconds at which point it begins to home. Either way the radar switches to a high-PRF waveform if iI recall corectly which is indicative of its missile guidance intent. Increasing scattering is not really an issue - what is an issue is the information the waveform provides you, and you need a specific frequency range and PRF to get what you need (ie. closure, distance)

 

I once had the opportunity to ask a Jane's associate and a Hornet driver why SARH missiles relay a launch warning beyond the STT warning tone to the target's RWR a number of years back. The Jane's associate gave me a response to the effect of what I outlined above, and the Hornet driver just smiled and said he was glad someone else could answer the question for him because he couldn't think of a way to answer without giving away the real reason.

 

Yeah, only you liberally sprinkled the maybe's in there. The radar does use a specific waveform for guidance. That's what triggers the RWR missile warning. But as you can see from what I described above, this warning may well well come fairly late and be more of 'homing'w arning than a 'launch' warning. A 'lock' warning is simple to detect, too: The beam's sitting on you isntead of sweeping.

 

The TEWS and SPO are extremely smart devices, and they do a lot of highly classified things besides just detect the direction and strength of radar emissions.

 

Sure. So are radars, and they do highly classified things to allow them to defeat or fool RWR's and SPJ's as well (or at least, they try). An RWR in rinciple doesn'tr eally do anything you wouldn't expect in most cases - it receives, sorts and displays signals in a certain manner.

 

What's classified is the exact waveforms known or not known, how many signals the RWR can handle, the algorithms and possibly specific sensors that it uses. In principle however, it's pretty straight forward and there's not too much 'smarts' to it (smarts suck away processor power like you wouldn't believe, and on an aircraft you never have enough - but hey, at least the F-22 is running on 486's now)

[169th_DedCat]

this whole IR warning thing was made for playability purposes.

 

On that point I think NOT having a lock/launch tone for pre-burn-through HOJ shots would add to the playability of the game. Whether or not they work this way IRL is just speculation, but in the game it would force people to be smart about using their jammers instead of just flicking them on the second they detect enemy radar emissions for fear of being smacked by a silent HOJ shot.

[GGTharos]

Yes they do, but the way they were modeled in LOMAC 1.01 made them infallible if not omnipotent. They detected a missile launch at any angle, distance, and aspect. Even the TEWS/SPO has angle/aspect limits for detecting radar emissions.

 

 

Which can be allieviated by adding more antennae (and processing power...and power generator requirements...and..you get the idea)

Either way, that warning system is still not available on most fighters. It's mostly used to protect bombers and transports for the time being.

 

As for how LOMAC modelled it ... it's actually rather difficult to model it realistically, I'm sure, more or less for the same reason that it's difficult to model radar ground bounce realistically (you might model the effect/end result in a manner that it appeared realistic, but it's not really simulating the reality of the situation even if it's adequate for the purpose of the sim)

[169th_DedCat]

this warning may well well come fairly late and be more of 'homing'w arning than a 'launch' warning.

 

You're absolutely correct, it is a homing signal that is being detected and not a launch signal, but that is really just semantics in this thread. I've yet to see a sim that modeled delayed radar missile homing emissions (after the missile is already en route), but it would be nice to see that one day.

 

Thanks for the clarification on the AMRAAM/Sparrow guidance, etc. I knew the AMRAAMs initial flight couldn't be as dumb as all that.

[GGTharos]

It only reallya pplies to missiles that work that way at all (ie. Latest sparrow, which I guess isn't modelled in LOMAC) and the R-27 series could probably do this as well, except the launching platform's radars can't work in that way - so, there are a lot of things to consider.

[Asterix28573]

Hi,

According to F4 manual, A/C radar signal changes from the usual Hi/Me/Lo PRF mode to a "Continuous-Wave" mode (CW) after firing a SARH missile. This is what RWR devices detect as the "Launch" signal. I don't know the reason of this behaviour, though.

 

Cheers,

Asterix

 

 

 

That depends on the missile, and a lot of the publicly available logic behind it is highly speculative. My understanding of the current Sparrow and the AMRAAM is that neither use radio controlled guidance for their initial flight phase, but the Adder and the Alamo do. The AMRAAM apparently uses purely inertial guidance for its initial phase, meaning it flies straight and blind to its designated TTA point, then turns on its radar to find the target. The Sparrow apparently employs a number if different guidance methods. Some versions of the Sparrow merely ride the radar beam towards target before reaching specified distance X and attempting an intercept... however the characteristics of the shooter's STT radar emissions apparently have unique properties that are detectable by a smart RWR... perhaps the specific frequencies bombarding the target enhance the scattering properties of the reflected radar beams allowing them to be more easily detected by a missile on an intercept flight path, but that's just my own wild imagination at work.

 

I once had the opportunity to ask a Jane's associate and a Hornet driver why SARH missiles relay a launch warning beyond the STT warning tone to the target's RWR a number of years back. The Jane's associate gave me a response to the effect of what I outlined above, and the Hornet driver just smiled and said he was glad someone else could answer the question for him because he couldn't think of a way to answer without giving away the real reason.

 

The TEWS and SPO are extremely smart devices, and they do a lot of highly classified things besides just detect the direction and strength of radar emissions.

[GGTharos]

Only for some kinds of old missiles ... it no longers to CW with the monopulse seekers.

[Prophet_169th]

Don't forget, it's more than just a launch warning, F-15s give a lock warning when locked onto a jam signal. Nothing passive about that.

 

I havent done much testing, but I thought this was the case in 1.02?

 

I always assumed it was.

 

It would be great though, if it was a passive attack. The only passive attacks that I knew of for the F15, was flood with the 7, and visual with the 120. And of course the 9 is passive in uncaged or even just radar off.

[Prophet_169th]

Also, once the radar transitions from HOJ to STT at burn through, I would also expect a lock tone on the recieving end.

 

Would be nice if TWS worked like its supposed to also.

 

These seem like minor issues to me. I dont know software coding, so I could definately be very wrong.

[Asterix28573]

Ok, I didn't know it, although I figured that modern radar / missiles would use a better (and stealthier) system.

 

Thanks for the info, anyway.

 

Cheers,

Asterix

 

 

Only for some kinds of old missiles ... it no longers to CW with the monopulse seekers.

[Prophet_169th]

Not only stealthier, but not using CW saves power input, and increased power output.

[GGTharos]

Ok, I didn't know it, although I figured that modern radar / missiles would use a better (and stealthier) system.

 

Thanks for the info, anyway.

 

Cheers,

Asterix

 

 

Not really stealthier (only to very old RWRs) ... it still must use a special waveform for the guidance, which the RWR can pick up.