ESM/ECM Modeling

[GGTharos]

You cannot notch anything in a helicopter (you can in DCS: Ka-50, but not in reality, and eventually I'm sure this will be reflected).

 

Hiding in ground clutter from modern SAMs in a helicopter is probably not very effective, as they are either advanced to the point where it won't matter (and again, you need a jammer now, since you can't notch in a heli) or they have back-ups like EO systems to guide their missiles with.

 

Its great having up to date warning systems sadly lacking in the ka-50. Its all worthless though if its almost nigh impossible to avoid the threat using existing techniques. Specifically, the ability to beam and notch pulse doppler radar systems (ground, air & missile) and have accurate chaff modelling for the rest.

I have asked the radar modelling question a few times and sent a PM to GG but am yet to receive a reply. Black Shark was terrible in this area, I really do hope they've given it some love and attention. Anyone have any ideas on this?

[Druid_]

You cannot notch anything in a helicopter (you can in DCS: Ka-50, but not in reality, and eventually I'm sure this will be reflected).

 

Hiding in ground clutter from modern SAMs in a helicopter is probably not very effective, as they are either advanced to the point where it won't matter (and again, you need a jammer now, since you can't notch in a heli) or they have back-ups like EO systems to guide their missiles with.

 

Hi GG. I think you've misunderstood my comment, I was referring to the ability of the a10c vs pd radar in the soon to be released DCS a10c.

 

Out of interest though, why is it not possible to Beam and Notch in a helicopter, rotor blade movement maybe?. I tried a test of DCS BS where I hover pop up at one of the dams with just the Rotors above the rim and all of the radar systems (8k away) I tested locked me up and fired (including Patriot) within 6 secs. Ouch!

 

As for ground clutter, not all of the SAMs in DCS are advanced are they? I get hit when flying at 10ft between buildings! Maybe I should try taxiing along the road to the target area.

 

Anyway, I digress, my question remains, will the radar systems in DCS a10c (Aircraft, Ground & missile) be modelled fairly accurately?

[GGTharos]

Hi GG. I think you've misunderstood my comment, I was referring to the ability of the a10c vs pd radar in the soon to be released DCS a10c.

 

Let's just say you carry a jammer for a good reason :)

 

Out of interest though, why is it not possible to Beam and Notch in a helicopter, rotor blade movement maybe?.

 

Correct! You will ALWAYS be picked out from clutter because of the blades. Not modeled in DCS for now.

 

I tried a test of DCS BS where I hover pop up at one of the dams with just the Rotors above the rim and all of the radar systems (8k away) I tested locked me up and fired (including Patriot) within 6 secs. Ouch!

 

And this is probably similar to what you would experience in RL :)

In DCS, the SAMs are not notchable since they are below your altitude (or maybe they can never be notched, I have not tested) but you can notch any airborne radars above your altitude in DCS.

 

As for ground clutter, not all of the SAMs in DCS are advanced are they? I get hit when flying at 10ft between buildings! Maybe I should try taxiing along the road to the target area.

 

No, but some (for example Tunguska) are specifically made to counter helicopters.

 

Anyway, I digress, my question remains, will the radar systems in DCS a10c (Aircraft, Ground & missile) be modelled fairly accurately?

 

About as accurately as required for the time being. :)

[Maximus_G]

Correct! You will ALWAYS be picked out from clutter because of the blades. Not modeled in DCS for now.

 

What if the blades are made of plastic, composite or other radiotransparent material?

[GGTharos]

Unless they are completely stealth blades, a la Comanche, AFAIK the only difference will be to reduce detection range, and not too significantly - the leading edges still need to be made of metal IIRC. Helis with composite blades seem to have been picked up at around 40nm by F-15C's.

[Maximus_G]

Unless they are completely stealth blades, a la Comanche, AFAIK the only difference will be to reduce detection range, and not too significantly - the leading edges still need to be made of metal IIRC. Helis with composite blades seem to have been picked up at around 40nm by F-15C's.

Sorry for being inexact, of course i meant blades *fully* made of radiotransparent materials. No metal longerons or other parts.

[Scabbers]

The blade structure will always give a minimal return. however the proper use of pop up tech is to have a spotter that is locking targets such as the Kiowa that sends targets to the longbows. They stay down until the recieve a lock and pop up enough to pickle a hellfire LOAL and back down before the sam system can effect a target lock. To my meger knowledge of the russian equipment and tactics. they do not have this ability at this time.

 

also remember a radar wave takes 12.36 microseconds to travel 1 mile and return. So one hit and your painted and plotted.

Edited September 16, 2010 by Scabbers

[Scabbers]

a radar wave will return of 90 percent of all materials because of density. A stealth coating tries to absorb or redirect the wave to not provide a return but this is not 100% effective. Staying below the blanket and using terrain is the most effective mask.

[GGTharos]

In that case you are looking at a pretty short detection range, probably (and this is just a slightly educated guess) of under 10nm if the heli is in a hover.

 

Sorry for being inexact, of course i meant blades *fully* made of radiotransparent materials. No metal longerons or other parts.

[Druid_]

Thanks for the reply GG. a10c - Jamm, chaff, notch and hope!

[GGTharos]

You just fly the plane, no need to worry about chaff and ecm ... ;)

[Druid_]

You just fly the plane, no need to worry about chaff and ecm ... ;)

Ahh yes of course, fully automatic system. Marvellous!!

[lenco12]

nothing your not on the dev team....lol. I was curious as to what RWR display pattern they were going to use

Oops nevermind, was thinking of something else.

 

Missile Warning System is AAR-47.

[deltatango]

I tried a test of DCS BS where I hover pop up at one of the dams with just the Rotors above the rim and all of the radar systems (8k away) I tested locked me up and fired (including Patriot) within 6 secs. Ouch!

 

also remember a radar wave takes 12.36 microseconds to travel 1 mile and return. So one hit and your painted and plotted.

 

This is one aspect of Blackshark (and other sims, like ARMA) that annoys me a bit. As soon as AI has Line Of Sight (LOS) on you - they INSTANTLY acquire, lock (for missiles) and fire on you. It doesn't matter if they are a soldier with a MANPADS, or an AK, or a missile system - like the Hawk. It seems instantaneous. It's made even worse in DCS:BS, that AI can see through vegetation and you can't (or has this been fixed).

 

The thing that doesn't seem to be modelled is the fact the operator and/or radar has to scan a lot of sky and can pick you up AS SOON as they have LOS. Radars have design scan rate limits (ok most, except some phased array). Sure it may only take 12.36 microseconds for the radar to travel that distance, but it should take at least a couple of seconds (maybe 8-10?) to scan the whole sky and then a couple more for the operator to identify, acknowledge and authorise the launch. For the MANPADS, it would be even longer, unless you popped right up in front of them and they were pointed right at you.

 

This is one aspect of sims like these that bores me after a while. It's fun to learn how to fly it and it's fun to employ the weapons, but it's not so fun to re-fly campaign missions over and over and over again, due to uber SAMs and other GBAD.

 

In reality would helos really be employed against ground targets, in such a high threat environment, with little intel on accurate locations of threats (they are programmed to appear randomly in missions) Wouldn't the scheme of maneuvers call for greater SEAD, before commencing the attack part of the campaign? This used to work well in dynamic campaign in Falcon 4.0, where you could specify more SEAD at the start and save yourself lots of losses later on. If this sim is to be more realistic, it would be good to get a chance to reduce the threat to an acceptable level, before plunging into an all- out attack.

 

The advantage that DCS:BS has is that - being a helo - you can really carefully skirt your way around these threats by hovering, or flying really slow. This ensures you don't fly yourself into an un-escapeable ring of air defences. Something that is hard not to do in a Jet - like the A-10.

[nomdeplume]

It does feel like improvements could be made in terms of simulating the 'acquisition' phase, but MANPADS for sure don't immediately fire, and there is some variation in other AD units. Have you experimented with different AI skill levels for the air defences? There's some significant changes in behaviour between the different skills. On expert, some of the SAMs avoid switching their radar on until you're in range so you get virtually no warning before the missile launch (more relevant to FC2/WH than BS, of course).

 

You can imagine this is representative of an integrated air defence network. That is, you can pretend that the particular units you're near have been warned of your approach by others, so they're already looking for you. That would lead to dramatically reduced acquisition times.

 

As for SEAD - they only really go after significant SAM sites, not MANPADS and SHORAD. In particular, you'll never remove the MANPADS threat since it's so trivial for a man to hide from aircraft if he doesn't want to be seen. I do agree the longer-range SAMs tend to be overused in the official campaigns. Obviously it's intended to force the player to use particular tactics, and for that purpose it's effective, but you can't help but wonder why your side hasn't seen fit to remove that particular threat.

 

The ring-of-death is more a mission-design complaint, and the campaigns are designed to present a certain challenge. The intended solution, I believe, is to make use of more-realistic 'one pass, haul ass' tactics. Take your time to determine ingress and egress paths, then go in, spamming flares, hit your targets, and get out while hoping for the best.

 

Personally, I don't particularly like that kind of mission setup, so while I do play through the campaigns best as I can, I don't find myself replaying them. But that's why the game comes with a mission editor.

[deltatango]

The intended solution, I believe, is to make use of more-realistic 'one pass, haul ass' tactics.

 

That'd be great - if the missions weren't designed to judge success or failure based on killing X number of units. It's a catch22. You have to act boldly to succeed in the mission, but this'll get you killed every time (or you run out of suitable weapons to kill all required targets from a safe distance).

 

Reduce the threat, or get rid of the goals. The mission should be successful if:

a. you get home safely and;

b. you hit what you get to fire at.

 

Personally, I don't particularly like that kind of mission setup, so while I do play through the campaigns best as I can, I don't find myself replaying them. But that's why the game comes with a mission editor.

 

Yeah but I don't see the point in designing - and then playing a mission yourself. You already know where all the stuff is (except randomly appearing units). It's like a musician writing and then listening to a song for their own enjoyment. You're probably already sick of it after hearing it 100's of times

 

 

Funnily enough, after writing my other post in this thread, I found a similar thread over in DCS:BS http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=57577

Edited September 19, 2010 by deltatango

[nomdeplume]

Yeah but I don't see the point in designing - and then playing a mission yourself.

 

Well, each to their own, but that's pretty much all I do. There's enough power in the mission editor, and enough variability in my piloting skills, to make each playthrough of a mission a pretty different experience. Plus, they're so easy to set up, it's easy to try out pretty much any scenario you can come up with.