Harm Attack Display colour codes
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Hello Everyone !
Trying to get to the bottom of the HTS/HAD colour code, and what they mean.
We had a discussion last night with some friend who I fly with, and every argument made sense, so if anybody has a definitive answer, I would be really interested in it.Colours I can see on the HAD :
- Gray = ?
- Green = Emitter emitting nothing ?
- Yellow = Emitter in search mode
- Red = Emitter in tracking mode
- Red Flashing = Emitter in missile guidance mode (missile has been fired)
So my questions are the following :
What does the green colour exactly mean ?
Does it mean that the emitter was detected at some point but is not beeing seen right now.
Is it some type of “history” with location of the detected emitters ?
Or does it mean that the emitter is still seen by the HTS and that it is still live ?How does an emitter become green ?
Does it have to be detected at least once in search mode ?
If yes, why does the HAD screen already have “green” contacts at mission start ? Where do they come from ?Does an emitter disappear when you destroy it ?
I could have sworn it remains on the display in green colour.
But other people told me it disappears from the HAD once you have destroyed it, which got confirmed last night.
This would mean the HAD can make the difference between green = emitter still present but not emitting and remove it from the HAD once you have destroyed it.What does the gray colour mean ?
I am certain I saw some emitters in gray colour. It is not described in the manual.
Any information about that ?Can the HTS detect the SA-10 in launch mode ?
The “10” emitter can be flashing on the HTS, meaning it is guiding a missile. So the HTS can actually make the difference between track mode and guidance mode for the SA-10 ?The -34 manual says the following :
Yellow = emitter active
Red = emitter tracking
Flashing Red = emitter launching
Green = emitter not activeSo there you have it, any information would be appreciated
In the end, what I would like to learn is what the colours exactly mean.Flow.
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Additional question :
What are the blind spots of the HTS Pod ?
It seems that there are blind spots in the 3/9 o’clock position of the HTS, so the threats emitting that are in that position are not seen as emitting. Is that correct ? -
Here is what the training manual has to say about this:
The displayed symbols change colour according to their emitting state:
• Steady yellow: Radar is emitting in search mode.
• Steady red: Radar is tracking (acquisition).
• Flashing red: Radar is guiding a missile (missile launch).
• Grey: Radar is not emitting. -
Thank you for your answer Red Dog !
What does the green colour mean then ? It sounds like it is the same as gray.I did some testing and have taken screenshots, I will be organizing it and posting it a little later.
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OK, some more food for thoughts :
So the grey color seems to represent an “interpolation” = radar that should be emitting / tracking, but it not detected right now.
This color happens when there is a missile in the air and you bank the aircraft hard to one side to manoeuvre, as if the emitter was out of the perception cone of the HTS.
What I don’t understand is :- Why would an emitter disappear from the HAD when it is hit. How does the HTS know it is down ? Shouldn’t it become green ?
- What is the difference between green and grey ?
Thank you
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Just FYI: HAD is arcadish and had almost nothing to do with the real device.
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Just FYI: HAD is arcadish and had almost nothing to do with the real device.
Fair enough, but that’s what we’ve got, and it still is fun to use
This is why I’m trying to go to the bottom of it -
Pretty sure green vs gray is a theoretical emitter which is assumed to be there but hasn’t been observed this flight and green is verified because it was observed to emit some time.
Real thing has a database of threats loaded to it and so correlates mission emissions with the database. Emitters discovered for the first time in a flight would have position certainty of lower quality.
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Yeah I have no idea what green vs grey means either. Maybe grey indicates you have a missile currently heading towards it but I doubt it. I assume green indicates the site is not emitting (Or at least you’re not picking anything up. SAMs in BMS tend to just emit all the time unless certain circumstances occur IIRC)
To be honest I never really understood why firing at yellow emitters work. If you have a SAM site for example, typically there’s a search radar and a tracking radar. If the SAM has not locked on, why do I see the number for the tracking radar lighting up in yellow when AFAIK they typically don’t do search mode? I know S’s are search radar of any type typically. So why do I see a tracking radar emitting in search mode? (Although to be fair I believe some of them can still operate in a search mode of sorts like the Fan Song IRL)
I feel the same way with the RWR. I always have trouble exactly when I’m being locked onto or not. One of Krause’s videos explains SAM search radar typically shows up as the number appearing then disappearing, while tracking radar involves the threat staying on the RWR. This was a video from 2011 so it likely doesn’t apply to 2018 BMS. When I play it feels like I have no idea when the threat locks, (I see the symbol steady. Presumably this is search radar and it’s steady because the RWR has a memory of sorts and only clears the threat after a certain length of time with no emissions detected) only when they launch. I hear the tone change and see the threat move inward on the RWR indicating a surge in signal power but it feels like the window between “lock” and “launch” is very short, less than a second.
No idea if it’s a bug, I’m misinterpeting the RWR, or if SAM operators in BMS are just quick on the trigger once they lock you up. I sort of thought they’d lock onto you and possibly wait for you to get a bit closer before firing, but it seems in BMS once they “commit” to an attack, they lock and fire pretty much immediately.
But yeah the H.A.D. is arcadey, I just wish the documentation was clearer. In the training manual they actually show a SAM search radar as tracking somebody, (S is red) while the number (tracking radar) remains in search mode. No idea what’s going on with how Falcon models SAM sites.
EDIT: Kinda funny the H.A.D. can show missile launch for the SA-10. Makes a good situational awareness aid.
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EDIT: Kinda funny the H.A.D. can show missile launch for the SA-10. Makes a good situational awar
This is precisely why HAD is not realistic. Real one is not a sort of super RWR like we have in BMS. It is only supposed to display theoretical geo position of some known systems (sort of ppt) and/or can detect and gonio the radio emission and can sort it (with the same limitations than an RWR) using its library. But it is not suposed to tell you in which “mode” emitter is nor should indicate that system has launched a missile.
And can’t be precise at the first detection (need diferent bearings for proper goniometry/triangulations)The green symbols you see is nothing but sorts of pre-recorded position or latest known position recorded after initial detection with no more radio emission.
Last point, normaly, an RWR is not necessarily able to detect that a missile has been actually been fired. This depends on each systems type (how it is working) or track/guidance mode … And most factor: available Intels on each system and accuracy of intel informations. Two RWR of the same type can have different performances depending of how they have been fed by electronique warfare/intel guys.
In BMS, you still have the best RWR ever with an almost perfect accuracies.
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Well, if you are talking realistic, you wouldn’t be going sam hunting without a REO and you wouldn’t be flying over enemy territory without sam suppression units flying in ahead of you, we do have 2 seaters that are nothing but eye candy, we should let it slide and enjoy what we got, that’s how I looked at Strike Fighters , it had just as much key commands as BMS but it felt that you had another set of eyes in the back seat, https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+wild+weasles+f-105s&view=detail∣=37D6E06E6F8E3DF3E26F37D6E06E6F8E3DF3E26F&FORM=VIRE
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Thank you all for your answers. Not quoting everyone because it would make this a huge post, but here is what I can understand so far :
- Green
Emitter not active but in database, from two sources : intel and detection during mission.
This is why you have green emitter positions already on the HAD at mission start, because it comes from intel. - Grey
Emitter known to be active at the moment but currently not detected because of plane’s attitude. - Yellow
Emitter currently scanning but not tracking. Valid for both search and track radars. - Red solid
Emitter currently tracking ownship. - Red flashing
Emitter currently guiding a missile to ownship. - Emitter disappeared from HAD
Emitter destroyed
If anyone from the dev team could confirm this it would be super appreciated Thanks !
- Green
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Yeah that’s what green/gray is. Gray out of FOV of the HTS can’t know status so it’s colored “no info.” When in FOV it’s green for “should be able to see if it’s emitting or not, but currently not.”
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Yeah that’s what green/gray is. Gray out of FOV of the HTS can’t know status so it’s colored “no info.” When in FOV it’s green for “should be able to see if it’s emitting or not, but currently not.”
That does make sense thank you
edit : so a green can become grey and not just a yellow one ?
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I believe red and flashing red indicate lock and guidance mode even if the SAM is not targeting you. I’ve seen red and flashing red SAM’s in friendly airspace (Hawks, I believe Patriots too) and there’s no way they were engaging me.
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Yeah that’s what green/gray is. Gray out of FOV of the HTS can’t know status so it’s colored “no info.” When in FOV it’s green for “should be able to see if it’s emitting or not, but currently not.”
Did some testing, and this is not the result I had. See below for more details.
I believe red and flashing red indicate lock and guidance mode even if the SAM is not targeting you. I’ve seen red and flashing red SAM’s in friendly airspace (Hawks, I believe Patriots too) and there’s no way they were engaging me.
I tested that too, but could not confirm. An SA-2 engaged my wigman, and I could see the SA-2 on my HAD and it was in the detection range, but it remained yellow color, no red or flashing red. I could see the missiles in the air too so I am certain I looked at the correct SAM.
OK did some more testing, here is what came out of it :
- The HTS can only look forward, so as soon as an emitter is behind your 3/9 line it will not know if that particular emitter is scanning / tracking you
- If the emitter is in grey colour = it is tracking you but is outside of the HTS’s FOV. This is true for both tracking & guiding a missile.
- If an emitter is green, it is either currently off or not tracking / guiding a missile on you.
Some screenshots that are more explicit :
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Hmmm… I’ve always thought that HTS/HAD should be 360 device, or definitely more then only 180 in-front hemisphere. …, close or almost like RWR.
eg. Similar to the front passive array of the sub , it has coverage of about 270-300 degrees even its location is in the bow. So there is no “hard-cut” , only blind spot to the stern.
Another example would be the 2nd , rear-one AFT transceiver of the Data-link pod , you can see in HSD when you switch ANT , that coverage should be in the front of the HTS , !only without that blind spot in the middle… that just feels wrong, but can’t say, that stuff is probably classified., like HTS.
Cheers
As the US Air Force retired its Phantoms,
replacing them with the F-15 and F-16, the
F-4G faded into history. The replacement
for the F-4G in USAF service is the
AN/ASQ-213 HARM Targeting System
(HTS) equipped single seat F-16CJ.
The podded HTS system, carried on an
inlet pylon, provides forward sector
coverage for the F-16C, which is an
important distinction from the original F-
4G Weasel, capable of searching 360
degrees for offending radar emitters. Many
purists in the electronic combat community
do not regard the F-16C/HTS to be a robust
replacement for the F-4G/APR-38/45,
despite the better frequency coverage and
sensitivity of the newer HTS system -
single sector coverage is a tactical
disadvantage against the all-azimuth APR-
38/45 system.
The F-16C/HTS combo achieves its
combat effect by exploiting digital datalink
targeting information provided by the RC-
135 Rivet Joint electronic surveillance
aircraft, and more recently the ESM
equipped E-3C AWACS. In effect the F-
16C/HTS is ‘vectored’ against an emitter
tracked and identified by ‘offboard’
sources. Without these ‘offboard’
supporting surveillance systems the F-
16C/HTS loses much of its potency.… Well , I’ve been wrong before
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Hmmm… I’ve always thought that HTS/HAD should be 360 device, or definitely more then only 180 in-front hemisphere. …, close or almost like RWR.
eg. Similar to the front passive array of the sub , it has coverage of about 270-300 degrees even its location is in the bow. So there is no “hard-cut” , only blind spot to the stern.
Another example would be the 2nd , rear-one AFT transceiver of the Data-link pod , you can see in HSD when you switch ANT , that coverage should be in the front of the HTS , !only without that blind spot in the middle… that just feels wrong, but can’t say, that stuff is probably classified., like HTS.
Cheers
now you know what it’s like too subsim, cheers
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Hmmm… I’ve always thought that HTS/HAD should be 360 device, or definitely more then only 180 in-front hemisphere. …, close or almost like RWR.
eg. Similar to the front passive array of the sub , it has coverage of about 270-300 degrees even its location is in the bow. So there is no “hard-cut” , only blind spot to the stern.
Another example would be the 2nd , rear-one AFT transceiver of the Data-link pod , you can see in HSD when you switch ANT , that coverage should be in the front of the HTS , !only without that blind spot in the middle… that just feels wrong, but can’t say, that stuff is probably classified., like HTS.
The HTS is not simulated correctly in BMS, and the point of my post was not to actually discuss that since we know that it does not reflect reality.
I’m just trying to understand fully how it works in BMS
But thank you for confirming that the real pod should see 360° around it, or close to it I guess -
Yes, sorry speaking from memory without checking.
Clearly gray is a red (or worse) indication which has left FOV. It stays gray until back in FOV with color state yellow or below.