Question about radar
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Good Day, All,
I would appreciate the Group’s input an experience that occurred in a MP session last night…
The situation was that my human wingman and I had gotten separated by about 15 miles. I was coming off an engagement and had climbed to 34K. I got a call that my wingie had a Bandit on his tail at 14K. I immediately went hot to him and went into a 10 degree dive to put my nose on him, in 'burner. During that descent I tried everything thing I could think of to get a lockable paint on the Bandit, but could not. I could lock my non- jamming wingman, but not the Bandit. I tried RWS,TWS(they were beaming me so VSR was not an option), Spotlight, radar EXP(wingman and Bandit were really close together), narrowing the azimuth scam, and antenna elevation.
Antenna elevation is where my question lies. My understanding is that the radar tries to maintain a scan on the horizon. So, if I want to focus on a target that is 10 degrees down, I need to lower the ant.ele. 10 degrees. That’s what I was doing (while also trying from 0-40 deg. down). Is my understanding correct?
While we’re here, let’s expand things a bit. Beyond radar mode/FOV selection, narrowing azimuth scan, and Spotlight(which I’ve come like use a lot),what procedures have you found to facilitate jamming burn through/get a lockable paint? In hindsight I could think of was to have him come hard right and come towards me. We didn’t think of that at the time.
And, as for Spotlight, does it make a narrow scan cone so that you have to use Spotlight with ant.ele. ? -
Interesting, I always understood the antenna elevation was relative to where the nose was pointing. So if you were 10 degrees nose down in a dive with -10 degrees elevation you would be pointing radar down -20 degrees. Which is correct?
Also when you spotlight someone to burn through the jam, I do believe you have to keep the spotlight on to give it time to burn through… that can take a while sometimes and even then doesn’t always work.
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What you want to do is to set your ANT ELEV so that the altitude of interest is covered - not simply set it -10 deg - at the range of interest. You do this by watching your Cursor indications on the display. This means you can’t simply set your cursor to the initial intercept report, you have to adjust it as your range and altitude decrease. RWS is probably your best bet, Spotlight probably isn’t anywhere near optimum because you’d have to get dead onto the bogey to actually lock it - and you don’t really know where it is because of the jamming - so a search mode is called for. You can also narrow your scan volume (in AZ and Bar), if you have enough SA to actually think you know where to look.
The radar doesn’t actually try to maintain a scan “on” the horizon…it maintains a scan oriented to the horizon. Where the focus is depends on where you set your Elev and the range at which you are scanning; i.e. - where you park your Cursor. So these are what you have to pay attention to…otherwise you can scan past or short/over or under, the bogey and never see him. If you see a jam strobe you can use that to manually augment your SA.
…and sometimes, jamming just plain works and you won’t ever burn through. Then you all you can resort to is the Mk 1 Mod 0 eyeball.
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Interesting, I always understood the antenna elevation was relative to where the nose was pointing. So if you were 10 degrees nose down in a dive with -10 degrees elevation you would be pointing radar down -20 degrees. Which is correct?
Also when you spotlight someone to burn through the jam, I do believe you have to keep the spotlight on to give it time to burn through… that can take a while sometimes and even then doesn’t always work.
Nope, the antenna is stabilized. It would be PITA to use if you have to correct you pitch angle manually…
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Simply sounds like you were at the mercy of bad Doppler effects since your wingy and bogey were traveling perpendicular to you. I bet if he would have started jinking into you, the situation would have improved… of course, just a thought.
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…not a bad thought. You could skate to quarter off and create some aspect if both are beaming you, and that could help the situation.
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The angle of tilt on the radar really is not the way to look at this. Focus should be on the 2 numbers next to the targeting gates, as this tells you the vertical scan limits of the section of sky the radar is scanning.
A red number on the bottom indicates that you are scanning below ground level. In the attached photo the top number represents the upper limit is 21k and the lower number shows the lower limit as being 1k below ground level. You should work to tilt the radar so that the center of the vertical scan equals the altitude of the target you are trying acquire. There are other ways to help facilitate burn through, example narrowing azimuth, but the numbers next to the targeting gates are the 1st thing you should be focusing your attention on.
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Spotlight commands A1 B4 centered in azimuth on cursor which is the exact same thing as picking those values manually with the OSB. The only difference is the auto acquire when you release designate. You still have to direct it with antenna elevation control in the vertical. I rarely think about absolute radar field of regard in angle. As Cantoo above says altitude coverage at cursor range is what I’m thinking 99% of the time.
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You need to think in terms of scan volume - Az and altitude. Which means you bar scan factors. If you know relatively where your bogey is in altitude you may even be able to reduce your bar scan to two and still put him in the volume - and your lock (if you can get one) will come that much quicker.
The volume size at range is again, dependent on where your cursors are - and as I and Cantoo have pointed out that’s what you need to pay attention to. Narrow scan/fewer bars -> faster locks.
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Sometimes the plane is simply not going to show up, even if your range and scan parameters are dead on (i.e. with labels on you SEE a jet dead ahead at 18nm range, 20k and you are pointing right at him, Ra
nge 20, scan is 18-26, and nothing is on radar). No jamming chevrons, nothing. Happens quite a bit. Only way (for me) to get a lock is to get withing 10nm, go to DF mode, and lock manually using the cross. -
I was just about to ask, if ACM / dogfight radar modes offer any benefit here. Is it limited to 10nm?
I think I’ve seen it go out to 20nm but the only way I can find to recreate that is to acquire the lock in RWS/TWS and switch to ACM… or, acquire the lock <10nm and they accelerate away from you >10nm.
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I was just about to ask, if ACM / dogfight radar modes offer any benefit here. Is it limited to 10nm?
I think I’ve seen it go out to 20nm but the only way I can find to recreate that is to acquire the lock in RWS/TWS and switch to ACM… or, acquire the lock <10nm and they accelerate away from you >10nm.
Hope someone can give a definitive answer as these are not stealth fighters we are trying to lock.
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I can not give a definitive answer, but I can say this, learn about all the different tools you have available in your tool kit, and how to use them. If you are trying to acquire a target at an extremely high closure rate reduce range on the FCR with him as he closes, and be ready to aggressively move your antennae tilt to maintain vertical scan at his estimated altitude as the vertical scan narrows greatly as FCR range is reduced. I’ve found the best way to practice is to get in Dogfight Match play with overwhelming odds against you and practice practice practice!
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+1. You have to learn to use what you have (ALL of your sensors) and to use it effectively.
I can also echo that in some cases - quite a few, really - jamming can just plain defeat you and you are not going to burn through - and that will depend on the scenario. If you are inside of ~10 miles you should be using your eyes anyway (and your AIM-9s if you have any), and the ACM radar modes are optimized to augment your eyes…and that is part of the foregoing “learning to use it effectively” statement.
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No idea about the RL radar physics or fighter doctrine … but in BMS the right play here is probably
a) switch to TWS and soft-lock your wingman at 15nm … if the bandit lights up behind him, you can quickly TMS-right to switch the lock to him
b) burn to intercept, partial-lead pursuit … then at 10nm switch to dgft mode and TMS-up to try to acquire the bogey with boresight
c) curse the radar and turn it off, turn HMCS on, BORE submode … hold cursor-enable while pointing at the bad guy … hit uncage and see if the sidewinder can track him better than the radar can … lol
d) last but not least, don’t shoot unless it’s a solid tone on the bad guy, and not likely to track your wingman
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…very easy way to shoot your wingman down by “mistake”, especially in the presence of jamming…will also cloud his SA by spiking his RWR and giving him the thought that he is about to be engaged by someone that isn’t actually a bogey - which could make him pull a stupid maneuver and give the real bogey a shot opportunity. Very bad idea…and would never be done like that in RL.
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…very easy way to shoot your wingman down by “mistake”, especially in the presence of jamming…will also cloud his SA by spiking his RWR and giving him the thought that he is about to be engaged by someone that isn’t actually a bogey - which could make him pull a stupid maneuver and give the real bogey a shot opportunity. Very bad idea…and would never be done like that in RL.
Certainly true … but if we feel we’re working around BMS quirks vs RL tactics/maneuvers, then maybe special rules of engagement apply?
Maybe depends on how dire the situation is …
But yeah … master arm => SIM and call out “raygun”
I don’t even like watching MP videos were people fly around in loose/trail formations with master arm ON and sidewinders armed. It feels like waving a gun around in a room full of friends…
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Beaming contacts disappearing, even at 20NM is something that I also have sometimes (they usually show up again later).
Not being able to lock at 20NM is in this situation not that bad as you’re not supposed to fire Fox-3s into furballs anyway unless your wingman is really about to die if you don’t get the bandit off his tail immediately. I had that situation a few times and even STT doesn’t prevent your AMRAAM to lock something it’s not supposed to.
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Certainly true … but if we feel we’re working around BMS quirks vs RL tactics/maneuvers, then maybe special rules of engagement apply?
Maybe depends on how dire the situation is …
But yeah … master arm => SIM and call out “raygun”
I don’t even like watching MP videos were people fly around in loose/trail formations with master arm ON and sidewinders armed. It feels like waving a gun around in a room full of friends…
I recall a RL incident related to me where some guys were doing Training ACM over the Gulf in F-4s and someone made such a mistake…and actually shot their playmate down. The guys that ended up in the water never knew what hit them, and they thought the jet simply came apart on them - which is the beauty of taking a close in, no lock shot…but you simply don’t do that if you don’t have a clear line of fire. Period. And as you observe, you don’t fly around with Master Arm hot until and unless all ROE are met and there is a clear intent to fire.
When the shooters got to the ready room after the splashed guys the apologies were profuse - “no, seriously…we shot you down. Sorry about that.”