DCS 2.8.0 Aircraft Radar Ranges Chart - Large F-15C range increase
Posted Oct 29, 2022, 3:38 PM UTC
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All hail the 15C radar
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I'm very much looking forward to seeing what RAZBAM does with the F-15E, potentially could push ranges out even farther depending on the conditions and how they model it.
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In a video I watched, it was said that some sacrifices had to be made to accommodate the A/G radar capability, but we'll see if that's true.
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Very true. Shortly after the Beagle reached IOC a C model squadron tried to incorporate the APG-70 with the same software as used for the Beagles but it didn't work out at all. Sensor fusion is lacking, the computer and the software is highly optimized for air to ground performance but it has worse detection range, filtering and lacks a lot of special modes and EP capabilities of the C model radar.
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That isn't true at all. the 70 has roughly the same range as the 63s in the C model eagle. It just has the ability to do air to ground with the radar in the apg-70. Later model 63s had some special abilities programmed into the software that the 70s didn't get, but base range wise the 63 and 70 are the same within margin of error
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I asked SE discord and the overwhelming agreement is that the APG-70 radar is better than the APG-63, even if only a little bit. I think I am misunderstanding what you are trying to say?
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Shortly after the Beagle reached IOC a C model squadron tried to incorporate the APG-70 with the same software as used for the Beagles but it didn't work out at all.
What? The last 43 F-15C MSIP (Multi Stage Improvement Program) Eagles had the APG-70 (all older F-15C MSIPs were then upgraded with the APG-63V1 in order to be equivalent), pre-dated the first F-15E by several years (MSIP Eagles entered service in 1985) and were the first Eagles with Non-Cooperative Target Recognition.
These are the same Eagles that deployed to Desert Storm.
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This will be really important once the Eurofighter is released
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M2000-C had aspect & loadout variable RCS added recently. Front RCS on a clean aircraft is lower than the previously constant value
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Good point, I forgot to specify in the chart notes but this testing is done against a clean target aircraft with exactly 0 degrees aspect.
Have RAZBAM talked about the specific details of the payload RCS implementation?
My assumption was that a clean aircraft would have the static RCS it did before and then payloads add to that value, if so it makes sense to test against a clean jet so the variables are consistent against other radars that do not model RCS payload increase.
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This would have given a better or equal detection range in all situations, and triggered the traditional "muh mirage OP" pitchfork riot. So it was chosen to model aspect dependence so that base RCS is the average and not the minimum. (well it's rather an average in log scale). Then loadout adds over it. No much more details were given.
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If true this would be a revolutionary change.
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Check DCS 2.7.18.30348 M-2000C changelog
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All hail the F-15C
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the fact that after all these years, they still have the F-16 radar on par with the F-18 is beyond me...
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The F-16 radar has been pretty shit for some time now. There was a point where you had an advantage against Russian aircraft but nowadays they can pick you off before you even see the bricks pop up.
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lol wut, the Hornet should be far far better than the F16. It should be on par with the new Mirage.
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My beautiful precious Viggen has got… radar… I guess…
Just bought it tho while it’s on sale
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It always had a radar, it's just very bad at detecting air targets and wasn't in the chart before.
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Yeah it's basically look up only, and ranging only. It will not track a target and give you any kind of velocity or lead information.
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Nice work
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Good. F-15 has a very powerful radar. It's about time we see it.
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Wait the Viggen has an air to air radar?
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I only included it in this version of the chart since someone specifically asked after my last one haha
The air to air modes are very primitive, they are basically:
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The ground search mode but you can steer the radar elevation up and down (I didn't include this in the chart because contacts fade in very slowly as they get closer and are hard to spot unless you are over sea so it's hard to give it a definite range)
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Ranging to inform you how far you are within weapons envelope, it has no TD box, steering cues or gun lead indicator so it's of limited utility.
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It can detect air to air targets. From pretty decent range also. It however shows only the radar blip, no any other functionality. Useful if you are doing interception of bombers not for much else.
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Really useful stuff. Would love to see it with target aspect’s of 30 and 60 degrees in addition to head on.
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Such a useful graph!! I've actually never seen this chart posted before. Thank you so much
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My pleasure, if you haven't seen it you might also be interested in a previous chart I made showing the lookdown penalties for various radars
The lookdown penalty formulas did not change in DCS 2.8 so I haven't posted a new version of that chart, just be aware that the F-15's range is much greater now but will follow the same curve
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Didnt see this either. Thank you very much
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Viggen "Ranging"
how is that meant exactly?
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about time
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after 20 some years since lomac and about 3 years since the bug report the F-15 finally has the eyes it deserves
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Hi Quaggles,
Would you consider adding these as releases to your github?
I love what you publish on these but I always miss reddit posts, whereas github never gets missed if it's a release.
Thanks!
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I've had quite a few people ask me for a centralised place to find the charts and I've finally gotten around to it, here you go. I'll publish updates as releases so if you watch the repository you should get an email notification, though it can be many months between chart updates as I usually only change them when major changes occur to modules.
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Awesome, thank you sir!
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No changes to the rest of the (old) F-15C group? Did they leave the Su-27/33/J-11 as before and just changed the F-15?
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That is correct, all other FC3 aircraft including the MiG-29 did not change
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Thanks, appreciate the testing.
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Su-27/33 radar is pretty close to what docs say so probably not gonna see huge changes
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Never new the mirage 2000C radar was that good.......
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Yeah, but you have to content with false returns in that mode
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The blurb says the Flankers have the same data as the F-15. Does this mean that the Flanker radar is now equally improved?
Edit: why the downvotes, folks? It was a legitimate question based on the text below the graph.
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Wonderful chart. TY for taking the time! Maybe its mentioned elsewhere, but why is the Su-27 not on the chart? I would think it has a fairly significant range due to its real world powerful radar...which I think was designed to function like the AWG-9.
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Oops should have read the notes. I see. Sorry for that...
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tl;dr for those that don't want to stare at the numbers
F-15C radar correction is in 🎉 In RWS HPRF it has gained over 20nmi range which now puts it just shy of the F-14 Tomcat's RWS
F-14's new AGC trace line now allows RIOs to spot targets that have not yet exceeded the return threshold to classify them as a target, by looking for spikes in the AGC line above the background noise I spotted a Flanker 30% farther than waiting for it to become a brick in PD Search
After my last chart but prior to DCS 2.8 the Mirage 2000C radar had a minor reduction of detection range. This is most noticeable in the RWS Unfiltered (3-6nmi reduction)
Finally!
F15C just needs a datalink now. Then it’ll reign as the king of BVR fights in DCS as it should.
Datalink would be extremely useful. This adds a bit more SA, but no Datalink is still a big hamstring. The AIM-120C in DCS can't even take advantage of this extra range. Though real life accuracy and the extra range are definitely nice to have!
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Just curious how do you get this data? Is it via datamining (looking at lua scripts)?
Thanks again for this wonderful chart and for your time
(Been active on hoggit for over a year I think and somehow never noticed this graph before!!!)
I do have a datamine for all the lua values but unfortunately the sensors folder only contains the values for the simplified AI sensors.
Module developers have complete freedom in how they write their radar so there are no standardised numbers you can pull out, it's all calculated with C++ code that would be nearly impossible to decompile.
So unfortunately I manually test it all, I wrote a script to give me a realtime debug window showing me the target aircraft ranges and lookdown angles so I can test them all quickly without having to open the F10 map and use a ruler.
Modules that model Probability of Detection (Mirage 2000C and JF-17) add an extra level of complication, to measure those I have an array of 10 aircraft flying directly towards me while I'm in active pause, as they get closer I wait until I detect 1%, 50% and 100% of jets per sweep and record those ranges.
Wow…this is incredible. Thank you for the effort
do you think jester will be able to take advantage of this?
I doubt it, he won't use PD Search either so it's unlikely Heatblur would write a bunch of code to have him call out small spikes in the AGC line that the pilot won't be able to see on the repeater.