Appropriate Altitude for Sensors

[obrien979]

I am trying to figure out the appropriate altitudes to have my ELINT/RECON/IMINT/SIGINT planes to fly in order for their sensors to work efficiently. Is there a way to determine which altitude is the best looking at the DB?

Thank You

[Primarchx]

Typically as high as possible for that role to get the best LOS horizon (often 500nm for ESM sets).

[NimrodX]

Heh, I usually just give them no specific altitude and let the simulated pilots figure it out. If it's a dedicated support plane I think they just fly as high as they can.

[Cik]

depends a great deal on the sensor. MAD ~ under 1000 feet generally. surface radars trade in search range vs strength depending on altitude, air radars generally as high as they can for greater over-horizon search, EO on the same side of the clouds as the thing you are trying to detect, sonar - on the same side of the layer of what you are trying to detect (unless worried about counterdetection or have TASS)

for visual recon you want to be as close as you can but you must counterbalance this with a tendency to get shot by hiding units below a certain altitude. also you have to juggle fuel consumption, that is the lower you are the faster you're going to chew through your mission fuel and have to go home or hit a tanker somewhere (which is it's own issue)

best way to figure it out is to take a specific sensor and go try it out.

[Primarchx]

The devs have mentioned that max altitude is not always optimal for some search radars.

[ClaudeJ]

Hey there,

just wanted to mention that P Gatcomb recently published a somewhat related video on Youtube : C: MO - MPA Altitudes - YouTube https://youtu.be/_qeXJWmRBks

[SeaQueen]

The devs have mentioned that max altitude is not always optimal for some search radars.

If I remember that has to do with clutter being a function of look angle. With older radars in particular, you'll have less clutter and improved detection performance if the radar beam is looking straight across or up at the target than if you are looking down into the ground return. Some of that is mitigated by doppler radars, however, which filter out clutter by looking at doppler shift.

There's also a tendency for players to rely on the default altitudes, though. I've found that often makes it possible to be a little more thoughtless with the way you arrange forces vertically because everything is going to be cruising at 36000 feet, (EVEN PROPS!). You rarely see many people experimenting with low altitude ingress, or even just not using the default altitudes, citing the attrition due to massed small arms, MANPADS and anti-aircraft guns for low-altitude ingressers during Desert Storm.

Radar LOS can also be a big driver though, with very long ranged strategic SAMs like SA-21s and SA-23s, it's just plain silly to not think about flying lower and denying them the line of sight. It's like free perfect stealth, and because they're so long ranged, you don't necessarily have to even go THAT low (although you might, it just depends on how close you need to go).

[PN79]

This us why "Tiny" update is so awesome. One can now set own route to target area including change in speed and altitude in planning of strike.
So one can set low level flight over own territory so enemy ground based radars cannot detect it and go high once crossing the front line to evade manpads etc. over frontline where low level flying aircrafts would be detected by enemy anyway. This could in specific scenario significantly degrade reaction time of enemy qra units.