Radar tracking and altitude

[Blast33]

The flight of 4 F-18E's are traveling at 1000' at a distance of about 100Nm from the S-400 SAM site wich they will attack.
The SAM site TA and FC radar has a LOS of about 63NM for targets at 1000' altitude.
The contact list states that the Cheese Board nor the Grave Stone see the F-18's and the SA-21B missiles haven't got active yet.

Question 1
How can the S-400 site still guide missiles at the formation while it has no Line of sight?
See the green lines and the missiles guiding towards the F-18's? (the 40N6's missed, but the question is the tracking.
I must say, the F-18's where popping up a minute or so ago.

Question 2
Does the game work this way that the enemy Nanucka patrol boats nearby send targeting data to the S-400 which, with that data, tracks the F-18's?

Game is attached

Clipboard01.jpg (272.82 KiB) Viewed 1005 times

Mediterranean Tsunami 2019.zip

(2.23 MiB) Downloaded 29 times

[thewood1]

Before I download and try it, did you delete the missile boats to see if the F-18s are still tracked?

[thewood1]

So I downloaded and cleared out all the extraneous units. Ran a couple tests...

Test 1- Ran the exact file downloaded. If you look at the log file, it says the SAMs never hit because the missiles don't have a fix from the firing SAM radar. I think whats happening is the MR-352 is sending search-level data only. Not FC-level data. It is possible that the MR-352 radar can send location, but not firing data. Its not CEC, but a simple data link or even data communications to the firing unit so that a launch can be made to a predicted spot for when the missiles go active. US fighters can do something similar on LINK-16. Again, its not CEC because the missile boats aren't guiding the missiles, only relaying location information to the firing SAM unit. If I turn off the missile boat radar, the F-18s become unlocated the missiles still never hit. One thing I'd like to see is if the SAM ever saw the F-18s before they dove. See my next test.

Test 2 - Left the Hornets, missile boats, and the SAM. Reset the Hornets to 1000 ft before the SA-21 fires. It never fires at the F-18s. It knows its there, but specifically says that it does not have a fire quality lock on the F-18s. If I raise the F-18s up to 5000 ft for a few seconds, the SA-21 fires. Then I dive them back down, the SA-21 still sees them and considers them a target, but the missiles won't hit them.

Again, look at the log from the point where the save starts to when the missiles drop. You'll see that its stating the missiles don't have good data when they get to the interception point. I have a few questions about how the game relays that information to the player, but behind the scenes I think this might be working. The one thing I'll point out is the various levels of sophistication of the comms in different units. Its heavily abstracted so what we are seeing might not be technically possible. In fact, the devs have started down the path of eliminating some of the abstraction, but we might be a ways away from seeing that in practice.

[Blast33]

Sorry for the late reply thewood1, The computer stayed off for a few days//

Thank you for your thorough investigation. It is always nice if you stick your nose in it
Explains a lot. CMO vs. reality does not matter here when the missiles don't hit, but lets put our hopes on the comms upgrades. And the aircraft behaviour upgrades...

Thanks a lot for your time and effort!

[thewood1]

I will point out that every dev and every gamer has to choose the level of abstraction that want to play with. There's only so much a game that can cover an entire global war across 80 years can detail out.

[Kobu]

Hi
I've been looking at this and these are my conclusions.

How can the S-400 site still guide missiles at the formation while it has no Line of sight?
See the green lines and the missiles guiding towards the F-18's? (the 40N6's missed, but the question is the tracking.
I must say, the F-18's where popping up a minute or so ago.

My assumption is that the Sa-21 shot at the F-18 when it had a visual view with its radar, then the F-18 went down to 1000 feet where the radar no longer has a visual view and here indeed the missiles fired by the sa-21 should have of having lost the datalink and not continuing to guide towards the f-18s. I have already reported that bug here.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 8#p5161298

Does the game work this way that the enemy Nanucka patrol boats nearby send targeting data to the S-400 which, with that data, tracks the F-18's?

Related to the above, this should not be the case and any asset right now is capable of guiding any missile (fired by a fighter, ship or SAM).


The behavior you expected to see worked well a few versions ago until the introduction of the bug I mentioned.


Regards

[thewood1]

The missile boat isn't guiding the missiles. You can see the data link goes back to the SA-21. If you look at the missile at weapon end game, it states specifically that the missiles don't have a sensor link to provide guidance. As I mentioned that I suspected, the F.1s at one time were high enough for the SA21 to track. The SA-21 fired and the missiles couldn't hit because of lack of guidance from the SA-21 due to the decreasing altitude of the F.1s

[Kobu]

The missile boat isn't guiding the missiles. You can see the data link goes back to the SA-21. If you look at the missile at weapon end game, it states specifically that the missiles don't have a sensor link to provide guidance. As I mentioned that I suspected, the F.1s at one time were high enough for the SA21 to track. The SA-21 fired and the missiles couldn't hit because of lack of guidance from the SA-21 due to the decreasing altitude of the F.1s

The ship guides the missile, I don't care what the datalink lines say pointing to the SA-21. As I say in the post where I explain the bug, any "system" (AWACS, another fighter, ground radar, ship, etc...) can currently provide mid-course guidance data to any missile (A-A, SAM). And I can assure you that this was not the case before, only the same system that fires the missile can provide mid-course guidance to those missiles (ignoring the CEC cases that also have a reported bug).

See if it is currently poorly simulated that in the attachment I uploaded the SA-21 missile is receiving mid-course updates from a BMP-3. It is a fairly important BUG that was not there before.

This directly answers the two questions asked by the author of the post.

To see it better, play with abrupt course changes of the F-18 and observe how, even though the SA-21's radar can no longer detect the F-18, the missile in flight receives mid-course updates from a BMP 3.


Regards

[thewood1]

I don't really care about another scenario. The datalink and the end game message show that ship is not guiding the missiles. It is relaying information as a spotting unit, but it is not guiding any missile.

[Kobu]

I don't really care about another scenario.

You don't care about other scenarios but you modify the author's scenario as you wish and draw conclusions from there. We have to simplify the scenarios and start looking from there like with that bug with the SM-3 missile, until we reach a clear consensus.

The datalink and the end game message show that ship is not guiding the missiles. It is relaying information as a spotting unit, but it is not guiding any missile.

If the radar does not have line of sight with the target, how can it send mid-course updates to the missiles? Aaaa but those updates go through the sa-21 instead of going directly from the ship to the missiles. And do you consider that correct? If you bother to open the scenario that I have uploaded you will see how a BMP-3 that visually observes the fighter sends information to the sa-21 (by phone??) and the sa-21 sends mid-course corrections to the missiles.
It's not that hard to see the big BUG here.
And above all, answer directly the author's question that, like many of us, we do not understand how the missiles launched by a platform are always guided towards their objective regardless of whether the radar cannot see it or if the fighter that fires it turns around and does not see the target anymore.

What end-game message are you referring to because in my tests the missiles always end up petered out.
It is a missile that in its final phase has its own radar to guide it to the target, the topic of this post is how it can receive mid-course updates if the radar that fired it does not see the target.

Regards

[Blast33]

The missile boat isn't guiding the missiles. You can see the data link goes back to the SA-21. If you look at the missile at weapon end game, it states specifically that the missiles don't have a sensor link to provide guidance. As I mentioned that I suspected, the F.1s at one time were high enough for the SA21 to track. The SA-21 fired and the missiles couldn't hit because of lack of guidance from the SA-21 due to the decreasing altitude of the F.1s

The ship guides the missile, I don't care what the datalink lines say pointing to the SA-21. As I say in the post where I explain the bug, any "system" (AWACS, another fighter, ground radar, ship, etc...) can currently provide mid-course guidance data to any missile (A-A, SAM). And I can assure you that this was not the case before, only the same system that fires the missile can provide mid-course guidance to those missiles (ignoring the CEC cases that also have a reported bug).

See if it is currently poorly simulated that in the attachment I uploaded the SA-21 missile is receiving mid-course updates from a BMP-3. It is a fairly important BUG that was not there before.

This directly answers the two questions asked by the author of the post.

To see it better, play with abrupt course changes of the F-18 and observe how, even though the SA-21's radar can no longer detect the F-18, the missile in flight receives mid-course updates from a BMP 3.


Regards

A Grave Stone that gets updates from a BMP-3 or a naval vessel on the sea is too much to ignore.
And is not WAD.

[thewood1]

This specific scenario is not showing CEC at all. There are three basic system types when it comes to targeting information being communicated between a non-firing unit and the firing unit.:

1) CEC - This is a complete fusion of all CEC-capable sensor data that allows a non-firing unit complete control of a weapon, including final into target guidance.

2) Tactical Data link - Like Link 16 and some Soviet-era GCI links allow point to point targeting data to be shared between two compatible units. It does not allow the non-firing unit to do weapon guidance, but does allow targeting data to be transmitted to the firing unit and then the firing unit can guide the weapon to the target. It can look like CEC, but is only usable point to point between compatible units and can be very inaccurate with certain systems.

3) Manual target location - Basic voice and data radio communication that alerts a firing unit to a target location. This allows a very rudimentary process for getting a self-guiding weapon close enough to a target for the weapon to lock itself on to the target. This process is highly inaccurate in real life and in-game. An example is older AWACS processes of the AWACS alerting a fight and providing general location and target type. Then its up to the pilot to get closer and get its own onboard radar on the target. Again, this can appear to be CEC in some cases, but is not and can be highly inaccurate at times.

In this specific scenario, #3 is in play. How can you tell? The SAMs never hit. The weapon end game messages states that it can't find a target. If the ships were actually guiding the SAMs, they would have at least attempted an interception.

Screenshot 2024-06-03 063520.jpg (639.96 KiB) Viewed 708 times

Note that the missile has no target and the only way the Red side is detecting the aircraft is through the patrol ships. So the ships are not able to guide the missiles. The best they can do is provide location. The SA-21 maintains datalink to the SAMs, but only sends the general location in the datalink. It has basically become a BOL SAM attack.


You can also can also try a manual fire from the SA-21 and you'll see it there it has no ability to target the missiles because it has no radar coverage. I am talking about this specific scenario. Take the scenario you are talking about to another thread if you please. Its conflating the issue for this one.

Screenshot 2024-06-03 062448.jpg (146.59 KiB) Viewed 708 times

What I have tested in another skinnied down version of the scenario is that the aircraft start at a much higher altitude. They get locked on by the SA-21. The SA-21 fires. The aircraft dive to below the radar horizon. The SA-21 loses lock, maintains datalink to the missiles, and still receives general location info from the ships. But the missiles go to a location only and my the time they get there, the game is saying you can't hit it because your firing parent can't give you a precise location.

There is abstraction in how this all happens. But this is outcome-based. The missiles have only a very small chance of intercepting the aircraft. If the firing missile was an SM-6 with the ship a CEC-capable ship, the ship would have taken over guidance without its radar through CEC.

This is the article I tend to fall back on. Its US-specific, but the summaries give a good overview of the Link (middle protocol layer) and CEC (high level application layer).

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/ ... ter/14#449

[Kobu]

I have already explained it a few times here and in other posts, this is not how it works and in other versions this was never like that.

The author of the post's question is very specific and I have answered it, so you are the one who should go somewhere else. This didn't work like that before.

There is no abstraction. The abstraction is that a HARM has the same range launched from 1000ft as from 30000ft, this is a bug in which anything goes, there are no datalinks involved or anything you are talking about.

You talk about manual target location first, you believe that a missile can be guided constantly and correcting the course against a target at 90nm traveling at 500 knots through "Basic voice and data radio communication".

The fact that the missile never hits is another bug (report it and don't use it here when it has nothing to do with the original topic) because with guidance as perfect as the one you are having, it should hit without a problem or do you claim that two types of datalink for mid-course guided are implemented in CMO depending on who provides the guidance with various probabilities of success.

The sa-21 maintains the datalink to the missiles when it should not and not only maintains it for "general location", I repeat there are no two types of simulated datalink with one being better than the other.
If it is a BOL SAM attack why I can't fire another missile at the f-18 and the assignment screen tells me: "Firing unit must obtain a hight quality track...

If it doesn't let you fire a missile without first having a quality track of the target, how are you going to send mid-course updates?

BOL launchs, although possible (amraam maddog), are not simulated here and I understand the reasons very well.

If you replicate the launch conditions (F-18 at 36ft) the SA-21 shoots at them, you lower the F-18s to 1000ft and wait for the missiles to destroy the F-18s.

What you are seeing (you have no eligible alternative...) that I have never seen is probably a bug caused by saving the game in the middle of the fight and opening it later, in my simulation the missiles do not descend enough and pass by but If you shoot again they destroy the f-18s without problem.

[thewood1]

I have no idea what you mean.

[Kobu]

I have no idea what you mean.

My English goes as far as it goes.


Try version .9 and you will understand everything.

As some user has mentioned before, the feature X-crosshairs symbol is probably behind these bugs.

In version .9 it works as it should (I just tested it).


All the talk about abstraction and datalink is of no use. In any case, if you don't know how certain parts of the simulation worked before, it is best not to answer and let others report the bugs they find, as I often do. I do know that what you call abstraction and try to justify in a thousand ways before (version .9 and probably until the introduction of the X crosshair feature) did work as I say.