Matrix Games Forums

Hi,

I have been doing some research on 2 BVR fighter tactics I read about and wondered how they are modelled in the game (specifically do they happen automatically or require a player intervention?)

F-pole I think i have observed with fighters weaving post missile launch if SARH, and turning away for ARH.

Doppler notching (which I understand to be maintaining a very low speed relative to the attacking aircraft so you are "filtered" out of the radar picture as clutter) I am not sure I have seen.

Thanks

K

If you see a radar-guided A2A missile launch, you'll notice the target turns 90 deg from the missile just before interception. My understanding is this is the game's attempt to notch.

Ah - that would make sense. I'll look more closely. From the sounds of it there is no specific player action required to activate these tactics.

From what I can tell, the turn to 90 degrees from the missile only seems to affect the agility penalty applied to the PH for the type of aspect ratio (head-on, tail-on, oblique, or high-deflection). High-deflection gives no penalty in the agility calculation, while all the others give varying amounts, so it's the best, but there are times when you want to override the automatic evasion logic, such as when you're on a high speed run to get out of the missile's max range and think you can make it before the missile gets to you, or if you're exchanging SARH missiles with the enemy and playing "chicken" to make him turn away first and lose his missile guidance.

Back in the very old days, Microprose's F-19 Stealth Fighter distinguished between pulse, doppler, and pulse-doppler radars, and you had to minimize your chance of detection by flying either directly at or away, or beam-on to various radar sites as appropriate. I believe "notching" is also a major aspect of missile combat in the DCS games. AFAIK though, it's not modeled in CMANO, which is kind of disappointing, as it makes radars more capable in the game than they actually are.

We have talked with "people" about this and the consensus was that doppler-notching was fun in exercises but not practiced / relied upon in actual ops. Supposedly also most modern sets (anything past CAPTOR) defeat the doppler null via better signal processing.

We haven't had any evidence to contradict this so far.

Do you have any sources pointing to this as used in combat ops?

I don't know of any sources showing it being used in combat operations, though to be fair, AFAIK there's been very little actual BVR combat as a whole, and not even all of that is between countries willing to talk about it, let alone discuss specific tactics. There is an Aviation Week article (reproduced here) that talks about USAF simulator tests where Su-30MKs can defeat F-15Cs in BVR fights using the notch, with this caveat:

However, he did point out that U.S. pilots are flying both aircraft in the tests. Few countries maintain a pilot corps with the air-to-air combat skills needed to fly these scenarios, said an aerospace industry official involved in stealth fighter programs.

Again AFAIK, most of the little BVR combat that has actually happened has been pretty one-sided, not between countries that are equally well trained, so whether it will be a deliberate tactic is hard to say. And it may not be a problem with new radars, but CMANO covers 1946 onward, so there are many older radars that might be affected.

And all that said, even if deliberately beaming to put yourself in the doppler notch isn't specifically a combat tactic for missile dodging, it's still a factor of radar performance, and AFAIK should affect detection of smaller targets at long ranges and low altitudes. That might be a significant factor in plotting ingress routes, for instance, particularly for stealth aircraft.

Thanks for the info! We'll try to cross-reference with other sources and discuss internally.

Bump.

Hi Dimitris,

Any news on the implementation of Doppler Notch?

Regards

Not yet, it's on our list but lower priority than a number of other things.