AN/ALE-70(V)/T-1687 decoy OECM and DECM is unusable
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2025 8:28 pm
As well as the standard AN/ALE-70 FOTD decoy, some F-35s (mostly US models from the 2020s) are equipped with the AN/ALE-70(V)/T-1687 decoy (weapon DBID 3662) which has its own OECM and DECM sensor, but as far as I can tell, because the sensor is mounted on a decoy which is never rendered in-game as its own unit and not on the aircraft itself, there's no way to actually use the ECM and it offers no benefit to aircraft equipped with the decoy.
Looking at the sensors screen of an F-35 equipped with the decoy, the decoy's DECM/OECM doesn't appear, presumably because its mounted on the decoy, not the aircraft, so there is no way to manually activate the OECM.
I tested if the OECM was active but just not shown by flying an F-35 equipped with the AN/ALE-70(V)/T-1687 with OECM EMCON on active away from a radar and an ELINT station, but despite the AN/ALE-70(V)/T-1687's 360 degree OECM FOV, the radar and ELINT didn't pick up any jamming while the F-35 was facing away from them.
I also tested an F-35 with the AN/ALE-70(V)/T-1687 against a SAM to see if the DECM worked, but after checking the log, while both the AN/ALE-70 FOTD decoy and the AN/ALE-70(V)/T-1687 decoy tried to seduce the radar individually, there was no section for a DECM roll the way there is for an aircraft with a built-in DECM system.
It seems that what's happening is that because the decoy is only modeled in-game as an abstraction (30% chance to spoof missiles) the sensors mounted on it are essentially useless. IIRC, the AN/ALE-70(V)/T-1687's OECM and DECM used to be represented in-game as a built-in system on the F-35, but that ignores the fact that if the aircraft runs out of decoys it should stop being able to use the jammer. On the other hand, that might be a better representation than the current one, where the ECM can't ever be used at all. If there is a way to integrate the OECM/DECM sensor on the F-35 directly, but in some way that it is only usable while decoys are present, that would seem ideal, but I don't know if the simulation would support that.
All testing done on command build 1567.6, DB3K v. 511
Looking at the sensors screen of an F-35 equipped with the decoy, the decoy's DECM/OECM doesn't appear, presumably because its mounted on the decoy, not the aircraft, so there is no way to manually activate the OECM.
I tested if the OECM was active but just not shown by flying an F-35 equipped with the AN/ALE-70(V)/T-1687 with OECM EMCON on active away from a radar and an ELINT station, but despite the AN/ALE-70(V)/T-1687's 360 degree OECM FOV, the radar and ELINT didn't pick up any jamming while the F-35 was facing away from them.
I also tested an F-35 with the AN/ALE-70(V)/T-1687 against a SAM to see if the DECM worked, but after checking the log, while both the AN/ALE-70 FOTD decoy and the AN/ALE-70(V)/T-1687 decoy tried to seduce the radar individually, there was no section for a DECM roll the way there is for an aircraft with a built-in DECM system.
It seems that what's happening is that because the decoy is only modeled in-game as an abstraction (30% chance to spoof missiles) the sensors mounted on it are essentially useless. IIRC, the AN/ALE-70(V)/T-1687's OECM and DECM used to be represented in-game as a built-in system on the F-35, but that ignores the fact that if the aircraft runs out of decoys it should stop being able to use the jammer. On the other hand, that might be a better representation than the current one, where the ECM can't ever be used at all. If there is a way to integrate the OECM/DECM sensor on the F-35 directly, but in some way that it is only usable while decoys are present, that would seem ideal, but I don't know if the simulation would support that.
All testing done on command build 1567.6, DB3K v. 511