Eurofighter Typhoon (UK versions) - Technical data and discussion (Part 1)

Machinery of War Discussion Aircraft
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That would almost certainly be lowballing its actual performance significantly, I have a feeling its referring to tracking range, or at least where Visual Identification of the target could be resolved, not at which the detection of emissions occurs.

Since as per outsider’s view of the AWG-9 even the basic AN/ALR-23 IRSTS mounted on the F-14 would outperform it and I doubt that is the case considering that the ALR-23 is very basic, and not much of an improvement on the AN/AAA-4 & AN/AAS-15( equipt by various USAF / USN interceptors).

Let alone the more advanced AN/AXX-1 TCS. Which we also happen to have a specification document for here, and considering its using more advanced, modern detectors and electronics the performance should be improved in comparison.

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I doubt European thermals are being “lowballed”. The American stuff in the 70s and 80s was well ahead of their time. In my experience, American FLIR still out-performs most other countries in service.

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Do we have any understand on how the passive ranging and rate works?

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https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/988184470198812702/1131251622928990258/Screenshot_20230719_104930_MEGA.jpg

I havent gone through all 4 documents yet.

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Sort of but not currently with a single aperture, an overview of potential mechanics and a dual aperture pentamirror design can be found; Here.

Additionally, an overview of Kinematic ranging equations can be found Here.

Though I would propose that with a sufficiently accurate INS system could allow for a synthetic baseline to be taken since airspeed and time between images could be used to work backwards to compute the distance between images, and a lookup table or otherwise could be used for the known range to an object, be that a constellation(s) / star , the moon, the horizon(based on current altitude, and approximated atmospheric conditions) or otherwise.

as past a point, the precision of readings isn’t as important, as their accuracy and so being aware that a target is actually approximately 20~30NM not 70~80NM, its heading, speed and closure rate could also be derived the same way that a PD radar does, based on a number of sets of returns.

On top of that most offensive systems would only really need a precomputed look angle to assist with Target Acquisition, and if a more accurate solution was was needed, there is still the radar to fall back on.

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The UK is a tier 1 partner on F-35 and had access to West German Mig-29’s since Germany is also a Typhoon partner, as well as the FLIR on the F-35, the IRST on the Eurofighter is designed specifically to counter stealth, as good as the American stuff was the US doesn’t have a monopoly on IRST capability PIRATE is very probably as good as it gets for a fourth generation fighter and second only to the F-35 FLIR when we count current 5th generation fighters.

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Probably yep but 150km outranges every AMRAAM but the D-variant which in itself only becomes detrimental when the aforementioned D-variant is equipped to stealth aircraft as every other aircraft has to lock the Typhoon before it detects them which is very difficult, and then to launch the missile and the METEOR does have an anti-radiation capability coupled with its seeker. The second the Typhoon is locked they can fire a Meteor and pretty much 180 to outrange it whilst the other aircraft has to worry about how to defeat a Meteor which they will not outrange with a potentially passive seeker.

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Detection should still occur well before the Typhoon reaches the No Escape Zone let alone the point where the Pk of a single shot would make it a sound tactical idea, instead of waiting to further close the distance or fly the intercept and improve the geometry in order to have a higher SSPk.

These days most aircraft have a sufficiently advanced MAWS so the shorter the time of flight the less there is that they can do to respond, and even basic sytems won’t be missing a missile launch even at extreme distances, as even after motor burn out there is still drag-induced skin heating that makes thermal emissions noticeable.

The Passive mode is probably most useful against AWACS, and similar utility / refueling aircraft that can’t really maneuver at all, and have a large RCS, a fighter is probably sufficiently maneuverable (and likely to do so due to intercept / patrol tasking) that it would be outside the scanned volume, or otherwise be far more likely to kinematically defeat the launch.

The optimal flow and timings in any given scenario change significantly depending on a number of factors(e.g. Altitude, the type and number of aircraft involved in the action, ground forces, support available, etc. ), The Meteor may outrange an AMRAAM, but unless explicitly required to limit the penetration of a given attacker it would likely to be better to wait until the ranges closed, and it nears the AMRAAM’s engagement range as to limit the defensive options that the attacker(s) has available and give the missile the best chance.

After all what would stop the attacker from resetting the engagement by turning cold once they detect the missile launch, even a Meteor as good as it is isn’t undefeatable if you have the time, altitude, space and awareness to do so (Crank, Notch, Turn cold, etc.), sure it might make their situation significantly worse and so be less likely to continue to engage, or prosecute their mission, but if the Typhoon doesn’t push the advantage they are now down a missile (and fuel, as those range figures certainly don’t come from a low speed, low altitude launch so fuel would have been expended), which depending on their loading may be decisive at some point in the future, or against the next attacker that attempts to do the same thing. and depending on the situation it may well bait the Typhoon into the path of a fighter sweep or any other sort of disadvantageous position from a third party if they decide to continue to close.

With so many potentially critical details there isn’t really any way to say that the Meteor has a set range, is it better than the AMRAAM in practically every way, sure (except maybe some aspects of ECCM, and assorted features, that wouldn’t be relevant to most engagements), but it isn’t going to always win the fight without a contest as far more than just the systems involved come into play.

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Modern French thermals are still not even remotely up to par, borrowing technologies from the US does not mean they might be capable of producing a similar quality of technologies in Germany itself. And to be honest, what modern German military equipment is even produced there? Last I checked helicopters and tanks for Germany were mostly produced elsewhere. Ex; Leo2 hulls are only produced in Greece currently.

My statement stands that AMERICAN thermal developments are still ahead of anything made by Europe.

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Not in terms of fixed wing airborne equipment, considering that the most moderns IRST is still the AN/AAS-42 [1984] based IRST21, which is still being refitted into pods for modern airframes (F-15 & F -16 are equipt with the Legion IRST / Legion-ES), or hardwired into them (F/A-18E/F).

And anyway as mature technology the only practical advancements that could be made (since they are reusing an existing assembly) are relegated to data processing / image enhancement, which really aren’t going to make for that much of a performance gap, a qualitative difference maybe, but nothing significant, let alone to the point where it would have an operational impact. It would be far more telling to look at efforts to control the thermal signature of the various airframes, as it would otherwise present limitations to the pilots if they aren’t offset in some way.

IRST’s are still governed by physical phenomena, so the fact that the IRST-21 might have better resolution, or less noise would only impact things like the Visual Identification range, not detection of a signature since both the PIRATE and IRST are LWIR based systems, and use sufficiently advanced filters and processing techniques to assist the pilot in making a determination, sure it might have fancy datalink capabilities and other Utility features, but that is auxiliary to the sensor and nothing that couldn’t be refitted or modified to add said capacity for specific interoperability with a given network in short order if needed to replicate the capabilities provided[The Typhoon was tested with / is compatible with both the Link -16 and MADL networks ].

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Something I don’t see noted here is that the Eurofighter/Rafale have their IRST better optimized in terms of air to air capabilities than the F-14D and F-35 in terms of placement on the aircraft.

The Eurofighter/Rafale have their IRST on top of the nose while US IRST have it placed on the bottom. Even further back on the bottom for F-35 which indicates optimized for air to ground.

You also at the same time can see the new IRST being tested on the F-22 being placed on top of the nose. This lends evidence that IRST is better optimized on top of the nose for air to air.

So I really would not expect F-14D’s IRST already to provide the same ergonomics/utility that the Euro deltas have.

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Bottom of nose is better or more ideal for BVR engagements and top of the nose doesn’t allow for air to ground at all. Europe is just behind in this aspect.

Stealth aircraft have no problems being high and above enemy fighters, gen4s need to be able to dive and stay low or look up generally.

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The US never focused heavily on IRST for air to air role, but that doesn’t discount the research and technology that has gone into surface to air tracking or modern infrared seeker technology. Tank thermals especially have been far ahead of competitors, even having the first tank thermals sights to begin with. It wasn’t until the 2010s that Russia was able to equip their tanks with French thermals sights roughly on par with early gen1 Abrams thermals.

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If that was true, the planned/experimented IRST would be on bottom of nose for the F-22. And we know the F-22 is optimized for air to air. Stealth aircrafts can’t always enjoy being high up and do have to eventually drop down in altitude in a BVR fight.

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The F-22’s current IR sensors, radar, nose gear, and electronics block pretty much any potential plan to install a low profile IRST under the nose as the F-35 was designed to have.

Also the primary function of 90% of the subsequent F-22 upgrades was making it more multi-role capable.

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That’s just not true now is it.

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I believe it is, we can DM about it to avoid dragging this further off topic if you’d like.

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Lets see…

  • Boxer in morbillion variants
  • Puma IFV
  • Lynx
  • Leopard 2 turrets
  • ammunition for all of their vehicles
  • Fennek
  • Eurofighter (yes, German does have a plant)
  • G95A1
  • all of the Leopard 2 sub-components
  • armour for their vehicles

Well, seems like quite a few things.

I don’t know what your experience with the thermal imagers from European manufacturers are, but this might just be up to US military/manufacturer just utilizing better screens for displaying the output. Technologically, there is no lead on either side.

But okay, lets talk thermal imagers and MBTs.

When the Leopard 2A5 upgrade was developed, there were two second-generation thermal imaging sensors available in Germany, both designed as part of the tri-national TRIGAT (third generation anti-tank) missile program that lead to the failure that is PARS 3 LR. A small, low-cost IRCCD sensor using a 40 x 4 detector array for the short-range variant of TRIGAT meant to replace MILAN and a large sensor utilizing a 288 x 4 detector array meant for the long-range version (which ended up being PARS 3 LR).

At the time, the latter sensor was considered unreasonable expensive, specifically given that the change in the political landscape had a negative impact on the military budgets in Germany and other LEOBEN countries, while the smaller sensor array was considered to provide insufficient resolution. As a result using the US-German Common Modules for the Leopard 2A5’s commander periscope or developing a new IRCCD with lower cost than TRIGAT’s larger option, but better resolution than TRIGAT’s small model, was considered. Both these systems were tested on the Leopard 2 prototypes (TVM min with the US-German Common Modules, TVM max with a new sensor).

The new sensors was developed by AEG and uses a 96 x 4 IRCCD detector array and was installed into the new Optischer Passiver Hoch-Empfindlicher Leichter Infrarot-Optischer Sensor (OPHELIOS) thermal imaging system developed by a cooperation between Carl-Zeiss, Atlas Elektronik, AEG, TEMIC EZIS and Eltro. This rather low sensor resultion was somewhat negated by a using a special sensor layout, where the detector array was split into two blocks, slightly shifted in alignment, apparently for better image quality. The software of the OPHELIOS thermal imager was already designed to accept the larger sensor developed for TRIGAT with 288 x 4 detector elements, but this upgrade was never made for Germany’s tanks at least following the improved relations with Russia and later the focus on assymetrical warfare. An upgrade of the Leopard 2’s thermal imager would likely have occured with the KWS III originally planned for 2008, as this would have required a new FCS and new optics.

The US Army settled for a much larger detector array with 480 x 4 detector elements, which was partly possible due to adopting second-generation thermal imagers at a later point of time; this means that more mature manufacturing techniques and smaller process nodes could be used for manufacturing, which are some of the main drivers of the costs of electronics. This detector array is clearly better than the one utilized on OPHELIOS in terms of resolution per scan. In terms of the signal-to-noise ratio (i.e. the most important factor for image quality besides sharpness/resolution), these sensors are all on equal terms, as they all have a TDI of 4 (they rely on scanning each position four times). This allows reducing the noise compared to a first generation thermal imager by half (the square root of the TDI).

It must be noted that there are further fators that need to be accounted for such as the aperature, the quality of the lenses and prisms, the scan rate, thermal sensitivity, etc. These factors for example allowed the EMES 15 with WBG-X to provide better results (according to the US evaluation of the Leopard 2AV) than the Abrams’ TIS despite both relying on Common Modules with a 120 x 1 detector array. Based on what I’ve read, both Raytheon’s second gen FLIR aswell as the AEG-designed IRCCD array for the OPHELIOS rely on CMT with similiar thermal sensititvity (7.5 to 10.5 µm); in theory using a smaller detector in combination with a higher scan rate and larger scan amplitude could provide the same output resolution as a larger detector array scanning slower/less.

The larger detector array of Raytheon’s second-gen FLIR is nothing special and not related to the Americans “just being better at making thermals”. I.e. in 2000 - one year after the US adopted second generation FLIR - a new thermal imager made by the German industry around Carl-Zeiss was tested on the Leopard 2 called the HDIR. This was designed around a 576 x n detector array (n being 4 for the model tested on the Leopard 2) and provided an output resolution of 1,920 x 1,152 without using inter-lacing. In a comparison with WBG-X and OPHELIOS, it was found that HDIR allowed to detect (persuambly NATO standard) targets at up to 60% further distances. They made a thermal imager with 20% more detector elements one year after Raytheon’s second generation FLIR entered service, but hey, “the Europeans are always a generation behind in thermals”.

The idea that European thermal imagers are in terms of performance behind US systems is laughable. All these systems are following the same laws of physics. Hendoldt’s ATTICA thermal imager was designed as a modular family, coming in different shapes and sizes (i.e. small, medium and large detector arrays), which is the standard approach on the market today. Even the “small version” of ATTICA as fitted to the Puma IFV has 57 times as many detector elements as the Abrams’ second generation FLIR. The medium versions use a 640 x 512 detector array, while the large one offers a 1,280 x 1,024 detector array, i.e. up to 682 times as many detector elements. As common with third generation thermal imagers, they are available either based on CMT or InSb, i.e. in different wave-lengths.

For the third generation thermal imagers, Raytheon for example had developed two variants of the 3rd-Generation FLIR Sensor Engine; one with a 640 x 480 detector array and a 1,280 x 720 elements detector array, as the US military favors the 16:9 wide-screen format, so I don’t see how this should enable them to stay a generation ahead of Europe. Safran, Thales, Leonardo, Hensoldt, etc. are all making similar-sized detector arrays.

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I could do that, or I could simply ignore your pleas for evidence considering you’ve never showed any when trying to claim “US is ahead of Europe”. That is something you seem to love to do honestly based on the few interactions I had the displeasure of having with you.

Nothing you have to say is worthy of attention here, last time we’ve engaged in a conversation on discord you had defaulted to “I serve on the Abrams”, but at least you’ve learned from my teachings that M1s do not use DU composites in their hulls…

Also you really think you can compare videos of thermal imagers when those could have been taken with a literal potato of a camera?

Please get serious, I’ve already provided an explanation as to why US is clearly not ahead of Europe when it comes to development of thermal imagers, be it for tanks or other vehicles, but you’ve ignored all that text and went for… “uh, source?” while employing the double-standards of the century.

Cheers.

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Yeah they did, the AN/AAA-4 and AN/AAS-15 were equipt on the majority of interceptor aircraft (F-101B, F-102, F-106, F-110A, F-8D/E/H/J, F-4B/C), and a number of others had them as auxiliary targeting aids (F-104).

There additionally were plans / designs for the entire Teen series to fit them, where the majority never made it to production, or were canned due to needing to reduce unit cost.

Not saying that it should be discounted, only that it isn’t relevant when comparing dedicated Airborne systems in an A2A role, as tanks don’t fly (for the most part, anyway).