I think the brochure compares mostly against the M-Scan, and the Mk.0 Capabilities Plus says it has increased power trough a high number of T/R modules, which i assume would be the GaN ones, giving it better range over Mk.0.
For the Mk.1 there’s some backing for increased range as well, this article states they went with GaN T/R Moduels because of: “Luftwaffe’s requirements for longer detection ranges and UHR SAR imagery with 10cm resolution”, so extended range was wanted over Mk.0 in the case of Mk.1 as well.
Also that article states that the Antenna Power Supply is still common across all Mk0/1/2 systems.
I do wonder what the split of GaN/GaAs on the Mk.2 is tho, i assume the GaN would be used mostly for the EW side of things, because it has more power output?
I think that this is an oversimplification and not the full picture?. Before going into the GaAs vs GaN thing its worth noting ECRS MK.2 required an all new and larger radome to accommodate the increased size and power delivery.
It also doesn’t seem that it uses a full GaAs module? Or maybe its a hybrid module using both. At least not from the wording here?
When I briefly looked into this I discovered that GaN and GaAs modules have their own strengths and weaknesses, GaN is not straight-up superior all the time but it almost always is, it seems there are regions where the difference is virtually unnoticable. ECRS Mk.2 likely uses GaAs modules in regions where it would not have an impact (I believe I read somewhere that this is on the receiver and processing side, whereas the transmitting side uses GaN? IDK this is out of my depth of knowledge to be completely honest I may be chatting nonsense).
TL;DR, there are areas of an array where the difference between GaAs and GaN are negligible and on ECRS MK.2 this has been used to reduce costs rather than a pure GaN array because ECRS MK.2 is a more innovative radar overall compared to MK.1 and MK.0.
When you compare the other physical parts of the radar combined with what we see from Leonardo and articles like this, it seems the physical properties e.g size, beamwidth, array size and power supply would have more of a factor than the usage of which semiconductor.
You misunderstood it. Typhoon randome is larget overall compared to other planes, allowing for a bigger radar to be fitted it. Randome stays the same between other ECRS and ECR.
So the new Meggitt radome is for all ECRS AESA radars?
I must be misunderstanding because I took it to mean that ECRS MK.2 was unique in getting a new, larger radome?
I think perhaps I misunderstood and the radome has rhe same dimensions, but allows a wider region of EM waves through
Some sources state that the power supply remains the same (even in your text it says so), but a press release from BAE recently says it was re-engineered (the Power Supply) so it might be true, afaik GaN should have superior power delivery and range, so at the worst Mk.1 has at least the same detection capabilty but weaker EW capability.
But in terms of Warthunder it might just be the same radar across the board honestly.
I imagine the power supply is probably kept the same or whatever, but that doesn’t account for wasted power output due to resistance within the circuits which is where semiconductors come in.
GaN should have superior power delivery and range yes, but would that not be a feature of the transmission part, and not the receiver part of the TRM? As I speculated perhaps GaAs is used on the receiver aspect. As i’ve said, i’m not an expert but I highly doubt they’d choose GaAs over GaN if it was going to make an actual negative detection difference given ECRS MK.2 was always going to be a high capability and higher cost system.
I don’t think we can infer a whole lot other than ECRS MK.2 seems to be considered to be the better radar but that may just be because of the EW built-in.
@Morvran replying to one of your comment on Part 1 (I can’t seem to manage to quote you message from one part to the other):
About the fact that the ASRAAM time to target (and off the rail speed) is apparently faster than the MICA, I wonder where you guys get that from. Because the only time someone (that I will not name but probably will read this) argued that with actual documents with me, they showed me this :
Which is very dishonest if you ask me because this specifically compares the ASRAAM to the IRIS-T and AIM-9X (part naming the specific missiles were cropped), which are both Mach 2.5 - Mach 3 missiles, while the MICA is stated at Mach 4+ up to Mach 4.5 (primary source). Now, I would expect both missiles to be in the same category (MICA and ASRAAM) when it comes to max speed, but, we don’t have much information on it.
Even it’s stated range comes from the CAMM, featuring different aerodynamics, weight and motor compared to the ASRAAM. They are apparently so significantly different that MBDA offers their ASRAAM users to replace the ASRAAM with an Air to Air variant of the CAMM (which, according to MBDA, would be easily achieved has one of the things shared between both missiles is the Fuselage, along the seeker apparently from what I have read).
Considering this, I think it’s evidently hard to make comparaison between the potential MICA IR and ASRAAM in game, because all available informations on the ASRAAM are very unreliable (unless some people are hiding some docs and don’t plan on sharing them for now)
That’s the only document I was showed in the argumentation. I was argued that this proved it ASRAAM was faster than all IR missiles, including the Magic 2 and MICA IR.
Which, considering both are much faster than the AIM9X and IRIS-T, is irrelevant. But that also seemed to have remained in the consciousness that ASRAAM is faster than the MICA and thus has better time to hit, when no other documents were provided (or I missed them)
Since when and according to what sources
Not AFAIK, they don’t really compare in the slightest, why would there be a need to compare them
I was not. I am basing my different motor and aerodynamics from talks with @MythicPi from a few days/weeks ago when we were talking about the range of the ASRAAM (comparing to the value of the ground launched CAMM and air launched ASRAAM). I guess there’s some miscommunication in the middle
