@Gunjob any chance you can take a look at these bug reports from @sudo_su1 ?
F-16C missing SADL
F-16C: APG-68 missing GMTI, GMTT, SSS, SST modes
Both are relatively major missing features that already exist in-game on other planes…
Sidenote to SADL, I wonder what other NATO aircrafts have it or something similar to it. Id be surprised if only the F-16C and A-10C had such a beneficial feature.
I expect gajin working AN/AAQ-33 Sniper XR and instead placeholder targeting pod (AN/AAQ-28(V) Litening II) this year
As far as air to air is concerned, Link 16 should provide similar functionality (and more).
As far as air to ground is concerned, it’s a bit complicated.
SADL supposedly works with US army’s EPLRS radios (which BTW seems the US army has phased out in favor of the newer apparently satellite-based BFT system, though it’s not clear if SADL can work directly with the latter as well or not … @MiG_23M might be able to chime in here, though he might get someone knocking on his door tomorrow morning if he does).
Theoretically Link 16 should provide similar functionality, but it probably needs some airborne or ground based relays.
The issue here is while the capability would be realistic, IRL you could target and destroy/disable/jam those (airborne/ground-based/space-based) relays, which obviously isn’t the case in the game. So it’s a bit complicated in terms of realism.
But can it directly communicate with Link 16 or SADL without relaying/translating platforms?
M1A2 SEPV2+ equipped with EPLRS / FBCB2 (C2)
The issue with that is that those are from 2007 and 2014.
Apparently EPLRS got phased out, in favor of the beyond-line-of-sight (satellite based) BFT1/2 networks.
Now this might not be that important, since even with EPLRS not all tanks in a match are gonna have those radios (e.g. from other nations), but WT already assumes that they do.
But only A-10C and F-16C have SADL.
If you look at this picture from your second source for example:
You can see that the ground units aren’t using Link 16.
They can communicate through EPLRS, SADL and VMF.
Now according to this chart F/A-18 (I assume legacy), F-35 and Typhoon can communicate through VMF, but for example F/A-18E/F, F-22 and F-15 can only do Link 16:
I can’t speak on the matter, I can only let the sources speak for themselves. To my knowledge you wouldn’t need to directly communicate with the aircraft from a specific vehicle. Rather - they’d get live updates from the satellite network or through a node.
Hence
When every vehicle is a relay it’s hard to destroy the system without first destroying the satellite and then also separating the groups from any nodes with sufficiently strong means of communication. It’s quite comprehensive and low maintenance. As the sources say “self-healing”.
I also highly doubt any current foreign jamming systems can actually truly jam these nodes.
Well, not necessarily every vehicle.
But there seem to be handheld Link 16 radios as well, so perhaps one can assume tank crews can carry those as well (On the right side of the chart):
Then there is another can of worms: RWR detection of datalinks. Which RWR should detect which datalinks?
So far, WT has been assuming a complete and perfect database for any RWR that has emitter classification capability:
Every vehicle equipped with FBCB2 would essentially need to have the capability.
Whether it is actually fully realized or utilized is an entirely different story altogether.
That is probably the only fair way of doing it. Gaijin has (for the most part - the Tornado manual being the obvious exception) no way of knowing how comprehensive different nations emitter libraries are, so they can only really let everyone identify everything or make completely arbitrary nerfs to different nations.
I’m not saying that they shouldn’t … That’s my own post that I quoted there.
This is essentially somewhat unknowable (Heck, even the units themselves probably don’t know it with 100% certainty), as it’s quite dynamic.
You might not have the fingerprint for radar x right now, but you might be able to record it and add it to your databases a month from now, but then a month later the enemy might change their software to change the radar’s fingerprint and make it unclassifiable again (of course it might not always be that easy IRL, but the possibility is there with modern radars and other emitters).
So the game essentially simulates the capabilities of the vehicle (ability to classify emitters), and not the SIGINT and EW tug of war between countries …
And that brings the question: Should SADL, Link 16 and other datalinks be classifiable or at least detectable (as unknown datalink/emission) by RWRs?
That datalink refers probably to the lazur or markham as it includes the A-50. The “datalink” of the n001/n019 + r27R is the carrier CW itself on either frequency 1 or 2 that represent 0s and 1s for the barker code.
The a50 to mig31/su27 is ankther thing not even ingame
You also should take into account frequency ranges, antenna resonance(bc you cant have the antenna have the same gain at 3cm wavelength if its resonant at 30cm or 6cm) which would show the signal at different ranges, how fast they switch, PRF limits, how much time they illuminate the rwr, able to decode them?, how good(or bad) the RWR is( cough spo15 cough cough). Link 16 looks to be between 900 -1300MHz on a quick google search.
You’d probably have the rwr going crazy. Anything in a 20° arc is getting a warning. And for D/L- comms stuff, you have dedicated planes for it.
Its a biiig barrel of worms that is 99% classified and technical. And knowing the move of how everybody gets notification when fox3s go active despite rwrs not being able, it wont be as technical.
Somethings telling me these bug reports are being intentionally avoided…
I’d say we could also see the Block 25 as well.
They might both say F-16C No. 1, and technically neither are incorrect. 83-1118 was the first ever F-16C, while 83-1121 was the first F-16C delivered to a unit.
