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I also thought about that question! Can’t confirm it for Su-27SM, but there’s a bug report on M29SMT that states about such capability on its IRST (Which is a different model).
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/31nbffDK36OS
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As far as I know, cutting-edge aircraft like the MiG-35 possess this ability, so the Su35, Su30SM, and Su57 of the same era are definitely not a problem. However, I am curious whether relatively early Flankers that have already entered or are about to enter the game have this ability
Su27SM doesn’t improve the IRST right? Still RLSU-27 standard?
Only Su-35
Off the top of my head, it might be a slightly upgraded version, but the improvements there would be on reliability, so not something that would impact the game. Or it is the exact same as on the 27S.
However, the IRST on the Flanker severely underperforms compared to real life:
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/nLkgSDqLXe8O
The main couple points being:
- It is still capped to 30 km, while IRL there were instances where it could spot targets at 100 km (It was hastily fixed once. The IRST range cap was increased to 100km, but the part of the code that sets the interval of ranges the IRST will look for targets is still capped at 30, so no actual changes).
- Rear aspect range is also lower, about 30km in game vs 50km IRL. This was also looked over by the devs in a previous bug report. I had two sources, one from the manual (no info on what plane the target was) and one from the manufacturer’s website (this one listed the target as Su-15 for rear aspect ranges). The manual gives two figures: 20-35km for a target against clouds or ground, 50km for a target in the clear sky. The website only lists the 30km figure. When going over that bug report, the devs chose the 30km figure (this was already around the in-game performance), despite the fact that practically any other Radar’s/IRST’s ranges are modeled assuming perfect conditions (ex: MiG-29’s IRST).
- Front aspect, subsonic, sea level performance is also low. I got around 2-4km for a J8 (chose it because it is very similar in shape/size and thrust to Su-15), while the manual gave 14km. Note, however, the website does not mention figures for these conditions and the manual only gives figure without specifying the target aircraft, so it is an assumption on my part that the target is an Su-15.
- Lastly, the most inportant one - all aspect detection of afterburning targets is way too low. This apply to everything detecting IR, but is especially noticeable here. The website gives 90-100 km for a MiG-25 at high alt, >M2.0, and front aspect, while in the game, testing the hottest aircraft I knew, the F-14A, I got only ~25km… yeah.
One caveat, the tests with the J-8 and F-14A were done in a custom mission, where I noticed some occasional funky behaviour, so there is a chance some of these figures are wrong. Although, I also was not able to get figures anywhere near those in the manual/website. Ex: F-15A flying supersonic at around 6km alt and side aspect, sometimes could only be locked at like 20-25 km.
As far as i know.
The IRST (4th gen) implements a laser rangefinder unlike the MiG-23 (3rd gen), and in the following improvements the ability to give images and even guide weapons by laser like the IRST of the MiG-29M, but as far as I know this capacity was only sought in the MiG-29M, I don’t know of other models.