The AN/MPQ-64 Radar system on the new “CLAWS” System for the United States tech tree has incorrect game stats.
For one, the radar in-game uses the “J” Band for radar. While in real life, it uses the “X” band. A Second, is the range of 20.00 kilometers (12.43 Miles) that is used in-game, is half that of the real life system, which is 40.00 kilometers (24.85 Miles) on the nonupgraded version
Sources: AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel – Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance
Im guessing for now the J band is a balancing factor
Setting it to X band would make it undetectable for pretty much every single RWR in the game
I dont think theres a single RWR in game right now that can detect X band
and we only recently started getting K band RWRS
As for the range though you should definitely make a bug report for that
The range issue has been reported and accepted 23 days ago here: Community Bug Reporting System
The radar band is correct. X-band is the IEEE radar band, which corresponds to the I/J-band in the NATO standard that War Thunder uses.
Not this again… X-band is IEEE naming convention, it corresponds to the I/J-band in the NATO naming convention, which is what WT uses too.
Range may be wrong, but I’d need to check. I think 20km isn’t its max range in game, just the configured value against a known rcs. I believe brochures claim up to 75km though.
If you really want to fix it too, currently search mode is overperforming perhaps. Though its an ESA, so everything is possible, the radar seems to only scan in a 22° elevation zone, so to cover the full 360° and 65° elevation total rn, it would take 6s, not the current 2s.
No it wouldn’t. There are two main radar band systems IEEE and NATO. War Thunder uses NATO bands.
IEEE X band equates to NATO I/J band.
My bad i did not know that and looking it up now the NATO system does not even have a X band to begin with
I was thinking of it in the sense of how bands are implemented in game
since all you really need to know from a gameplay point of view is just lower letter bands cannot detect higher letter ones
they also have a minor accuracy change but not enough to matter at the high end so its ignored
Setting it to a higher band than what it already is at (K or higher) would make it invisible to many aircraft and thats why i said that
Also one of the brochures clarifies it as well. This mistake is pretty common, seen it for the sentinal at least 4-5 times now already.
This is my first time on the forums so I didn’t know where to post this. Thank you for the information :]
I’ll just dump links to all of my reports.
AN/MPQ-64 Missing Aircraft Identification // Gaijin.net // Issues
AN/MPQ-64 Radar Scan Rate Too Slow // Gaijin.net // Issues
These are great reports! Has anyone of them been fixed yet? I do feel the radar is quite lacking so far…
Has anyone worked on similar reports for the tansam?
The radar on it seems even worse than the slamraam one and i find it hard to believe it scans as slowly as it does currently
No as far as I am aware.
I believe some but I do not have info on it.
Could you share the source on the back radar? At least I couldn’t find much information about it at all. The only thing I can think of that it houses the mentioned AN/TPX-56 IFF antenna, which is L-band (IEEE), or D-band (NATO). So it should at least not have the same tracking qualities as the front ESA (not to mention it’s just smaller). I have not been able to find any reference to said “virtual” doubling of rpm, other than from radartutorial (which mentions 15rpm physical and 30rpm virtual instead, which looks to be what Gaijin uses too).
Most new information I found about the radar comes from a modified version the Sentinel radar for meteorology, in the form of the MWR-05XP (so not everything may be 100% the same, but the ESA part I can say is likely identical). I think the dual beam thing is a misinterpretation of the term back-scan, which these sources very nicely clarify does not mean that:
This confirms too that the “electronic back-scan” ability of the ESA is very limited (±3.5°), which means it’s unable to perform what is TWS ESA in-game. So only TWS updates once per rotation.
In any case, just as the product cards also say, scan zone is too large at the moment. The radar only is able to do a 22x360° zone in 2s (at 30rpm). If the back radar also scanned, this would be 1s, but it’s not mentioned, either because in the meteorlogical configuration it is unused (though interestingly the back antenna was not covered in paint despite that then) or the antenna is not capable of scanning for targets (or at least not accurate enough). What makes more sense to me is that the (supposed) IFF antenna in the back transmits high elevation coverage beams (so inadequate for getting elevation data) and is only looking to receive IFF responses (from which it could get friendly target position).
I guess what I also have to mention is that apparently the radar has a separate actuator arm which is able to swivel the radar around in a 45° arc (at a somewhat slow rate) to perform a directional scan only I guess.
The AN/TPX-56 is the box located to the right of the main array, it is not the back radar panel.
To that same end, the mechanical scan rate only takes into account the main array being scanned, this is why it can scan between 3 and 30 RPM variably, if the back scan was included, it being able to reach 3 RPM makes no sense, it would have to be moving at a glacial rate.
To that same end, videos of the system functioning that I’ve hand timed have the panel rotating at 30 RPM quite often, or most commonly 25 RPM it seems like.
I’ve already reported such above and such was accepted. However, like the actual max range of the system, gaijin has chosen to just ignore most of the reports I made even though they were accepted.
Same deal, there is no documentation that gives the actual performance of the rear radar beyond it’s performance being considered equal to the main array’s rapid mechanical scan abilities, which your source also corroborates.
This is speaking about the main array and it’s ability to dwell on areas, aka, split off a beam and bore a point while the main array continues to scan.
As stated above, the IFF interrogator antenna system is on the front of the system to the right of the main array.
Pretty sure thats talking about the elevation arm on the entire unit.
Overall, you seem to be assuming that the document you posted it speaking widely about the rear panel, when in reality this document is simply speaking about the entire system, primarily the main array.
wait dude ur actually right, i was so confused and was doing research for the past hour hour on it lol. the “back” radar that we see indeed seems to be the IFF and not the radar responsible for scanning behind it. How the CLAWS radar (AN/MPQ-64) scan behind itself is using something called Phased-Array-Radar or something and what it does is sending a beam (only ±3.5 degrees, which is rather small but still useful) directly behind itself using the main radar dish. It’s crazy cool to me that it can do that without needing another radar “panel”.
copied/paste my comment from another post btw
No, I am assuming indeed it’s talking about the main array (the large frontal square). The reason why I considered the rear (smaller) panel to house the TPX-56 is because it precisely doesn’t mention this backside array at all. But if the TPX-56 is housed elsewhere, I guess then that changes things again.
Anyways (on the backside), so this is part of the main array then? Is this also ESA? The surface is quite different from the front ESA judging from pictures. Often even being painted over with camo (whereas the front isn’t at all). In some cases it isn’t painted over with camo and has a similar color to the front array (as is with the MWR-05XP).
Do note that in this case it’s modified for meteorological purposes, so dwell time may be of huge importance. This may definitely not be normal for MPQ-64 tho.
This is still assuming with back-scan you mean a physical rearward facing antenna doing scanning backwards. But the only references to the “back-scan” with this radar relate only to the ability to slightly steer the beam in azimuth for increasing dwell time. And it does say “electronic back-scan”, not sure what is electronic about having a secondary back facing antenna. In some other radars with TWS ESA like beahvior (at least TRML-4D) it specifically mentions terms like look-forward and look-backward, or something similar (with demo video showing such behavior).
note it also says electronic scanning in azimuth over a limited sector (using frequency hopping, which the other source I put earlier is good for ± 3.5° or ~7° swath).
Does it? It only seems to talk about the frontal array. I so far have not read about the sentinel having a secondary rearwards facing antenna. I mean, they would probably mention it right? At this point I am just confused. Because initially I though that the rear facing one was ESA too, because it’s a rectangular box, so why not, but then I never found any reference for it being the case. So if you have something explicit stating that, could you please share.
Maybe, but doesn’t it move more than 45°? Not to mention they mention scanning rate with the arm, which is weird to do like that. I mean maybe it’s just what the scientist did (to get more elevation), but from research papers using this radar, they seemed to never really scan that high, I think they did at most +40°, which can be achieved by electronic steering alone.
gona dump this here, not a lot of useful info but i dont wanna go looking for it again
Well, not quite I think. The back-scan term needs to not be taking in the sense that it’s facing backwards, but rather that it’s scanning in opposite direction to the mechanical scan direction. It seems to make more sense when putting together the sources I found. Hence “back” scan as in scanning in backwards rotation. What is for sure is that at least isn’t scanning to the rear using the array on the front. ESA radars at most only effectively steer their beam 70° off axis. And I have never heard of radar scanning something using a backlobe.
But anyways you made me think of another possibility regardless. So if that rear panel is not the IFF and part of the main array, it could mean that the front part is scanning like normal (as in game) but the rear is only for “back-scanning” visited targets. Can make sense, that way you don’t need as large an array since detection was already done, and not to mention it can increase dwell time to partially make up for lower power (since it’s smaller).
I really want to see some documentation or reference to such behavior though. It’s unique enough to be mentioned right?
In the end I still think that rear angled rectangular panel is the IFF antenna. Because nothing else really looks like an antenna really. That could explain to me as well why in some pictures it seems to happily painted over with the same pattern as the rest of the system. Because IFF would be handled by a separate station instead, so the IFF on the Sentinel (or multiple) would not be needed.
Painted over panel. Now I know there are paints which are (more) radar transparent, but it seems odd for it to then be used for this small rear panel and not the front. It is even weirder if they had special paint for only that part as well, while they could leave it unpainted or similar to the front array (which has a much larger surface, so leaving that without camo pattern is odd then, if you cared enough to add a camo pattern to the smaller rear panel).
Kinda suprised they haven’t implemented it yet. Though I am guessing the problem is that they have no system currently to do the TWS outside the selected scan zone without TWS ESA (which is not implemented on any ground radar atm, and seems like the Sentinel doesn’t have it anyway, at least the constant instant updating part).