What about expendable ECM like BriteCloud and GEN-X
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BriteCloud is already in service with some NATO aircraft afaik, it will be in my opinion one of the most important things to evade missiles. But the problem is, on the eastern nations, there is some problem
for russia, Su-57 and Su-35 UV-50-01 and UV-50 are able to carry unspecified ECM cartridges in their countermeasure dispensers
and example of this (not used in service)
i have not been able to find specific variants
As for china, i havent been able to find anything.
So if we get expendable ECM, it will have to be the same stats for everybody, DRFM jammer, limited time (only works like 10 seconds after launch), with small differences like large calibre ones being bit more powerfull, kinda like current normal vs large flares if you think about it.
Plus these systems are not really cost effecient, and you definately are not packing all 120 slots for these. Gaijin will have to limit it for aircrafts, like 10 - 20 expendable ECM per aircraft each at max.
yes, GEN-X as well. GEN-X is compatbile with ALE-39 and 47, Britecloud can go in ALE-47. which conveniently happens to cover the F-14’s, F-16’s. F-18’s, F-15’s, A-10C, and also F-35 can take them.
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F-14s were tested with them too??
idk about tested, but F-14’s use ALE-39 so it should be fair game
ehh for f14s and a10c, and lower tier f18/f16 adding these might not be well balanced, for their BR POD jammers are more relevant across a lot of jets.
adding these makes sense only to like 13.7 or above BRs
for a10cs it might be okay because they struggle at their BRs anyways
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The F-14D in specific also uses the ALE-47.
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Bump.
After watching the CBT… I really hope spawns will have anti-drone jammers spread throughout the spawn to jam incoming drones… It’s possible to spawn fresh, throw up an FPV drone and immediately go straight into enemy spawn.
But also, a specific infantryman that carries around a portable jammer wouldn’t hurt either ;)
So many possibilities with ECM :)
Why does this even have to be suggested, ECM should have been introduced ages ago
The issue is that ECM isn’t a ‘one-size-fits-all’ mechanic. Implementing it broadly without accounting for the massive technical leaps between aircraft generations would break game balance. Posts like these give developers a researched baseline to work with, allowing them to expand the mechanic internally with the nuance it actually needs.
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I love this! Please please add this functionality, especially for things like the RAH 66 heli.
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Do i want it? yes
will it work? Probably not
will the average warthunder player understand it? GOD NO
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Good post
Question are there forms of strategic EW where you deny over a large area GPS and communications. Like it being truck based not something you can bolt to a plane. (Could be an important ground target)
Also drone jammers may be nice for tanks and they have been popping up everywhere like mushrooms.
I don’t even fully understand how my radar works at top tier on my F-2 I just lock get to 10km and fire. Let alone a EW system but it should be added.
Yes
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Jamming at the very latest should be introduced alongside stealth fighters, as the main effects of jamming (decreasing distance before plane can be detected and radar lock can be maintained) is broadly similar to the main advantage of radar stealth, with the important distinction that jamming makes your presence known while stealth doesn’t - so a stealth plane would rather not use jamming itself, but have a teammate use jamming to divert attention while he flies into position. Jamming power is also limited by the engine power, so broadly speaking jamming can be a factor for teamplay, can help balancing stealth and non stealth planes, and can help survivability of the powerful but not very maneuverable jet bombers. The less often mentioned advantage of jamming is that it makes chaff a LOT more effective than usual; not only does it make it easier for the radar lock to be transferred to the chaff (as it’s less stable than usual), but it’s also makes the chaff cloud a more credible target on the radar screen, as it reflects the signal from the jammer instead of only the radar beam - and this is an effect that stays even within burn through range (although the closer the distance, the smaller the effect).
Most kinds of jamming can only be employed effectively by a very experienced operator that isn’t preoccupied with flying the plane, so for Warthunder I guess there only two kinds of jamming that are possible to implement ingame:
- Spot jamming : creates noise in a specific frequency band that makes it more difficult for a radar to detect and lock individual targets (should show as a bright line of clutter in a specific direction), but has the disadvantage that it shows the enemy exactly where to look (particularly if they are capable of home on jam), interferes with your own rwr, and with both your teammates´radar and rwr. More advanced system only turn themselves on to respond to an enemy signal on RWR and try to only affect that specific frequency, but there are always overlaps.
- range gate pull out : If rwr detects plane has been locked by enemy, it automatically tries to send fake range signals to mask the plane´s actual location and velocity, so enemy can’t gauge when they should launch the missile; if the fake signal is far enough from the real one, the fake signal is interrupted and radar lock is broken.
Note how the later mode of operation won’t even start if spot jamming is so strong that the RWR stops working. The more power used by the jammer the more effective it is (RGPO is a lot less power hungry than spot jamming), but for max power the radar has to be shut down. Both modes of operation can be controlled with a couple of keybinds (off/auto/on, RGPO/ALL), so it seems pretty straightforward from a game standpoint.
Honestly the bigger issue is deciding on the counter counter measures available to each radar system, as some older radars like the ma-1 on the f-106 historically would be incredibly effective at defeating jamming, but warthunder devs tend to think older = worse.
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Instead of an unrealistic timer system, I think we have a fairly decent real-world balance in that if we get Anti-Radiation weapons and features then we have a natural counter. In addition to things like burn-through and ECCM (where more modern radars can detect what kind of jamming is happening and ignore erroneous signals, or even just hop between frequencies very quickly at a pace the ECM can’t predict/match) there’s also the fact that ARMs can follow the signals emitted by ECM units and missiles like the R-77 and AIM-120 even already have this ability in real life, where they can switch to home-on-jam mode when their radar seeker is being disrupted by ECM. If you pair this with the idea or mechanic that you cannot use SARH while your ECM is active, you’d receive a balance in that SARH missiles would require ECM off for the aggressor and the defender would still have burn-through and ECCM to worry about, meaning Fox-1 BR brackets would not get completely disrupted, and the top tier ARH brackets would have the extra threat of Fox-3s switching into HOJ mode, meaning in either case ECM wouldn’t be an easy “immunity from all radar missiles” hack.
EA-37B Compass Call
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That would be a nice target that provides a strength if protected and a weakness if shot down.
It’s a good post, and this should come especially with a home on jam for the missiles that had it and passive radar-homing missiles for players to have a further ability for counter-play, especially for SPAAs, if there are indeed missiles like the ones I described.