Yes the big ball of plasma that is our sun emits radiation so powerful that it reflects within the earth’s atmosphere and hooks around the horizon. It is so powerful that the moon reflects and shines as a second star and emits radiation down on you at night.
The sun is the biggest obstacle holding back infrared detection ranges.
You know more than anyone about this technology. like classified stuff. However, we are not looking at targets 30 nautical miles away through the clouds
Well, it’s certainly a good thing that infrared imagers are unaffected by visible light. The wavelengths of IR that they cover are sufficiently far from the point at which the sun would blind them that with some simple cooling methods they can capture and observe IR targets at extreme ranges. They’re not nearly as limited as you seem to insinuate.
I don’t think the IRST’ in-game are locking anything from 30km from behind clouds.
Not through thick clouds no. But the range is outrageous even on hazy games. Its weird but it will lock a friendly through clouds before an enemy. Kinda funny almost like a cruel little joke by GJ.
Haze isn’t modeled with any actual effect beyond graphical. Only clouds are and even then I think the effect is very limited/only stops IR seekers from locking for a bit after flying through
Are you sure? I can show some examples where the AIM-9L would be unable to lock an afterburning F-16 until a range of ~1 mile. Kind of ridiculous. As I said, I think clouds are overperforming a bit.
So, the IRST should have an unrealistic range even at sea level in the thick moist atmosphere?? Or is thick air not modelled either?
interesting, but fog is and it disrupt IR seekers as well. Very odd.
Yeah that’s what I mean with IR seekers not locking. Sometimes its really buggy. Also after testing it effects IRST track as well
Yes I think IRST / missile seekers are failing to lock in situations where they really shouldn’t. Has a lot to do with the clouds in-game. Clouds OP.
i’ve heard explanations that the cold clouds mess with the IR sensor or something but that’s it. Definitely feels exaggerated
They actually got it backwards. IRST is very sensitive. It should have no issue tracking ab targets within the 10km range set through average clouds.
It just drastically loses sight the farther a light source is.
Well yes, but there are a lot of factors we’re not considering.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/955829235493273680/1160334767330443356/infrared2.png?ex=653448f6&is=6521d3f6&hm=6d44504a13d62b884727ae31ca99978291b4c0c8381b41ca5119ef5b9d5f64cd&
But we don’t need to consider these much, the manual states the ranges it should lock specific types of targets.
One more test, clouds hard-counter IRST tracks, might as well be a brick wall (Which I suppose is somewhat realistic since clouds are very cold and water diffracts light. I presume it can do similar to IR emissions?)
That’s my experience. Even on rear aspect against afterburners, no good.
I think the problem is that the visual model of clouds does not match the physical model. I often have a problem with being out of a cloud (near-perfect visibility of the target) but still being unable to lock a target until I am much further away from the cloud. I think the problem is that clouds visually have zones that are fully dense and zones that are practically transparent. Those transparent zones act as though they were full clouds (?). I also suspect that the clouds server side and client side are not synced (had a few scenarios when I was in a cloud, but my squad mate said I was in the clear).
Well, a while ago someone put simply;
Clouds are less opaque to visible light, so if you can see through it (hardly)… an IR sensor may not. If you can’t see through it, an IR sensor CERTAINLY could not.
In any case, the video above kind of proves that war thunder’s IR seekers are handicapped in the presence of light fog at the very least. I agree clouds should cause problems, but that F-16 was a bright and hot target the entire time.
In a medium alt look-level/up environment free of obstruction, it seems like IRST should still have a pretty okay time tracking rear-aspect, even without AB.
F-14D pilot allegedly achieved a “190-mile” IRST lock and could differentiate different targets. Including one tanker (so turbofan which I think has a much lower IR signature than a turbojet)
For all of you who use the radar with target cycling set to off:
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/6D7Q7Au0q8Pp
tbh my problems with it are that
A: You can’t cycle and use cyclic at the same time, which is annoying when I want to rapidly acquire a target.
B: There is no option to change radar elevation relative to the aircraft, you can only use the tilt axis when constant elevation of radar is off. (I want the option to move it relative to the horizon rather than relative to the nose)
Every IRST is different, just like every pair of eyes are different.
Every camera cannot see and differentiate the same objects at same ranges, environments and weather conditions in that environment.
Do you need a source that says because one camera is better at distance does not mean that all cameras can see at the same exact differences?
You understand they talking about the F14D right?
Back to the Mig29, you think GJ put 10km in ACM mode for no reason?