With the announcement of the addition of ESM finally coming to warthunder, theres one big possibility of its implementation that I’d like to focus on. Its potential application for slaving guided weapons which are not ARMs.
This is a feature on several modern aircraft, including the rafale, EF2K, the F-2*, etc. *(Types of weapons and variant dependency for functions on the F-2 are uncertain).
The first question then, being, do we want pre-launch slaving for other weapins via ESM?
All weapons get slaving
A2A weapons get slaving
A2G weapons get slaving
Only ARMs get slaving
0voters
And the second from there being, even if we want pre-launch slaving, do we want datalink after launch? It should be noted here datalink reconnect wouldnt change, so turning a radar off for a few seconds would still be enough to defeat this.
All weapons get ESM datalink
A2A weapons get ESM datalink
A2G weapons get ESM datalink
Voted yes on prior, but no ESM datalink
Voted no on prior
0voters
Additionally, one more thing, would we like this only to come to armamement / platforms with proven compatability, or for anything, etc.
Only armaments + platforms with proven functionality
Armaments with proven functionality, on any ESM platform
Any armament on ESM platforms proven to have functionality
Voted no on prior polls
0voters
As an additional purpose to this topic; any information that can be gathered on aircraft/weapons/systems that can use this would be greatly appreciated. Either for the use in potential bug reports or other such cases.
For the second poll I need a “I have no idea” option, because I just have no idea what the implications would be for most A2A or A2G weapons to have ESM DL
Basically it would allow for weapons to receive updates midflight from the aircraft’s ESM capabilities, ie, you ESM lock a target, then i stead of your radar providing midflight updates to the missile, the ESM would. Allowing for continual tracking of targets while running dark.
It should be noted, that deoending on the implementation of the system, weapins guided this way might have degraded or even no lofting, depending on how ranging & losting are handled
It would moreso be dependent on how ESM is implemented onto aircraft’s firing control scheme. Most modern fighters use a unified weapons control system, so in theory practically any weapon equipped. With the limitations being based upon angular accuracy limitations and if they have elivation detection or such. Or if weapons need precise ranging information to fire.
Ie, platforms without elevation detection would have a fairly hard time actually firing air to ground weapons with any sort of accuracy.
For more specifics then that, is honestly a lot of what i was hoping to gather from others with this topic. As while I know in a broad sense that this is a thing that exists, and I know of some specific examples, I actually dont really know that much about how most individual cases of this work or would be implemented.
I am not sure what exactly you are suggesting here? Do you mean the actual a2g or a2a weapon slaving to an electronic emission source? Or just like slaving a given targeting pod to the source and then doing the normal targeting and engaging procedure. So it makes finding the actual threat easier even though getting the exact location shouldn’t be instant either.
I am also not aware of any ingame weapons (beside the ARMs) that are by themselves capable of slaving onto a radar emitter.
But maybe I missed something and need some clarification.
Rafale can loose munitions at the location of the emission source, as an example. It’s not exactly slaving to an emission but getting the emitter’s position and sending the weapon to that emitter.
Yes, that is what I mean and I guess also Xeno. Your sensor suite finds the threat and you then slave the weapon to the calculated gps location, thus not really directly to the emitter. That is how I understand it.
Finding the exact location isn’t that simple though or at least not fast. Well, when I think about it, at those short distances we fight in the game it is probably very fast :D
So this should be possible. Will be interesting to see how Gaijin will present us the sensor information ingame and how we can interact with it. According to the current devblog the ARMs act as the sensor at the moment. So I guess we won’t be able to slave anything besides ARMs to emitters yet or do anything else with the information. The next step will be putting the necessary systems and also pods for it into the game (HTS for F-16s, DASS Praetorian, SPECTRA and maybe Prowlers and Growlers next). I hope that is their plan.
Yeah, its something that eurocanards have used for defensive missile interception, and iirc the rafale also used it for DEAD with AASMs, although my memory of that is a bit fuzzy.
For the F-2, which I do know more about, its more of a mess even despite knowing a lot about it. Basically, we know that it can use it due to it working with the ASM-3, but its unclear if its just with that missile or not.
There was previous research on the F-2 into ESM/ the rwr guiding air to air missiles, but its unclear if that was ever put into full production spec ones. As while the developmental notes say that it was to be upgraded with no physical components changing, the one example that did actually test it had an additional elevation sensor not found on other units. And just to make it even more of a mess, the notes called it an improvement to previous capabilities, which somewhat implies it might already have had such slaving to some extent, despite no other sources mentioning it…
So anyways the F-2 kinda has it, but its a bit of a mess and really debatable to the extent it should have it. With no elevation finding though it would be very dependent on missile self search modes for terminal aquisition though, which while common irl, are a bit less well made in warthunder.
Also, on this topic, it is important to note that when we do eventually get 5th gens, the F-35 and F-22 will significantly underperform compared to the su-57 if they dont get such passive sensor slaving. As both of them very heavily rely on it, versus the Su-57 relying much more on active systems.
Why so rude? And if anything it would raise the skill cap. Since missiles dont have datalink reconnect, turning off your radar to potentially stop others from tracking you would be a big risk versus reward assessment. One that i personally think would lead to a lot more diversity in defensive vs offensive gameplay tactics.
I mean this is like claiming that adding AESA radars into the game is asking for developers to hold your hand too, or any other of the new mechanics that have been added into the game since this update and the past two years. It’s a naturally occurring thing that modern mechanics are added into the game over time.
Bad take , when you have in the game the small maps gaijin gives you. Unreliable ground radars
(gaijin “tried” implementing the claws/nasams radar 2 times but they failed completely to make it accurate like irl, this level of incompetence is disgusting and shows gaijins true colours) that cant track shit and track ghost targets , radar missiles completely losing lock even when facing missiles straight ahead, ir missiles getting fooled by rocket assisted munitions all the time (aim9x ,irst ) when they are advanced enough to not fall for it ) the ecm slaving gives people chances to launch from far away, especially the broken kh38, they will have plenty of time to go up a lot and get to the radar deadzone before the ground radar sees the munitions because gaijin thinks munitions the size of airplanes cant be tracked at 8km by a modern radar . Modern radars are part of multi connected defences , with ciwis , small range and blah blah . Also no multipath, no fake dircm shields . Also when “people”(cas) will poke their faces at 40km the only systems able to do something are going to be sampts and buk . Spam land reload. Give realistic options to all systems and then we talk . Either way the ecm snitches already your position(pop up at 10km lanch dip and go back , no missile will catch you even now if know what you are doing). So just get better . I have a lot of experience with spaa so i know what I am talking about
The only munitions that would be a real issue with it would be Kh-38MTs and spices. But those are already kinda just an issue in general. So its kinda unfair to say to every other munition in the game that it would be too strong to add just because of them.
If they really end up that strong, they can just get the function disabled on them specifically, like how they already lack waypoint guidance methods that stuff like the ML get access to.
Also, this is a thing which would effect both ARB an GRB, you’re only looking at it from a GRB perspective.
