So one minor feature makes it completely fictional?
LPI is not the big advantage of AESA, its the lower weight compared to PESA and the ability to form multiple beams simultaneously.
Those can do everything from just scanning faster, over revisiting known tracks more often so TWS might be almost as accurate as hard locks, to simultaneous ground and air scanning, with the ground scanning then for example cuing a targeting pod.
Oh but you cant launch multiple sparrows at the same time, for that you need an interrupted continuous wave illumination mode, which to my knowledge only a very few naval vessels use (European ships with APAR and Japanese ones with FCS-3)
But you could probably hardlock one target (allowing for a SARH launch) while keeping the others updated in TWS
Fictional it will be if it don’t get any unique features. I just think what I said previously have the most chances and if it won’t be implemented probably nothing will.
Big chunk of the game is fictional as they aren’t identical to real life. I believe, even Gaijin has stated that if they somehow got things correct to classified information they’d have to change it to not match it. So we’re never going to get full realism.
i think you might have misunderstood. AESA does not switch frequency that fast PER TARGET it switches independently between components in the radar. so every separate target generally still only sees/hears one frequency. it can still switch frequency per target but not at the rate previously discussed.
Frequency switching is how it “aims” the separate beams and can track multiple targets at once.
Here is a VERY simplified image
Each “max” point is at a specific distance and angle from the source and is dependent on frequency/wavelength (it is also how we can measure lights specific wavelength to determine what atoms things are made from).
If you have a short enough wavelength (wavelength of most radars are between 1-10cm) then the distances between the maxes becomes so short that it barely matters if you switch a few steps up or down, the max is still going to be at the point where the target is as targets are typically a couple of meters wide, smaller if its a missile.
problem here is that if you send out a specific signal and then switch signal frequency there is going to be a short period of time where the first signal on its way back and the second signal on its way out are going to interfere with each other making the signal self scrambled during that time. so for a target at 100km distance that time comes to 1/3000 seconds (0.000333…s). which does not sound like much at all. BUT if you switch frequency at a rate of 100 per second then suddenly you have 1/3 seconds (0.333…s) PER SECOND where the return signal is unreadable. that’s a third of the time.
and this is only one target. imagine having 5-10 targets to track at the same time where each separate beam interferes with each other (which is already an issue with AESA and the reason that range decreases with amount of targets).
The type of frequency switching you talk about is useful for searching for targets in a so far empty space, so while there are no targets to track, the frequency switching is VERY useful as the time where the signal is unusable does not matter in contrast to being hidden. so an undetected target will not notice the search. but as soon as the radar detects a target and needs to start tracking it is when the signal becomes more detectable (notice “more”, not completely and/or immediately) as the switching needs to become less often.
Not only that but modern jets don’t really have a single RWR. they have a bundle of sensors and systems that work together to detect signals. usually ECM and ESM systems that are interlinked.
They also have several receivers spaced out over the aircraft enabling them to not only sense signals but also sense direction and a list of other things about the signal. (Here is more info if interested, i have access through my university but you should still be able to see at least the baseline info on some of the chapters).
In addition to all of this you have datalink IRL which enables all friendly aircraft and AWACS to send every detection to each other. They can thus even better filter out noise as you have several detectors over a wide area that receives different background noise but the enemy AESA will look the same to all of them so the detection becomes easier as the corroborated detection becomes more solid.
Regarding Gripen you will not find specifics no matter how much you search, but there have been several upgrades made in the past 2-3 years to make the C/D version as digitally on par as possible to the E/F versions now that they are operational.
Here is a list of the publicly announced upgrades:
