The Eurofighter (AESA) balance problem and potential solutions to rectify it

[MythicPi]

As some of you may know, Germany, Italy, and Great Britain are receiving new Eurofighters this update, which gaijin dubbed “Eurofighter (AESA)”. What some of you may not know though, is that the British and Italian Eurofighter hold a significant advantage over their German counterpart once again, and in this case, the advantage is much greater than that seen on the Eurofighters currently seen in-game.

As it currently stands, the German Eurofighter comes equipped with the ECRS Mk1 radar, while the British and Italian Eurofighters come equipped with the ECRS Mk2 radar.

In-game, these radars are identical barring one very important distinction; The ECRS Mk2 has a ±100° field of regard (commonly known as gimbal limit in-game) in all directions, while the ECRS Mk1 only has a ±90° FoR, making it strictly worse.

Now, I hear some of you asking “who cares? its just ±10°, that’s no big deal” but there is a key bit of info to consider:
As per CatWerfers recent video on fox 3 mechanics, it is much easier to successfully notch a missile by going a little beyond 90° than being a little ahead or at 90°, which means the Italian and British EFT’s have a significant advantage in notching alongside their advantage in radar coverage.

- YouTube

The difference is actually quite significant. At 8km, the notch band identified by CatWerfer is from +40m/s to -100m/s, meaning the Italian and British Eurofighters will effectively have a 2.5x notch window advantage over the German Eurofighter while retaining the ability to guide their missiles on target via datalink.

Despite some sources from Airbus and the Eurofighter consortium claiming the ECRS Mk1 has an FoR of ±100° like ECRS Mk0 and ECRS Mk2, gaijin has denied all bug report attempts to increase the FoR for ECRS Mk1 in-game, due to Hensoldt claiming ±90° FoV. It has been suggested the discrepancy in radar coverage is likely due to a slight difference in how the different companies judge radar coverage, as unlike mechanical radars, ESA radars have decreased range at the limits of their beam steering limits. This effect can be seen below in the ECRS coverage presented on this display, where the ECRS radars are capable of max range coverage out to ±90° off-bore, but radar range decreases beyond that point.

ECRS radar coverage

Which does not seem to interest gaijin or bug report managers whatsoever.

As such, I have come up with 2 different solutions to prevent the German players from once again getting the short end of the stick.

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Solution 1: Give the German Eurofighter the AMK modification kit.

German Eurofighter seen testing AMK

Of the nations that develop and employ the Eurofighter, Germany is the only one I could find any evidence of having fielded the AMK modification kit, and is also the only nation confirmed to have purchased the AMK kit for their Eurofighters.

Luftwaffe Eurofighters Poised for Major Upgrades

AMK provides the Eurofighter:

• ~25% higher lift
• 45% higher AOA
• 100% higher roll rates

Providing the new German Eurofighter with AMK would allow it to have its own advantage over its British and Italian contemporaries. The British and Italian Eurofighters would then have the superior BVR performance via their significant radar advantage, while the German Eurofighter would have a significant flight performance advantage via the AMK kit.

If you want a more in-depth read-through of the AMK modification, that can be found here:

Eurofighter Typhoon (UK versions) - Technical data and discussion (Part 2)

Finally got around to writing this: Some interesting stuff from the presentation: [image] Graph wasn’t explained very well imo, and the lack of additional info on the graph (like what the Y axis represents, or any kind of numbers or scale) makes it hard to figure out, but I’ll do my best to explain what I understood from the lecturer. Graph apparently demonstrates the CL of the aircraft with a certain degree of crosswind at varying AOA with and varying stores. The standard aircrafts CL will…

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Solution 2: Give the German Eurofighter (AESA) ECRS Mk0 or ECRS Mk2.

As it stands, ECRS Mk1 and Mk2, are for all intents and purposes the exact same radars in-game (barring the fact the Mk1 is strictly worse in FoR), while Mk0 would also likely be a complete copy-paste of ECRS Mk2 in-game barring new information being found.

Both ECRS Mk0 and ECRS Mk2 radars are compatible with all Eurofighter Tranche 2 and beyond.

Source

https://uk.leonardo.com/documents/64103/22616345/LDO_UK24_00622+ECRS+MK0+LQ.pdf/2789f298-477d-e84b-9fe8-ac9c4b4a1b1c?t=1744018415197

Source

https://uk.leonardo.com/documents/64103/22616345/LDO_UK24_00623+ECRS+MK2+LQ.pdf/941e48cb-7bfa-4a05-ddd1-24df1934f444?t=1740640729437

While Smin1080 has recently explicitly stated:

Regarding the fact all non-US AH-64E’s are receiving CIRCM this update despite not operating them in real life. This clears the path for the new German Eurofighter to receive either the ECRS Mk0 or ECRS Mk2 with the same ±100° FoR seen on the British and Italian Typhoons to maintain parity instead of being strictly worse as currently modelled by gaijin.

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So now I ask the community;

How should gaijin handle the blatant imbalance in the new Eurofighters?

• Add AMK to the new German Eurofighter!!!
• Replace ECRS Mk.1 with ECRS Mk.0 or ECRS Mk.2!!!
• Don’t change anything, the German players don’t deserve to be competitive!!!

Thanks for reading, let me know if you have any thoughts, opinions or suggestions on the subject.

[kizvy]

Germany gets cucked again? That’s hilarious. IMO it should just get mk0, but I doubt gaijin will listen to us. It’s like asking for irbis radar from su-35 to go on su-30mk2 or mkk just cause one su-30mk tested it

[MythicPi]

Why vote against it getting ECRS Mk0 then?

[kizvy]

I’m dumb holy, lemme change my vote

[Morvran]

First off.

I think AMK is too much of a significant buff to only come to one nation. It would be akin to denying Germany and Italy Brimstones and Paveway IVs. So it would be an unacceptable assymetry imo.

Seocndly. Does it actually make that much of a difference?

Even in the CAPTOR-M, im able to guide missiles until they go active, at which point the DL stops, quite comfortably, Whether they have 90 or 100, its not going to change the fact that DL stops when the missiles go active and the ranges in which you will usually be firing will mean fairly limited DL windows. That can be easily achieved with the CAPTOR-Ms current FoV, that extra 10 degrees, I dont think is enough to justify either a massive buff like AMK or all that much panic.

The times in which that extra 10 degrees will actually be a significant impact will be very very niche.

but if a solution is needed, then Mk0 or Mk2 would make more sense

[MythicPi]

Datalink does not stop when the missile goes active, its paused. This means that as long as the launch aircrafts radar is able to maintain a lock on the target, the missile can lose lock via notching or chaff and still hit the target just fine as it will guide in via datalink.

Its one of the reasons why ESA radars in WT are superior to mech scan radars, as their datalink updates are in the order of hundredths of a second instead of seconds, meaning the missile is much more likely to hit a target in a high radial speed situation with evasive maneuvers where getting the most up to date information can mean the difference in hitting or missing a target.

With datalink guidance, the target is effectively trying to notch 2 different radars simultaneously.

[Comicdrache-live]

i agree with the AMK is going to be overkill but still im anoyed by the fact that the german AESA typhoon is the only AESA typhoon ingame that has 90x90 instead of 100x100. Just give it mk0 so everyone can be happy with the radars, but gajin refuse to give them the mk0. but im more anoyed by the fact that there is still no FnF Air To Ground weapon for the typhoons even tho there are even more modern spaas in game after this update.

[Metaltank1990]

making it 90x90 off of a technicality is weird anyways.

[kizvy]

Making it the only eurofighter with amk would make it absurdly OP

[SoyBeanInhaler]

Germans players have slightly worse radar, and complain about not being equal with other nations.

Then they ask for an incredibly OP upgrade that would make them much much more powerful than their counterparts 💀💀💀.

I voted no in this post just to ragebait, but in reality they should all just get the same ECRS Mk.2.

[ILuvAnneHathaway]

AMK when

[Morvran]

Hmm… Never really noticed it helping before.

Though 99% of missile I notch using the MAWS to guide me at 90 degrees. So I still don’t think it would be the end of the world

[kizvy]

Have you never played a plane with an ESA radar? It’s quite an advantage

[Morvran]

No, this will be my first. But even with CAPTOR-M.

I’ve never seen the DL re-engage after the missile has gone active

[kizvy]

Damn that’s insane. Have you never launched at someone while hard locked? It does effectively the same thing as esa radar but only against one target instead of multiple

[Morvran]

I rarely hard lock.

[SoyBeanInhaler]

It does re engage, it can sometimes even kill without the missile locking just on DL.

It basically makes it a semi semi radar homing

[kizvy]

Well you will greatly enjoy this new eurofighter then lol.
Oh yeah this reconnecting datalink thing only works for look down and not look up

[MythicPi]

@SoyBeanInhaler

Germans players have slightly worse radar, and complain about not being equal with other nations.

Then they ask for an incredibly OP upgrade that would make them much much more powerful than their counterparts

1. Its just one of the potential solutions I provided
2. The German P4E EFT’s (the ones first to enter service with ECRS Mk1) appear to be coming with AMK in the first place.

I offered the option just to give it ECRS Mk0 or Mk2 because that would be the most sensible option in the first place.

[FeetPics]

Every Eurofighter in the game already effectively has the AMK in the form of the 29 degrees soft AoA limit and the 45+ AoA limit with the fake “maneuver mode”.