Well that is great to know. Thank you for investigating that! Much obliged.
On the not so good sideā¦
This was the trial with an SA-6 on Abu Musa instead of an SA-11ā¦
I think what is happening is that the āpodā is picking up both the SA-6 Straightflush search (A band, PRF 967, 1-2 sec) and the Hawkās AN/MPQ-55 (also A band, PRF 967, 1-2 sec) and seeing them as the same radar. In the real world there would be enough differences between the two. In our virtual world, they are the exact same. The plotted position is about Ā½ between the two sites. I got no other Hawk-associated ELINT.
I can probably just take the AN/MPQ-55 out of the Hawk battery and just go with the AN/MPQ-50 - that should do it for this particular mission.
It takes a bit of diligence because if thereās any overlapping signals, the RWR will record them all; if it has to be on for the duration of the mission, itād probably be best to look at the time of the recording and reference that with takeoff/landing times.
In my test run, I put a friendly Hawk site adjacent to the starting base (Ras Al Khaimah), and before I started up I turned off the RWR. The pod can be warmed up at this point, itās just the RWR that needs to be turned off. I flew to the first waypoint which I set outside of the friendly Hawkās detection zone, then upon hitting that point, turned on the RWR and pod recording. Waypoint 2 and 3 would bring me alongside the target area, where I put SA-6, SA-11, and Hawk sites; I skirted a bit closer to get some missile launches in order to pick up more frequencies, doing this from north, west, and south of the target. Once I completed the south run, I turned off my RWR again and set the pod to standby, then flew my return route. Doing this procedure, my ELINT page did not report anything prior to or after the RWR being turned off.
For posterity, the RWR knob in question is in the panel above the exterior lighting panel, the top center knob out of the four normally used for countermeasure controls.
Note that my ELINT page gets its first recording at 0820 local; mission start time was 0800.
LOLā¦I had used it before to turn off the annoying beepsā¦but didnāt think beyond that. After you mentioned it I took another look and was all like, āFranā¦that means offā¦ā Forehead slap!
Iām not sure if itās incredibly necessary to turn it off at the start, but itād probably be prudent to turn it off at the exfil point so as to not ruin the ELINT information. I believe the information is based on the most recent signals detected, so if you come across more than 8 unique signatures, the earliest will be overwritten. I only used it for real once in a PvP server, where I was trying to locate an enemy shipping group. My information was overwritten when I RTBād as I didnāt know much about the pod outside of how to turn it on.
I had the RWR gear Off and thePod powered down to start. I had all blue radars active.
Turning N from Sir Abu Nuayr Island (Blue-held) I switched on the RWR and set the pod to A/J
Per the specs on the pod, it should not have detected the Blue AN/MPQ radar behind meā¦but it did. So it recorded that and not the AN/MPQ-50 on Tunb Island.
On the plus side it caught the SA-6 Straightflush on Abu Musa, not all that far off - allow for potential differences in coordinate systems, Iād say it is enough to say that there is probably an SA-6 on the island - most likely not an SA-11 (What?! Iām an intel officer. I (almost) never say anything definitive. )
On the plus side, with the RWR and Pod bot off on the way home, it did not pick up a Rowland search radar I had active near the RTB airfield.
Conclusions: When making Missons utilizing the Viggen ELINT pods
It looks like you can not have two of the same radar active in the same āsceneā (the area where you want the ELINT to be detected by the U22/A pod) even if they are separated by enough distance that only one can be detected at a time - it will only take the first.
You cannot have two radars with identical parameters in the same scene if they can be detected near time coincident - it will think there is only one radar.
It will detect radars behind the pod.
With that in mind, let me see what I can do to finally get this mission āsortedā (as our UK friends would say).
In addition to getting the Red ELINT correct (radar type and general location) - I used the RWR On/Off to keep emitting Blue radars out of the picture -only these 3 were recorded!
I should have a mission out soon. And it is actually fun
ELINT:
Emitter: 1
Freq: A PRF: 967
First signal: 6:35:5 Last signal: 0:0:0
Sequence broadca: 0.3s Silent: 2s
NW: 25:55:12 054:58:23 SE: 25:52:40 055:07:05
Emitter: 2
Freq: A PRF: 447
First signal: 6:37:2 Last signal: 0:0:0
Sequence broadca: 1s Silent: 2s
NW: 26:18:18 055:15:25 SE: 26:14:59 055:19:25
Emitter: 3
Freq: B PRF: 7893
First signal: 6:37:29 Last signal: 0:0:0
Sequence broadca: 1s Silent: 2s
NW: 26:17:19 055:08:37 SE: 26:13:30 055:13:11
True. I agree. However, not the way it is supposed to work.
If you watch the MOTVERK light, it only blinks when a radar emission is coming from somewhere ahead of the aircraft - which makes sense it is a jamming pod and it probably makes more sense to jam threats that you are heading towards than ones that are behind you.
Regardless, with careful mission development you can keep the radars that you donāt need to show ā and will only interfere with the ones you want to detect ā off or untecorded. Works for me.
Yes, it almost certainly, technically, is a bugā¦but not one Iām going to hold my breath that they will fix anytime soon. The work-arounds are simple enough.
Viggen lifehack: put bombs on in place of ELINT, use ELINT page in air to find radars, then bomb radars without pesky SIGINT! (You know how those guys are.)
I was going to post this earlier but I didnāt get a chance. Noticed this at the end of my Viggen mission last night. Note the āconā for the U22/A ECM Podā¦
So that means that the base RWR does in fact have a limited ELINT capability after all. Is there anything as to what the pod can pick up that the RWR canāt?
I think the naval recce function is meant to work slightly different though. That one is properly documented in the manual whereas the ELINT is not. The U22/A page refers to a appendices concerning ELINT but so far it has not beend added to the manual just yet.
In theory you could fly ELINT in mp and have the pod auto-generate a mission on landing for you, how neat is that?
Copy that. Actually that page you posted is the one helped me figure out what was going on.
The U22A is supposed to only have a forward facing capability and in RL no doubt it does (did). However, in the sim, it appears to have 360 capability. This is likely a programming issue. Note I am reluctant to call it a true bug since I have a feeling that, given all the stuff framed into the āESM packageā ā RWR, ELINT, Jamming and Countermeasures ā it is most likely just the way it worked out.
Once a mission developer understands this, they can work around it so that a user never notices.
Yes it does. The naval Reece function is all about creating tracks (LAT/LONG/Course/Speed) and primarily utilizes the jetās radar. That said, one could certainly combine the two into a single mission. You would compare the Reece plot against the ELINT picture to determine the probable identity of the contacts (āTargetsā in Viggen Reece parlance). This would need to be done after landing but it would certainly work for a follow-on mission.
This is actually what we (USN intel) do in RL in real time at the carrier strike group levelāusing āINTsā to identify contacts that the organic sensors of the strike group (mainly E-2 and shipās radars) have gained contact on.
Depending on the size of the bounding boxes generated it could work - if a bounding box was too big you wouldnāt be able to use it. But some a tight hit would certainly put you in the right area.
I interpreted it as both detection and jamming. That said, in RL systems like the SLQ-32, there are different antennas for reception and jamming transmission. So it makes sense that the receiver antenna(s) are full coverage.
I also noticed that the MOTVERK light only blinks in conjunction with RWR indications of a forward hemisphere radar detection. I think this is supposed to indicate jamming active (my wife, a native Norwegian speaker says that it may mean something like āgoing againstā) but if so, why illuminate when set to silence (A setting)? Which is why I was thinking it is a detection light.
oh my gosh! I think I have become the ELINT version of a rivet counter.
oh my gosh! I think I have become the ELINT version of a rivet counter.