Beyond The Sprues
Modelling => Ideas & Inspiration => Engineering Dept. => Topic started by: Daryl J. on February 05, 2014, 03:47:03 AM
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Why do we see an absence of miniaturization in major systems such as the AN/ALQ-99 pod? Is it a function of the wavelengths being sensed/jammed or is it a function of failing to continue to develop something from the 1960's?
I just find it odd.
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Depends on the function of the pod.
Chaff in particular is not going to get any smaller due to the need for the individual filaments or strands of chaff to be cut to a specific length to jam the target radar.
Flares might get smaller but not by much as you need a specific burn time and brightness to distract heat seeker type missiles from the targeted aircraft.
ECM pods dedicated to jamming radar signals are also set by the size of the receiving and transmitting antennas incorporated into the pods. If any space is gained by one component of the system through miniaturization it can be lost to another component that increases in size such as the power supply to increase jamming ranges or the signal processors that are needed to keep track of the systems that are to be jammed or countered.
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There is also the factor that a smaller pod might not be of the correct size/shape to be compatible with things like an MJ-1 loader. If you can't put it on the plane... it isn't much use. :)
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Miniaturisation only affects the computer components. The power supplies and wave guides havn't got any smaller over time, and the size of the aerial is governed by the physics of the signals being jammed. Aerials are a bit like speakers and V8 engines: ain't no substitute for cubes.... ;)
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So you are a P-3C, Gaoxin 6, Nimrod, AWACS, or some such aircraft.
Are you shot out of the sky with an AIM-120 with reckless abandon or do ECM and anti IR devices do the job well?
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They generally carry fairly effective countermeasures on board; I'm not sure I can say more about the aircraft I'm familiar with.
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I don't know how effective the ECCM in an AMRAAM is (and I'd be worried if I did), but one thing you can say for sure is that the power output of a 7" diameter radar set is not going to be great, so you'd stand a fair chance of wiping it out with sheer jamming power, particularly from a big aircraft with lots of jamming capability. Of course, it's not quite a simple as that since a) the missile's radar is frequency agile, so you'd have to either jam a range of frequencies or follow it's frequency shifts very quickly and b) it's likely to have a home-on-jam mode, where it just stops listening for it's own echoes and uses your jammer as a homing beacon.
The alternative is deception jamming, where you try to spoof the missile's "noise filters" into rejecting the true echoes and listening to your fake ones that give incorrect bearing/range data. How good your jammer is at doing this and how good the missile is at avoiding it are deeply black subjects and the only thing you can say for sure is that anything in the public domain will be either too non-specific to let you apply it to a particular system, or downright disinformation.
My best guess would be that a really smart jammer would use a mixture of noise and deception jamming, changing tactic second-by-second to force the missile's ECCM to try to keep up. It might not be able to completely break the missile's lock, but if it keeps breaking lock momentarily and then having to re-acquire it will "dither" to the point where it's miss-distance increases beyond it's lethal radius.
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They generally carry fairly effective countermeasures on board; I'm not sure I can say more about the aircraft I'm familiar with.
Ditto. I can say that it isn't all the systems though. Tactics also play a role.
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Or, once technology matures, an EMP counterattack. Fry the missile's electronics outright and it's just an unguided rocket...
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And EMP is.....
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Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse). Though most modern airborne systems have some form of protection against - it is also likely to be just as dangerous to the one that uses it as to their intended victim so of questionable use...
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A powerful directional radar transmitter can burn out a less powerful one if it transmits enough power on the right frequency. I understand that there is (or used to be) a car accessory available in France that could burn out a copper's radar gun if he pointed it at you.... 8) >:D Sadly the device couldn't be sold in the UK because the broadcasting laws are different and you could be prosecuted for simply owning it, rather than just using it maliciously.
Against IR missiles, powerful directed IR laser systems are now in service: DIRCM (Directional Infra Red Counter Measures). These can certainly dazzle an IR seeker any maybe even burn it out.
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A powerful directional radar transmitter can burn out a less powerful one if it transmits enough power on the right frequency. I understand that there is (or used to be) a car accessory available in France that could burn out a copper's radar gun if he pointed it at you.... 8) >:D .
One of my colleagues in the US HQ of our firm built a 'Black Box' that did exactly that after getting his third speeding ticket in a week. (He drove a Ford Ranchero with a GMC 6-71 blower on top of a Cleveland 427, no surprise really...) and it worked like a charm! So much so that the local Sherriff said that there was someone '...sabotaging our speed monitoring systems throughout the county....' in the local paper. ;) :) :D
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That reminds me of an idea for a comedy movie about a small-town "Speed trap" and the personnel of a SEAD squadron running afoul of them and "getting even". It could get "interesting" if things escalated (altered receivers on an ARM, perhaps?).
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So you are a P-3C, Gaoxin 6, Nimrod, AWACS, or some such aircraft.
Are you shot out of the sky with an AIM-120 with reckless abandon or do ECM and anti IR devices do the job well?
Here's what Dos Gringos have to say on the issue:
"And they asked me where you going as I started to diverge
Said, "I've had enough of this shit, man, I'm going to the merge"
'Cause BVR is great but now it's time to have some fun
<...>
It's time to get medieval
I'm going in for guns"
Dos Gringos - Going in for Guns (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQAmvKMGUko#)
;D
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Sounds like we need a GPS directed drone aircraft with a bombay full of a bunch of concrete cinder blocks that would be dropped on the offending aircraft and simply bludgeon it out of the sky.
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Sounds like we need a GPS directed drone aircraft with a bombay full of a bunch of concrete cinder blocks that would be dropped on the offending aircraft and simply bludgeon it out of the sky.
Yeah, but you'd need a drone that could keep up with the aircraft you'd expect to encounter; that gets to be an expensive bird.
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"And they asked me where you going as I started to diverge
Said, "I've had enough of this shit, man, I'm going to the merge"
'Cause BVR is great but now it's time to have some fun
<...>
It's time to get medieval
I'm going in for guns"
:icon_music:
Mind you, this reminds me of a story from my P-3 days: during one exercise a P-3 encountered an enemy fighter patrol. It turned and did what all good P-3s do in such such a situation: run like hell, close to the surface and scream for your own fighters. Now the intrepid lead pilot of the pursuing fighters decided this was too good a target to miss and that it was going to be an easy kill. Moreover he thought it might be nice to get some great gun/HUD camera footage of his kill...all the better to guarantee him some drinks that night in the bar. Now a jet fighter (Hornet in this case I believe, though I may be wrong) is way faster than an Orion. So what did he do? Slip in behind, drop flaps, deploy air brake a bit...get it nice and slow so as to avoid overshooting. Unfortunately for him, it was such a pity that the Orion's fighter cover came screaming in at that point and took and easy missile kill on this nice, slow, straight flying fighter trailing an Orion... ;D
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Exercise over the Gulf of Mexico in the "way back days"... I was with 414 (EW) Sqdn of the Canadian Air Force working against some anonymous F-15 "Ego" jocks. We were jamming hard on the comm bands, with me doing my regular role as Tech Crewman and sending out some much hated muzac over the Blue Fighter Control channels.
We would also record (digitally! GASP!) the commands sent to the Blue fighters for later replay.
During one particularly energetic mission we had an Ego Jock listening to us, and not ever hearing his fighter controller. About 6 minutes in we lined him up on a target which he got a radar lock on and then took a radar missile shot. We ceased comm jamming right after he locked on and just before he took the shot... so Blue Force heard him call his target.
I can only imagine the look on his face when his wingman was told to "Steer 180 for 50 to regenerate"... meaning he had been shot down. :)
Same guy, next night... chases a "T-33" (actually the EF-101 Voodoo jammer) through Mach 1 and up to 1.8 after being target fixated. Important safety tip... If the T-33 you are chasing exceeds Flight level 400 and Mach 1.5 it is time to re-evaluate. :)
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Sounds like we need a GPS directed drone aircraft with a bombay full of a bunch of concrete cinder blocks that would be dropped on the offending aircraft and simply bludgeon it out of the sky.
Hahah, shades of Gavin Lyall's 'Shooting Script' again. :) ;)
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The EF-18G uses active cancellation technology right?