Question about top tier radar (Air) (Answered)

[Wandering Flare]

So I finally got myself some good radar missiles (thank ♥♥♥♥), but I can't get the radar to work reliably. All I can find online relates to the radar failing to lock but in my case pressing the Lock Radar button just doesn't even try to acquire a target majority of the time, other times the radar starts acquiring a target somewhere on the edge of the screen instead of where my nose is pointed, so what am I doing wrong?

[gemalto1979]

I have the same problem, but I don't solve it anymore because my AA can't see most of the planes and I'm there like on a shooting range. after my first destruction i leave the game.

[Wandering Flare]

gemalto1979 の投稿を引用：

I have the same problem, but I don't solve it anymore because my AA can't see most of the planes and I'm there like on a shooting range. after my first destruction i leave the game.

The issue in my case is somehow only on my planes, SPAA radar working just fine.

[shmeeeep]

try using IRST I dont know the standard keybind but you get much more reliable locks on planes. not every plane has it tho but most do

[Wandering Flare]

shmeeeep の投稿を引用：

try using IRST I dont know the standard keybind but you get much more reliable locks on planes. not every plane has it tho but most do

It's the same keybind.

[✿Sqüirrel✿]

there are 100s of things you could be doing wrong, You would be better off watching a video on youtube of radar and how it works from a reputable content creator. Then determine from that what you are messing up.

[Wandering Flare]

✿Sqüirrel✿ の投稿を引用：

there are 100s of things you could be doing wrong, You would be better off watching a video on youtube of radar and how it works from a reputable content creator. Then determine from that what you are messing up.

I did, nobody goes into detail on that because as far as they are concerned you just press the button and the radar goes into ACQ mode, any forum posts I was able to find had issues actually locking the target. My radar refuses to go into ACQ mode to begin with so I am stuck mashing the button until it finally decides it feels like activating and by then it's too late.

[Schublade]

Wandering Flare の投稿を引用：

So I finally got myself some good radar missiles (thank ♥♥♥♥), but I can't get the radar to work reliably. All I can find online relates to the radar failing to lock but in my case pressing the Lock Radar button just doesn't even try to acquire a target majority of the time, other times the radar starts acquiring a target somewhere on the edge of the screen instead of where my nose is pointed, so what am I doing wrong?

Hint: the only mode that does acquire the thing on your nose is a boresighted ACM, i.e. a mode that is looking out in front and is automatically locking on what's there usually up to 10 nm or 18km range.

Every other mode that can lock things up wants you to select the target, i. e. it is you who told the radar what to lock up. So watch out where the targetting brackets on the radar screen are before hitting the lock key, button etc.

[Wandering Flare]

Schublade の投稿を引用：

Wandering Flare の投稿を引用：

So I finally got myself some good radar missiles (thank ♥♥♥♥), but I can't get the radar to work reliably. All I can find online relates to the radar failing to lock but in my case pressing the Lock Radar button just doesn't even try to acquire a target majority of the time, other times the radar starts acquiring a target somewhere on the edge of the screen instead of where my nose is pointed, so what am I doing wrong?

Hint: the only mode that does acquire the thing on your nose is a boresighted ACM, i.e. a mode that is looking out in front and automatically locking on what's there usually up to 10 nm or 18km range.

Every other mode that can lock things up wants you to select the target, i. e. it is you who told the radar what to lock up. So watch out where the targetting brackets on the radar screen are before hitting the lock key, button etc.

The plane I'm using is the JA37D, if that might explain anything. I just do as the guide says, lock the target with MMB (just in case, call it placebo if it doesn't do anything), hit the "Lock Radar/IRST on target" button and... nothing happens, radar is still in SRC mode. So I hit the button again, and again, and again, until it finally goes into ACQ mode and hopefully tracks the target I am aiming for and not something 10km away behind it that hasn't even been ID'd.

Besides that, sometimes when the ACQ mode does activate the brackets don't appear where the nose is pointed but instead somewhere 45+ degrees off to the side, like if the radar was locking an area where it was pointed a second ago during a sharp turn.

[Schublade]

Go into controls, there are settings that allows you to switch targets by cycling through them or you can setup keys (or what ever controller is convenient) to move the targeting bracket as with a mouse. Also consider that acquiring range is only a fraction of the detection range. You might get a contact at 100 km displayed, that does not mean you can lock it up at that range. It's depending on the type and quality of the radar.


To get cycling target selection go into options>air battle settings> targets cycling switching of aircraft radar>yes

Or you setup the bracket cursor by setting up two axis of a controller of your choice with controls>aircraft>Horizontal (and vertical) radar/IRST cue control axis

[FireEqual]

Wandering Flare の投稿を引用：

other times the radar starts acquiring a target somewhere on the edge of the screen instead of where my nose is pointed, so what am I doing wrong?

You need to actually select the proper target if your radar sees more than 1 signature.
For that you need the "Select Radar/IRST target to lock" keybind. On the radar a selected target has | symbols around it. After that you press the "Lock Radar/IRST on target" and it should lock. Jammers and chaff will be able to spoof your radar though.

If your radar doesn't want to lock - that means it most likely has too much ground clutter to work around. Early radars, e.g. like the one F-4C has are pure dog and have lots of clutter unfortunately. Or as Schublade noted sometimes Radars have different lock-on ranges.
If your radar is fancier - it'll have a Pulse-Doppler mode that you can change to by using the "Change Radar/IRST mode", it has much less clutter and is more reliable, but it has its own downsides (like not seeing a target if it moves perpendicular to you).

There's one more mode that most radars have - the short ranged ACM you switch to by using the "Radar/IRST beyond/within visual range combat", it's far more reliable if you visually see the enemy but the radar doesn't want to lock. Unfortunately it has a distance limit that you will see when you switch to it (in reality it's less than that), so sometimes even if you see the target clearly - the radar won't lock.

The WT Wiki page for Radars[wiki.warthunder.com] actually has plenty of info that might be useful.

[Wandering Flare]

Cheers for answering how to cycle through targets in the radar area, but that is neither of my problems. The issue isn't locking targets to begin with or locking the wrong targets, it is that the radar refuses to go from SRC to ACQ mode when I press the button to do that. Videos, guides, wiki, everywhere it's as simple as "Press your keybind and it will start locking", which somehow doesn't work for me.

"when the "Lock radar target on" key is pressed it will turn on the tracking radar and automatically attempt to lock on to the selected target", my problem begins at "when the key is pressed it will turn on the tracking radar" because it just refuses to do that.

By "the edge of the screen" I don't mean the radar locking targets far away, I mean the literal edge of the screen while the nose is pointed at the center of it, think of it like if you are flying in a straight line but the radar brackets start locking a target somewhere on the edges of your monitor.

[nirvana_sth]

Wandering Flare の投稿を引用：

Schublade の投稿を引用：

Hint: the only mode that does acquire the thing on your nose is a boresighted ACM, i.e. a mode that is looking out in front and automatically locking on what's there usually up to 10 nm or 18km range.

Every other mode that can lock things up wants you to select the target, i. e. it is you who told the radar what to lock up. So watch out where the targetting brackets on the radar screen are before hitting the lock key, button etc.

The plane I'm using is the JA37D, if that might explain anything. I just do as the guide says, lock the target with MMB (just in case, call it placebo if it doesn't do anything), hit the "Lock Radar/IRST on target" button and... nothing happens, radar is still in SRC mode. So I hit the button again, and again, and again, until it finally goes into ACQ mode and hopefully tracks the target I am aiming for and not something 10km away behind it that hasn't even been ID'd.

Besides that, sometimes when the ACQ mode does activate the brackets don't appear where the nose is pointed but instead somewhere 45+ degrees off to the side, like if the radar was locking an area where it was pointed a second ago during a sharp turn.

Right, that plane has the worst PD radar I have ever seen in-game.

Generally (depending on the plane) you have 2 ways of locking targets with your radar; using ACM mode - which can have very short range, or using the radar screen.
Using the radar screen is slower specially when the targets are close.

[Schublade]

Wandering Flare の投稿を引用：

Cheers for answering how to cycle through targets in the radar area, but that is neither of my problems. The issue isn't locking targets to begin with or locking the wrong targets, it is that the radar refuses to go from SRC to ACQ mode when I press the button to do that. Videos, guides, wiki, everywhere it's as simple as "Press your keybind and it will start locking", which somehow doesn't work for me.

"when the "Lock radar target on" key is pressed it will turn on the tracking radar and automatically attempt to lock on to the selected target", my problem begins at "when the key is pressed it will turn on the tracking radar" because it just refuses to do that.

By "the edge of the screen" I don't mean the radar locking targets far away, I mean the literal edge of the screen while the nose is pointed at the center of it, think of it like if you are flying in a straight line but the radar brackets start locking a target somewhere on the edges of your monitor.

Those "press your keybind and it will start locking" directions leave out the fine print.
So to be absolutely clear, do you already use the bracket cursor manually or by cyclic switching, do you have the radar screen in b-scope or in is it still the plan polar view (default)?

At close range without b-scope you hardly can see multiple targets therefore possibly missing the one on the"edge".

Anyway, how about at the next encounter of this behaviour you use the replay and then the new sensor display to get to the grounds of this issue? It's quite uselesss to get the issue with ancecdotal descriptions and maybe there is a bug that could be solved with a well documented description? Just a thought.

[Schublade]

Also I don't have any JA-37. A quick google search helps insofar there are discussions about issues already. https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/QAq87VtAJ0kw

CorporalApollo@psn reported issue 6 months ago
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So I've been doing some research on the PS-46/A radar featured on the JA37C and JA37D and I believe it's currently very underpowered in the game. After all it was the only radar to ever achieve a radar lock on the SR71 (on multiple occasions) and was widely regarded as the most advanced European radar at it's time.

The chapter that features these numbers in the manual are still classified since a lot of the systems carried over to the Gripen. Nonetheless there are some other sources out there that give us some ballpark numbers of the radar range.

Currently in the game both the JA37C and JA37D can only lock/track people at <50km, which is a very conservative range considering most information out there claims the PS46/A radar to have a range "Exceeding 50 kilometers" or 75 kilometers.

The PS-46/A underwent a lot of development and from what I've read I'd like to propose War Thunder change the PD/Tracking/Locking radar range of the JA37C in the game to be increased from 50km to 60km, and the JA37D Viggen from 50km to 80km. This change is especially needed for the D Viggen upgrade package which was developed specifically with the RB99 (AMRAAM) in mind, which we might see in the game soon.

The first source I have found referencing a "doubling" of the radar range in the D Viggen is a transcript of a witness seminar held at the Stockholm Museum of Technology in 2007 featuring a bunch of people who actually worked developing the Viggen and other SAAB aircraft.

These people include:
Acke Axelsson (radar engineer at FMV)
Gunnar Lindqvist (technical lead at FMV for the JA 37 project)
Bengt Sjöberg (Saab employee)
Ulf Frieberg (test pilot)
Kim Bengtsson (computer engineer at FMV at the time)
Leif Åström (strike aircraft squadron commander at the time)

The seminar is very long, but in a conversation regarding PRF modes and the D Viggen's radar upgrades, this was said about a "doubling" of the radars detection range:
"Acke Axelsson: No. And that, together with some other things, resulted in roughly doubling the detection range. Doubling the detection range, that's a lot, that's 12 decibels. But there were some other things involved too, a microwave amplifier and so on. Well, that's what I had to say."

Source: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:13266/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Same source, translated: https://sturgeonshouse.ipbhost.com/topic/1070-translation-of-a-seminar-on-the-development-of-the-ja-37-viggens-avionics/

Here is the second source I have found stating the JA37C Viggen to have a radar range of 60km, and the JA37D Viggen to have a radar range of 80km.
(This is the text through google translate)
"The new radar (PS-46) gave the JA37 a range of 60 kilometers, but the JA37D later got a range of 80 kilometers which made the proceedings much quieter compared to the J35. BVR (Beyond-Visual-Range) shots with robot 71 also gave a range of 40 kilometers depending on target speed, altitude and own speed. Even longer range was later achieved with hunting robot 99."

Source: https://fortifikationvast.se/portfolio/styrdatasystemet/
The source of that article being:
This article was written by Richard Dahlgren with the help of: "The Swedish Air Force's Steering Data System" by Arne Larsson from the Armed Forces Historical Telesamlingar, "Combat control and air surveillance system model 50 - Stril 50" by John Hübbert, "Combat control system STRIL 60" by Göran Hawée from the Arboga electronic history association . In addition to written sources, Hans-ove Görtz from Försvarets Historical Telesamlingar has contributed information, and Lennart Carlsson (retired major in the air force) has contributed a majority of the information to the article.

Take note that the JA-37 D has the same radar as the the C only with technical
upgrades.

Also notice that this snippet does not explain the likely difference between detection range and the target tracking range and tracking itself needed for SARH-missile employment.

Also concerning ranges never forget that these ranges only count against a target with a specific radarcross section. The detection range frontal against a MiG-21 or F-16 will always be a fraction unless specified.

[Wandering Flare]

Schublade の投稿を引用：

Wandering Flare の投稿を引用：

Cheers for answering how to cycle through targets in the radar area, but that is neither of my problems. The issue isn't locking targets to begin with or locking the wrong targets, it is that the radar refuses to go from SRC to ACQ mode when I press the button to do that. Videos, guides, wiki, everywhere it's as simple as "Press your keybind and it will start locking", which somehow doesn't work for me.

"when the "Lock radar target on" key is pressed it will turn on the tracking radar and automatically attempt to lock on to the selected target", my problem begins at "when the key is pressed it will turn on the tracking radar" because it just refuses to do that.

By "the edge of the screen" I don't mean the radar locking targets far away, I mean the literal edge of the screen while the nose is pointed at the center of it, think of it like if you are flying in a straight line but the radar brackets start locking a target somewhere on the edges of your monitor.

Those "press your keybind and it will start locking" directions leave out the fine print.
So to be absolutely clear, do you already use the bracket cursor manually or by cyclic switching, do you have the radar screen in b-scope or in is it still the plan polar view (default)?

At close range without b-scope you hardly can see multiple targets therefore possibly missing the one on the"edge".

Anyway, how about at the next encounter of this behaviour you use the replay and then the new sensor display to get to the grounds of this issue? It's quite uselesss to get the issue with ancecdotal descriptions and maybe there is a bug that could be solved with a well documented description? Just a thought.

I'll see if I can get a replay, although I might not be able to get on the game in the next few days, so I'll try to outline the sequence of actions to highlight the exact problem. Just to be clear, from the instances of the radar not suffering the issue, I am aware that particular plane's radar is Not Great(TM).

https://youtu.be/n78r6klLlEQ?si=Y80e2xIpn308VSCr

14:31 timestamp as an example of what is supposed to happen and what I am trying to do.
Keybind to Lock Radar/IRST on target is pressed - radar goes from SRC to ACQ mode - radar goes from ACQ mode to TRK mode - sequence end

In my case, while not every time I try to get a radar lock, but a vast majority of the times, the sequence goes as follows.
Keybind to Lock Radar/IRST on target is pressed - radar remains in SRC mode - sequence end

I've eliminated the possibility of my keyboard being the issue, so I am really confused what could be the cause of it.

As far as the edge acquisition goes, I am actually not sure how wide the radar area is at this moment, so am I right in understanding that the cause of it is the radar attempting to lock the, let's say, most acquireable target in its view, causing the brackets to appear halfway outside the screen?

Edit: I may be misunderstanding the fundamentals here, actually. I'm assuming the switch from SRC mode to ACQ mode is radar's equivalent of locking targets with heatseekers, there may be no possible targets but the lock will be attempted anyway. Is that correct or the radar specifically needs possible targets to allow switching to ACQ mode?

Wouldn't explain why it doesn't work because I usually try to lock onto clearly present targets within 10km, but still.