Radar and low-flying planes

[Morbid]

Ola guys,

Forgive me if this has been covered already - most likely has - but I think having icons and dar signatures on low planes is a bit unrealistic. OK, icons are unrealistic. But there ought to be provisions for sneak attacks.

Am I missing something here? I can spot enemy icons high or low and it gives the plane's position away big time. There is no way to hide other than terrain masking in the tri-mountains and with all the field out in the open, you can't deep-strike surprise at all.

[popeye]

I'd also like to see low flying planes have reduced icon ranges, something like brand WB.

popeye

[jarbo]

I would like to see the "radar bar" go away for low flying a/c.  The field radar does this at somewhere around 250ft (i dont know the actual value.)   Can't we do this for the radar bar as well!

Jarbo
of the Buccaneers

[Fishu]

How about we just make it 2-country war and disable all icons...

Hehe, I wouldn't mind bad to turn off my own icons, but theres problem, sure is, can't identify then friendly from foe unless you shoot it or he shoots at you...
(not to talk about little friendly/foe identifies from distance..)

[Mr.ED]

BRAVO Fishu,

If it has a meatball or iron cross on it, I shoot it down.

Thats how I was trained in the US Military.
Two sides, not icon. Plain and simple.

Heck just a arena for those who want it that way.

If there were icon on the Friendlies ONLY, maybe that would be o.k.

Mr.ED
Pony Pilot
Knight

[Rojo]

Couldn't agree more, Morbid. I have several times extended an offer via this BBS to HtC to act as an unpaid consultant to help them build a higher fidelity radar model into this sim (Graduate degree in Radar Signature Prediction and Reduction from the US Air Force Institute of Technology).  I made the same offer to iEN -- they weren't interested either;(.

What I would suggest is a fairly simple model, where detection range is dependent on aircraft altitude (i.e. line of sight, as modified by ground-clutter), aircraft size, aircraft aspect angle, and terrain masking.  A couple of standard radar signatures would be used, one for single-engine fighters, another for twin-engine fighters, another for medium bombers, etc.  These signatures would consist of five values, and the model would determine which one to use depending on which cardinal direction was facing towards the radar antenna. In other words: nose-on, left/right front quarter, left/right broadside, left/right rear quarter, and tail-on.

The host or FE would determine the type of target, the distance and altitude of the target, and determine the aspect angle of the radar relative to the target. It would look up the RCS (radar cross section) for the target type and aspect angle, and plug this value into the basic Radar-Range Equation to determine if detection is even possible. If it is, the software model would then determine if line of site exists, and whether or not the target is in ground-clutter or not. Each FE could perform these functions, and simply send a "yes" or "no" to the host; "yes, the radar sees me" or "no, the radar doesn't."  Obviously, a radar that has been destroyed would not be able to see an A/C; but then, your FE would know if a radar was destroyed.

This is a gross simplification of the actual electromagnetics involved, but would be far better then the current model...or lack of one. The biggest potential problem with implementing this is the potential to hack your FE to change the RCS tables. This could be avoided by making the host do all the work, but might bog it down too severly.  You could also play around with the update rate, making it longer or shorter, or even range dependent; i.e. the farther you are away from the radar, the less frequent the updates.  I also agree with the suggestion of reduced icon viewing range of low-flying a/c. What do you think?

Sabre (a.k.a. Rojo)

[juzz]

I love it! "Realistic" radar! The first step on the road to night-intercept airborne radar in a Ju88G  

A few other suggestions, that don't particularly need a different radar model:

1.a) Radar sites, seperate from the actual bases. Each one would cover four sectors of the map, and the site coverage would overlap somewhat, so that at least 2 adjacent sites would have to be destroyed to totally remove coverage in an area. Destroying just one site would reduce the effectiveness of radar in that area, eg: remove the precise location dots, but keep sector counters. Destroying two sites next to each other would make those sectors lose their counters altogether.
b) Ground spotter huts, preferably on the ridgetops, that are lightly defended(eg: one .50 AA) and able to be captured by paras. These sites would give limited range positional dots, just like the airfield towers do now.

2. Radar ops room in the HQ site, with rough details (alt, speed etc.) on each contact, so players can .move there and act as GCI operators if they want to and guide intercepting fighters, etc.

[Minotaur]

And put Ack guns randomly in the cannons.

Mino

[juzz]

You must mean canyons? Erm, with the current laser acks that sounds like a bad, bad idea to me.

[This message has been edited by juzz (edited 01-11-2000).]

[Minotaur]

Juzz;

Yeah I'm just trolling.  Too bad I can't spell, lost the effect.    

IMO everyone seems to want realism, but they really don't want realism.  

Mino

[This message has been edited by Minotaur (edited 01-11-2000).]

[Westy]

 I've found many who talk about realism want the "mechanical realism" of flying. They want to throw all the switched and turn all the knobs and toggle all sorts of mixtures/settings to fly the aircraft.
 Not too much in the way of real life realism as experienced under real WWII aircombat conditions..such as need for oxygen,  gunjams due to G's or due to historical problems with weaps that did often jam, random mechanical failures in flight or takeoff, frozen aircraft systems at high alt, frozen pilots limbs at high alt via way of restricting joystick movements, etc, etc...

 -Westy