New radar mode

[Krusty]

This has no practical MA use but would be a great scenario/event tool, similar to allowing CV hardness changes and whatnot.

In the dar flags, add a new mode "Bomber only?" -- so that any dar, be it range, dar, dot, whatever, only shows up if the target is a formation-capable plane (defined as: Boston III, Ju88, Lancaster, B17, B24, B26, B25 (if formations enabled), Ki67, Ar234). Let's throw in C-47 just in case the scenario/event calls for it.

If toggled it does not display fighters, only the above craft.



Like I said, NO ma use at all, but it would give CMs a lot of choices with how they want to do things.

[TheCage]

Do away with in flight radar.   If you want to know where the enemy is at, do it from the tower, or better yet have a friend play ground control to vector you to the fight.    Furballers would get what they want, more 1 vs 1 fights.  Bomber pilots would get what they want, and land grabbers would get what they want.   Unless someone either flies patrols, or is in the tower, your not going to know what, where, or when things will happen.

[Krusty]

Nobody benefits from "no radar". In fact that hurts gameplay (and subscription base) more than anything else.

Historically you knew anybody "East" of you was enemy, anybody "West" most likely friends. In here it's too jumbled up to know who's coming from where.

Ever.

So "no radar" is not something I will ever recommend. I don't even recommend it in special events or scenarios, because historically you knew certain things and/or there was radar on hand.


My request isn't about removing radar, just giving the radar options more depth. I was just reading something where somebody was trying to find a way to enable dar bar for buffs only, or some dar for buffs only, but it wouldn't work.

Just a suggestions/request.

[Husky01]

This would be perfect for the upcoming scenario!

[Stoney74]

Originally posted by Krusty
My request isn't about removing radar, just giving the radar options more depth.

There are a good many options regarding how radar is set up in the settings.  Its just a matter of how the admin sets up the event.

[Krusty]

You can only change the range, blink range, and any of the flags in the arena settings.

None of those allow ONLY formation-enabled planes to show up. It's all-or-nothing.

[Tilt]

I would like formations to show as three dots overlayed to make a slightly bigger dot.

Even the most basic WWII radar with a competent operator could deduce if they were bombers or fighters

One trick that may help a little (not a lot) would be to set the base bomber flash range to the radar extreme and the fighter flash range to half the radar range.

This would help identify milkrunners  bombing bases other wise devoid of attackers.

[Stoney74]

Originally posted by Tilt
Even the most basic WWII radar with a competent operator could deduce if they were bombers or fighters

We can't do this now, so how did they do it back then?

[Krusty]

I'm fairly sure our radar can tell the difference between a B-52 and an F-16, man.

[Stoney74]

Originally posted by Krusty
I'm fairly sure our radar can tell the difference between a B-52 and an F-16, man.

If all its getting is a primary radar return then no.  If you are picking up some sort of electronics emissions as well as a primary return, they can be correlated to a type aircraft.  IFF is a good example, as it was developed to shake out the good guys from the bad guys and provide definition to the "blob" that would show up on radar.  The Pearl Harbor raid is a good example.  The Army radar operators saw a big "blob" on radar, and thought it was a group of B-17's that were expected to arrive.  Instead of a large return created by a small group of large planes, it turned out to be a large return created by a large group of small planes.

[Tilt]

Originally posted by Stoney74
We can't do this now, so how did they do it back then?

The how I must admit ignorance to............

However when visiting the RAF BoB radar museum in Norfolk I was advised this was so.............

Albeit that the range was circa 50 miles or 20 miles depending upon the type of radar (high or low)...........apparently radar operatives were trained to read the return signal as a wave form on a Ossiciloscope type screen............practiced operatives could recognise "signatures"...........

It surprised me at that time and so I have always remembered it whenever we have a BoB scenario.

[Stoney74]

Originally posted by Tilt
The how I must admit ignorance to............

However when visiting the RAF BoB radar museum in Norfolk I was advised this was so.............

Albeit that the range was circa 50 miles or 20 miles depending upon the type of radar (high or low)...........apparently radar operatives were trained to read the return signal as a wave form on a Ossiciloscope type screen............practiced operatives could recognise "signatures"...........

It surprised me at that time and so I have always remembered it whenever we have a BoB scenario.

"Fighter Boys" by Patrick Bishop has one of the best descriptions of the total RAF system during the Battle of Brittain as I have read.  I didn't make time to retype it all here, but in sum, the radar picked up the aircraft and classified them as airborne, at a certain altitude, and range from the antenna.  Observers on the ground would check out the aircraft with binos, altitude estimating equipment, and aircraft recognition charts.  The two sets of information would be "fused" (in current parlance) to provide the intel used to sortie interceptors.  I can't profess to know if you can actually create a signature from an ociliscope waveform, but I know that todays U.S. radar systems cannot classify a track by primary radar return only.  If a certain radar bandwidth can be associated as being emitted by that track, you can corelate the two to estimate what a track is, but even then there is some room for error as the software does not always match the two 100% of the time...that would be one potential technique.  Krusty, to specifically address your last post--if we could do that, we would not have shot down a U.S. Navy F-18 with a Patriot missile during OIF.  I think we also bagged a British Harrier or Tornado as well.  Not to mention the Blackhawk helo bagged over N. Iraq back in the '90's by the F-15's using AWACS guidance and AMRAAM missiles.  I watched a large portion of the Kosovo air operation from a ship beside an Aegis trained Navy OS1 (1st Class Petty Officer) and he and I would sit there and exercise the equipment onboard while we watched the fireworks.  Needless to say, the gear is capable of some fairly amazing things, but positively identifying targets is something that we still have a hard time with.  Another associated topic is sonar.  While you can match a passive sonar signature with a type of submarine, they do this from a catalogue of known signatures.  Perhaps the RAF and others were able to catalogue German aircraft waveform signatures in a similar fashion, but I doubt it...otherwise we would have a similar capability today.  Finally, civilian ATC.  The FAA can't tell you what type of airliner or other aircraft is flying close to you from merely a primary return.  Most non-aviation types don't know it, but air traffic controllers can only perform their advertised capability with aircraft equipped with transponders.  If the plane doesn't squawk a code, they will tell you they see a primary, but type unknown.

I wasn't a scope-dope by trade, but I spent enough time around it to gain this much understanding.  I may be wrong though if there is a scope dope we could tap into.

[Easyscor]

Clearly, the only reason for singling out bombers for radar, while disabling fighter tracks. is to turn the bombers into bigger targets then they already are, and provide cover for interceptors to spring sneak attacks. Bombers are often the bait in our events, but bomber only radar isn't a setting I would ever consider using in any event I host.

[TheCage]

Nobody benefits from "no radar". In fact that hurts gameplay (and subscription base) more than anything else.

Nobody said anything about getting rid of radar altogether, just removing it during flight.   You still would have radar but only while in the tower.

[Krusty]

I know. And nobody benefits from that in any way. If you do that you shuold make the game so that you have to spend 30 minutes idling your engine on the runway to warm it up, and so that you have to do 27 things IN ORDER to start your engine to begin with.

In games you have to make certain concesssions. We press 1 key and the engine starts. That's the same end result. We want it to start, it starts. We don't need to fiddle with every knob and dial in the plane.

We want radar, we don't have to contact a dedicated 24/7 ground controller, the game does that for us. We bring up our radar, and by zooming in and moving around it's taking the place of us asking the radar controllers what they see in different areas.


Adding such insignificant minutae would kill this game overnight.