Sorry, but @
gambit who is an Ex Avionics Officer in USAF has previously explained that modern BVRAAMS can be guided by the radar of an AWAC. The USAF has been practising with this concept for quite some time, B1's firing a big salvo of AIM120's linked up with E3's.
I think the most problematic thing is by using AWACS for guidance,its highly susceptible to jamming of datalink and then whole plan goes kaput.New AESA radars are supposed to excellent for datalink jamming...i got this from a friend..is this correct @
gambit?Or false?
There are two ways to provide 'guidance' to a missile by any external source:
- Data
- Radar
Data guidance or the commonly known 'data linking' is like saying to the missile: Your target is at 10,000 ft altitude and descending, heading east, and speed 300 kts. The missile then recalculate its own flight path to create the best interception point. This may be real time or periodic updates. Usually if the target have any changes, then you must update the missile of those changes. Of course, if the target have many changes, aka 'maneuvers', then those updates are pretty much real time
IF your hardware are capable enough.
Radar guidance is like you illuminating the target
WITH YOUR OWN RADAR and let the missile uses those reflections to calculate its own intercept.
Neither are 'command guidance', which is effectively you being the equivalent of the drone pilot controlling every aspects of the missile's flight. Command guidance is another form of data linking except that it must be real time with as little lag as possible. Data links are vulnerable to interference, whether that interference is natural like a mountain blocking antenna views of both parties, or artificial like 'jamming' that corrupt the data link. So the counter is to have as sophisticated hardware as possible such as frequency agility or IFF. It depends on the size of your (national) wallet.
An AESA system is proven to be highly resistant to ECM as well as being a formidable ECM platform itself, depending on the software that accompany and matches the hardware. For example, if the array is large enough to create more than two sub-arrays from a parent array, then the software should be able to create one radar array, one communication array, and one ECM array. It is nice to have the software package built to compensate for future upgrades, but the sticky point is how much more because it cost to pay for engineers to write and maintain those codes. So if you are a new entrant into the AESA arena in terms of indigenous development, the lead should be hardware to provide the software group the guidance on where to go and how far. Sub-array partitioning and choreography is not easy. Bad codes will have sub-arrays contaminate each other and render the entire system useless. For example, if the radar sub-array is transmitting, perhaps the communication sub-array should perform only IFF queries instead of two-way conversation, and the ECM sub-array remains silent. Then as the indigenous development gains sophistication, all three sub-arrays can perform their duties simultaneously. This is the beauty of an AESA system and why it is so desirable the world over.
Is it possible to do both target data feed and radar illumination ? Yes.
Who has such capabilities? Guess we just have to find out in a real shooting fight.
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