U22/A ECM Pod - different settings

Hey all,

If I've read things right the U22/A pod has 15 possible active jamming combinations:

Mode B + Bandwidth F or G or H or J or K

Mode D + Bandwidth F or G or H or J or K

Mode E + Bandwidth F or G or H or J or K

There's no explanation I can find in the manual or elsewhere about how these work.

What's the difference between the modes B, D and E?

What bandwidth do I select? Is it the wavelength of the threat radar? Does the pod actively jam only on that bandwidth? If so how does it work against an SA-8 for example which uses both H and J band radars for tracking and fire control or against multiple different threats?

Thanks in advance!

DCS doesn't model ECM as anything more than an on/off thing. I don't think those switches actually do anything in game.

Well that's disappointing. I'll take learning the ECM stuff off my 'to do' list then!

Thanks for letting me know.

And ecm model is very simple for now, it just makes enemy radar lock you only bit closer.

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It's not easy to get information about the U22.

From renhanxue's excellent documentation thread, looking at del 2 kap 1 ändring 90 (revision [19]90), p. 237 onwards, we can get at some of the modes and functions of the U22 (but not U22/A). It is incredibly sparsely detailed and formatted in a frustratingly unintuitive fashion. There is however a good entry in the Swedish wikipedia for Kapsel KA-U22-U22/A, which is easily google-translated. It contains more information than the manual, to be honest.

Mode A stands for Automatic, which is the default and what you should always operate in DCS. The manual modes you are concerned with are B and E. D is for "marktest" (ground test), ie for ground crew diagnostics etc. I can't categorically say D isn't also used in air, but a Swede might be able to, based on the text below. The manual remarks that manual jamming (B/E) is only used during practise. The B denotes "Beredskap" (prepared mode, or standby), so what we essentially have is standby (B) and active (E) for training purposes. You don't toggle A, wait 180 seconds, and then toggle B. You toggle B, wait 180 seconds, and then you can toggle E whenever you want to emit (but you'd be shot down trying this against a proper target ;) I don't think the Swedes wanted the Soviets to detect their jamming in training situations, so I REALLY doubt manual mode emissions are anything like the targetted, automatic mode emissions).

For mode B, the bands are "F, G, J or K if the bandwidth should be 500 MHz or H if the bandwidth should be 250 MHz". In mode E, the jammer starts emitting straight away, giving a frequency modulated jamming signal in the selected band. The emission ends when you set mode B. It seems a lot of the operation was predetermined on the ground, leaving the pilot very few variables to operate. I don't know much about radars to begin with, so I won't hazard too much speculation.

I include an excerpt from the manual. It's not an easy text for a Norwegian to parse, especially because the ubiquitous term "mode" is used for operating the jammer manually, for choosing a program, and for choosing a band, all in the same paragraph. My understanding is that this wonderfully analogue and mysterious appendage to our lovely Viggen is, really, not meant to be explored at all. Mode A is all you're expected to use.

I can't answer your other questions, unfortunately. The U22 operates from C to Ku-band, so it'll include both H and J signals from the SA-8's radar. To my understanding, once the jammer sees those signals, it tries to spoof them. It's capable of spoofing more than one signal, so ideally it seems it should degrade an SA-8's ability to track and kill you.

Cracking response, thanks for that!

Does it protect onliy the ECM pod Carrier, or also any aircraft close to the ECM pod aircraft carrier??

THis is very important for multi aircraft missions. I did a "jamming script" for stand off jammers, ECM pods, and chaff corridores... it works really nice, and does what intended, not realsitic, but gives you some "EW" enviroment.

Can anybody help me please?

The question. ECM pods protects tthe carrier or any aircraft close to the carrier too?