Carrier as "AWACS"?

Are there any plans to enable carrier to provide contact/bandit readouts (similar to AWACS)?

 

 

It's safe to say that the carrier has a pretty powerful radar (and at sea) and I assume this should be a common practice in real life, at least when it comes to area covered by radar?

I would say that the most powerful radars in the carrier group by far ar those belonging to the AEGIS class destructors. They are meant to provide even ballistic missile defense and their range is huge. The carrier on the other hand only have a radar for traffic purposes afaik.

 

In any case, the carrier group always have dedicated awacs planes that patrol well ahead of the carrier group and closer to expected threats.

 

That said, i reformulate your request ;p, AEGIS class destroyers as AWACS?

Good call OP.

Probably less about the technology, more about the ability to call up the air defence control, whether they are on a carrier, awacs or ground based.

 

For the example:

- groups control vectoring of aircraft, probably starting with the RAF in the Battle of Britain, then the German defence of Europe, Russian air defence etc

- ship borne control. Eg Falklands and say ww2 Pacific

The carrier most certainly has long range air search and track radars. The 48E/49 combo has longer range and can see better over land than AEGIS. Also, E2 assets are limited, and not always up.

 

 

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The carrier most certainly has long range air search and track radars. The 48E/49 combo has longer range and can see better over land than AEGIS. Also, E2 assets are limited, and not always up.

 

 

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Any source for that? It seems strange to me that a conventional antena in the carrier can see anything better that the monstruous dedicated active arrays(SPY1 AESAS) antenas in the arleigh classes (or similar, dont remember now which class had the bigger "thing" :p)

 

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Carrier as "AWACS"?

 

As a former tactical operator and maintainer of both, unfortunately nothing for this venue. Phased array is fantastic at executing its designed mission, but radar physics, atmospherics (particularly in a maritime environment), geography and computation limitations always force trade-offs

 

 

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Edited August 21, 2018 by legearre

There used to be a time when any SAM tracking radar would show a contact to the Forward Observer

Edited August 22, 2018 by Shadow KT

How does this work in real life?

My assumption is that a jet is vectored by a single “controller”, and I’d assume they’re either onboard an awacs or carrier.

I’m also assuming that there’s communication links between the various radars on different ships and awacs. How is that data all pulled together?

Whether or not it actually functions like an AWACs (and I hope it does), it should definitely be a part of the Link-16 ecosystem and be able to share trackfiles to us in our Hornets (once we've got that implemented).

This is a modern ITALIAN AWACS in the GULFSTREAM G550.:

CAEW has a AEW-BM&C (Airborne Early Warning, Battlefield Management & Communication)

 

 

 

 

 

operators AWACS enter in the FLY OFFICE CONTROLL

 

Edited August 23, 2018 by Xilon_x

How does this work in real life?

My assumption is that a jet is vectored by a single “controller”, and I’d assume they’re either onboard an awacs or carrier.

I’m also assuming that there’s communication links between the various radars on different ships and awacs. How is that data all pulled together?

 

In NATO, jets are controlled by a "Weapon Director", usually on board an AWACS. If there is no AWACS, the pilot will receive information from the ground and build up his own air picture using own sensors.

 

Back in the days, Russians relied on Ground Controlled Intercept which is basically the same. With the IL-50, the Russians have the equivalent of an AWACS so my guess would be they work on the same principle.

 

In NATO, Link systems (11, 16, 22) are used to share sensor contacts throughout the theater of battle. The higher the link number, the more modern the system is and the more it can tell about a contact. Link systems cannot work with higher or lower number systems as they are wildly different in architecture and hardware.

The Link system gives rise to the use of radar "picket" stations such as ships or AWACS where the contacts this unit sees, is shared with all other who have their active radar switched off in order to avoid detection.

 

I know of several russian jets having some sort of Link system between them, the KA-50 has a datalink system but as to their ability to share contacts with ground stations, units or ships, I do not know.

 

An interesting read on the different Link systems: https://www.northropgrumman.com/Capabilities/DataLinkProcessingAndManagement/Documents/Understanding_Voice+Data_Link_Networking.pdf

Edited August 24, 2018 by Looney

Apologies for bumping a very old thread, but I'm trying to understand if a modern day "Freddy" can be replicated.  Freddy is the Royal Navy term for a Fighter Controller on a ship.  They would essentially do the job of "AWACS from a carrier (or destroyer)."

I have looked at MOOSE/MIST and various other scripts to see if this is possible as I am running a group of Carrier-based Harriers and I would like to train up in very basic airborne interdiction.

So to bump the question, can DCS be configured to have a surface unit exhibit the same behaviour as an AWACS to mimic what I am referring to as a Freddy, or Fighter Controller?

We need both ground and sea based controllers

With the F-14 you can already use the carrier and other warships as DL providers in DCS.

7 часов назад, QuiGon сказал:

With the F-14 you can already use the carrier and other warships as DL providers in DCS.

Does it realy work or it's just possible to switch but without any help to you as it does AWACS?

Edited November 25, 2021 by kievbsm

1 hour ago, kievbsm said:

Does it realy work or it's just possible to switch but without any help to you as it does AWACS?

I'm not really understanding what you're saying there, but the carrier and other warships provide DL to the Tomcat just like an E-3 AWACS does. There is no difference in the type of information provided to the Tomcat by those platforms. AWACS just has the advantage of longer range and not being as restricted by the horizon and terrain as ship based radars are.

But you can't call up the carrier on the radio and get BRAA calls though, right?

5 hours ago, engines said:

But you can't call up the carrier on the radio and get BRAA calls though, right?

Right. DL source only.

16 hours ago, engines said:

But you can't call up the carrier on the radio and get BRAA calls though, right?

Yeah, DL only.

I think it would be a very interesting thing for DCS to implement full ground-based controllers, which are contactable via radio. It would really expand the capabilities of nations in the game which don't have access to AWACS in reality. For example, Iran surely guides its aircraft from the ground, yet if I were playing a Liberation campaign, we have to put an unrealistic A-50 on the Iranian side in order to balance it out.

Hopefully something for the future ATC overhaul, perhaps?

15 minutes ago, LooseSeal said:

I think it would be a very interesting thing for DCS to implement full ground-based controllers,

DCS already offers ground based EWRs, which do exactly this.

10 minutes ago, QuiGon said:

DCS already offers ground based EWRs, which do exactly this.

That we can contact via radio to request pictures, etc?

25 minutes ago, LooseSeal said:

implement full ground-based controllers, which are contactable via radio

If I've missed the ability to contact EWRs via radio over the last 5 or 6 years I'd really be kicking myself...

2 minutes ago, LooseSeal said:

That we can contact via radio to request pictures, etc?

Yep, works exactly like AEW&C aircraft.

2 minutes ago, LooseSeal said:

If I've missed the ability to contact EWRs via radio over the last 5 or 6 years I'd really be kicking myself...

Guess you better start kicking!

Argh, really? I somehow did not know that at all. I guess I've never seen it used before? I always thought the EWRs were essentially just there for the benefit of the AI. Ha!

Let the kicking commence!

1 hour ago, LooseSeal said:

Argh, really? I somehow did not know that at all. I guess I've never seen it used before? I always thought the EWRs were essentially just there for the benefit of the AI. Ha!

Let the kicking commence!

Yeah, it's not that commonly, especially on public multiplayer servers. It's most often encountered in Soviet sided SP missions or campaign, especially with the MiG-21 which depends on this a lot, and on the Cold War 1947 - 1990 multiplayer server, where ground based EWRs are used a lot.