How to defend Rapier

Thanks, that's some really interesting info! So if I understand correctly, this means that the Rapier does indeed not work with only one of the two trackers (optical/radar)?

Not quite, it could be deployed as an optical system, launcher and optical tracker, or combined launcher , optical tracker and radar tracker. You must have the launcher, for obvious reasons :D and you must have the optical tracker because thats where the operator sits with all the luvely buttons, switches and knobs. The radar tracker is for blind engagements, cloud, night and wotnot.

You'll have to excuse a lack of full actual experimentation, but my experience when trying to collect data for a wiki page on how it works in DCS is this:

• You must deploy it with all parts (radar, optical tracker, launcher) for it to function.

• It will use the radar if available.

• If the radar is blow up, the optical tracking will continue to work.

I never got it to actually work if I built a group consisting of only optical tracker and launcher, even though that should work. That could just be a matter of engagement range or some other launch limits though, and I simply never flew in a way that presented a proper target.

@Scania203: Thanks, now I understand how it's supposed to work :thumbup:

@Tippis: Thanks, that would have been my next question, how DCS handles it. You answered it already. :thumbup:

It was indeed not very effective during the Falkland War, mainly because of its very short range. IIRC it was used as a point defense system to protect the british landing site from air attack, which it mostly did by deterrence. The Rapier missiles in use were also not fitted with proximity fuzes which made it necessary to hit the target directly, which, I guess, is not easy to do with an optical guided system.

There were a number of problems with it during the Falklands, there were some major serviceability issue after the long sea journey that affected the launchers and the missiles.

There were also issues with the search radar. When you look at the missile launcher there is a search radar under the dome. This was used to cue the optical tracker in the right direction, when the gunner lined up the crosshairs on a target he would also get an in range light in his viewer. The Rapiers that were setup in the main British landing point of San Carlos water couldn`t use the search Radar because of the interference from the more powerful radars on the warships in the bay. This stopped the missile being fire at its maximum range.

The last problem was that most of the Argentine Aircraft were targeting the warships, and presented crossing targets to the Rapier, which it wasn`t really designed to take on.

The Government white paper after the war credit it with 14 kills, but I think its pretty much accepted it only score 1 confirmed kill.

How DCS handles I have no idea, I can only talk about the real thing. I did try once to see how it reacted but it just ignored the incomming hostile :D Still, that might just be me not having a clue about the mission editor.

Yep the Falklands was a bit of a thing, Rapier did not like being bounced around all over the place, Whiteladder is spot on that if it had no chance of hitting a target then it would not bother with it, crossing or receading and that.

However when it was sited correctly and not abused too much it was a good piece of kit, now FSC is an absolute killer but as Whiteladder pointed out, it was all designed to protect a particular thing i.e. airfield, airhead, route blah blah. 7Km and 10000Ft and youre ok assuming DCS is correct :)

How DCS handles I have no idea, I can only talk about the real thing. I did try once to see how it reacted but it just ignored the incomming hostile :D Still, that might just be me not having a clue about the mission editor.

 

 

Yep the Falklands was a bit of a thing, Rapier did not like being bounced around all over the place, Whiteladder is spot on that if it had no chance of hitting a target then it would not bother with it, crossing or receading and that.

 

 

 

However when it was sited correctly and not abused too much it was a good piece of kit, now FSC is an absolute killer but as Whiteladder pointed out, it was all designed to protect a particular thing i.e. airfield, airhead, route blah blah. 7Km and 10000Ft and youre ok assuming DCS is correct :)

When I did my apprenticeship at the MOD our electronics instructor was ex RAF and to illustrate the dangers of high voltage equipment used to show people the scar on the top of his bonce where he had leaned into a live Rapier Unit and it had arced across. We all kept one hand in our pocket after that.

I was also at the Farnbrough airshow at the BAE System tent the first year the F117 flew in. They had a early FSC demonstrator there, which they showed it tracking the F117 on radar as it flew in and then flip over to automatic optical tracking as it landed.

The Government white paper after the war credit it with 14 kills, but I think its pretty much accepted it only score 1 confirmed kill.

Gotta love "accepted" stats...

I think it's correct that the Rapier system in DCS doesn't work without the Blindfire for some reason.

AFAIK, the Rapier version we get (FSA/original?) is optically guided - always, while target acquisition is achieved using a search radar mounted in a radome on the launcher

The Blindfire radar essentially does what it says on the tin. It allows firing while targets are blind to the optical tracker.

I believe how it works is that it slaves the optical tracker (or has one mounted on the RADAR) to the target, the optical tracker can then track the target without it being visually visible to the optical tracker itself.

The missiles are radio command guided

It's kind of like this. Pretend your the optical tracker and being asked to point at something while blindfolded, what blindfire does is move your arm to what your supposed to be pointing at, and then the missiles use your arm to engage the target.

I think this is correct for the version of Rapier we have, I'm not sure if the radar slaves the manually operated optical tracker or whether Blindfire simply uses it's own (it does have an optical device mounted next to the antenna, not sure if that's what's used).

Subsequent variants do slightly more interesting stuff, but that's beyond the scope of DCS, which uses an older version.

Yes, you are pretty much right that that's how it's supposed to work, but it doesn't really for bug reasons.

AFAIK, the Rapier version we get (FSA/original?) is optically guided - always, while target acquisition is achieved using a search radar mounted in a radome on the launcher

 

The Blindfire radar essentially does what it says on the tin. It allows firing while targets are blind to the optical tracker.

 

I believe how it works is that it slaves the optical tracker (or has one mounted on the RADAR) to the target, the optical tracker can then track the target without it being visually visible to the optical tracker itself.

 

The missiles are radio command guided

 

It's kind of like this. Pretend your the optical tracker and being asked to point at something while blindfolded, what blindfire does is move your arm to what your supposed to be pointing at, and then the missiles use your arm to engage the target.

 

I think this is correct for the version of Rapier we have, I'm not sure if the radar slaves the manually operated optical tracker or whether Blindfire simply uses it's own (it does have an optical device mounted next to the antenna, not sure if that's what's used).

 

Subsequent variants do slightly more interesting stuff, but that's beyond the scope of DCS, which uses an older version.

When Rapier is used with Blindfire it doesn't use the optical tracker. Although the optical tracker can be slaved to Blindfire , the guidance is being controlled by the radar. In fact the optical tracker can be switched to a second target while the first engagement is taking place to rapidly start a second attack.

Blindfire tracks the aircraft and the missile, the missile is commanded to the correct line of sight through radio commands from the launcher. BAE went onto to use pretty much the same system on the Seawolf system( although this has 2 command channels and can guide 2 missile against the same target). In fact the type 911 radar used on later Seawolf installations is based on blindfire.

whiteladder said:

When Rapier is used with Blindfire it doesn't use the optical tracker. Although the optical tracker can be slaved to Blindfire , the guidance is being controlled by the radar. In fact the optical tracker can be switched to a second target while the first engagement is taking place to rapidly start a second attack.

So if I understand correctly guidance is done by Blindfire directly - not like the 3rd party system I described whereby the Blindfire slaves the optical system, and then the optical system is used to command the missile.

I was aware that the optical tracker can be brought to bear on a 2nd target for rapid engagement of 2 targets, when combined with Blindfire.

whiteladder said:

Blindfire tracks the aircraft and the missile, the missile is commanded to the correct line of sight through radio commands from the launcher. BAE went onto to use pretty much the same system on the Seawolf system( although this has 2 command channels and can guide 2 missile against the same target). In fact the type 911 radar used on later Seawolf installations is based on blindfire.

Yeah, this is what I thought, I'm a bit more familiar with Sea wolf than Rapier (and on the subject I'd kill for a Type 22 or 23 - heck even a Leander Batch 3 would do)

So if I understand correctly guidance is done by Blindfire directly - not like the 3rd party system I described whereby the Blindfire slaves the optical system, and then the optical system is used to command the missile.

 

I was aware that the optical tracker can be brought to bear on a 2nd target for rapid engagement of 2 targets, when combined with Blindfire.

Correct, during normal operations all guidance is done by the radar. The optical tracker is slaved to the target for visual IFF before firing.

Nirvi said:

Correct, during normal operations all guidance is done by the radar. The optical tracker is slaved to the target for visual IFF before firing.

Okay, I do have a question though, does Blindfire carry it's own optical tracker?

OK, Rapier never needed the radar tracker. Everything was supject to the operator selecting who did the job.

When a target was detected (any target including jamming) the kit would slew to that azimuth, the operator searched in elevation as did the radar tracker until the target was aquired. If the radar tracker found the target it would inform the operator with a tone in his helmet but it was down to the op to select radar or track it himself. Its a bit more complicated than that but our major concern is how DCS handles it.

IMHO if you get within the Mx envolope youre screwed, in my experience you cant jam it, flares are useless unless you get em out within 3 seconds of launch and it will see you even it youre a hovering helicopter, a B2 or a F117...... or even a wave top, curtain on a lorry trailer or speed camera :thumbup:

Sorry, talking about the real thing :)

Scania203 said:

OK, Rapier never needed the radar tracker. Everything was supject to the operator selecting who did the job.

When a target was detected (any target including jamming) the kit would slew to that azimuth, the operator searched in elevation as did the radar tracker until the target was aquired. If the radar tracker found the target it would inform the operator with a tone in his helmet but it was down to the op to select radar or track it himself. Its a bit more complicated than that but our major concern is how DCS handles it.

Sounds right, and yeah the problem is implementation, I don't think we'll see much in the way of changes until the whole ground aspect of DCS has a fidelity upgrade, which is being worked on, exactly what will change seems more orientated to vehicles though. The other thing is being able to transport it around.

Scania203 said:

...speed camera

Mwahahahaha!

To answer your question . . no the radar tracker is just an addon and had no optical element apart from a TV but we might be getting into the realms of cant say.

In general I think DCS does a a good job of SAMs et all but im no expert, a proper combat pilot would be able to say if so, They get me most of the time :pilotfly:

Interesting stuff ^^ about Rapier and Sea Wolf…

A family friend was on Brilliant and made a comment that the Sea Wolf launchers would return to pointing dead ahead / dead astern if two targets crossed

Vertical launch makes a lot of sense, for many, many reasons…!

Re Batch 3 Sea Wolf Leanders…

Leander Mod