F-14 + AIM 54 in fleet defense

Kiltonge said:
Counter-ECM test, March 1973
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This is some interesting test, I really wonder how Phoenix can be launched from such distance against target with jammer. Sure HoJ help it home on to the target but wouldn’t noise jamming deny range information thus making lobing (lead intercept) impossible to do?.
There is no way that the radar can burn through self protection jamming at that distance
 
Ronny said:
This is some interesting test, I really wonder how Phoenix can be launched from such distance against target with jammer. Sure HoJ help it home on to the target but wouldn’t noise jamming deny range information thus making lobing (lead intercept) impossible to do?.
There is no way that the radar can burn through self protection jamming at that distance
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You'd be denied APN guidance until burn through but all PN guidance needs on its base level is LOS rate which you have with monopulse in HOJ.
 
Heatloss said:
Blinking noise is far less of a concern when compared to deceptive response-based jamming.
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So DECM would only be employed against the missiles once its seeker turns on at which point it has to fight against burn through range additionally what DECM methods were employed by soviet bombers and when? What was the vertical limits of their jammers? What was their separation in attacks?
 
Heatloss said:
I think you're right on the misreading and not fully understanding Soviet strike/USN strikecap tactics.

I still have my misgivings about AWG-9 and Soviet ECM in the 80s, but you have made a better argument than anyone else thus far.
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Of the pieces of the Outer Air Battle calculus, I would agree Soviet electronic warfare capabilities were among the most worrisome. This is reflected in this almost comically dramatic CNA video. However, it was also the threat that was trained to. Full disclaimer, I'm not an engineer, so the black magic wizardry of Electronic Warfare is well outside of my wheelhouse. With the anecdotal information I've seen though, Id contend that the AWG-9 for its time was one of the more capable radars in a jamming environment.

As put by Rick Morgan, an EA-6B ECMO:
For us Prowler ECMOs the AWG-9 was one hard radar to jam. But more important than the gadget itself was the knob-twisting RIO you were dealing with.
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With the AWG-9, it's best ECCM was the RIO. If you take a look at some of the tools in the RIO pit, such as Automatic Gain Control, Parametric Amplifier, and even TCS using Jam Angle Tracking you get an idea that the RIO had a lot of tools in his toolbox. For more, on the technical side of things, Id suggest hunting down Karon from Fly and Wire. They can be found on the CMO and DCS forums, or the 10% true discord. Aside from an actual RIO (who you can find over on Facebook pretty easily), Karon is likely one of the best technical voices on the AWG-9 itself and how it would work in a Jamming environment.

It should also be noted that the jamming threat made up the majority of 1980s training with regards to Phoenix shots. Victory205 notes:
Understand that jamming changes everything, and having a RIO and the ability to evaluate emitters and take appropriate action was valuable against long range bombers with sophisticated jammers and chaff layers in the formation. That sort of thing isn't sexy, but that's what the AIM54/AWG9 was all about. Almost all AIM54 fleet missile shots were set up to get specific data points on that sort of complex, detailed scenario.
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For a look into a "fleet shot" with jamming, check out this snippet from the F-14 Tomcast.

One of the major limitations of SNA-MRA jamming was the lack of a dedicated jammer variant for the Backfire. As a planner, you quickly start seeing the various problems associated with getting your ~525kn EW aircraft to support your ~725-1100kn Strike aircraft for the duration of the battle. On top of that, keeping your jammers far enough out that they don't become food for HOJ missiles as you don't have any to spare the war. The same calculus applies to the chaff clouds the Soviets were hoping to deploy. If you have to slow down the Backfires, you lose the virtue of the platform. Even in the presence of jamming, every minute wasted after detection is another minute where the fighters get closer to ruining your day. On top of this, the ECM suite in the Backfire-B was considered problematic. I'm sure some people here could elaborate, but from my reading it appeared the jammer interfered with the flight avionics and weapons. According to some sources, this required TU-16Ps to act as their Only protective jamming. Which, as illustrated above causes some major problems.

I recently made a short post on the war college subreddit about this, but when reading Tokarev, it appears the focus of Soviet EW efforts was placed primarily on the fighter controllers:
SNAF planners found that interceptor crews were quite dependent on the opinions of air controllers or FDO s, even in essence psychologically subordinate to them. So the task of the attackers could be boiled down to finding a way to fool those officers—either to overload their sensors or, to some degree, relax their sense of danger by posing what were to their minds easily recognizable decoys, which were in reality full, combat-ready strikes.
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I theorized this has something to do with the PVO approach to air defense, causing SNAF planners to assume the USN approached FAD much in the same way. Alternatively, it is a lot easier in theory to break down the link between the E-2 and F-14s. At the time, Link4A datalink was a capable system, but it was one of the easier platforms to both intercept and jam. Another way of degrading command and control was the use of ARH missiles to suppress or kill picket ships aiding in fighter control! Vector Logic was in many ways designed to reduce the reliance on external control. Take a look at the "Navgrid" layout on an F-14 TID, Vector Logic was designed around using that and working your grid as autonomy as possible.

This is not to say Jamming was of no concern, it certainly was. But it also is not an "I Win" card that SNA could just throw onto the table and waltz through the OAB unscathed. At the end of the day, I think we are all lucky none of this ever had to be put to the test, but its certainly one of the more interesting "what ifs?" In my humble opinion.


Sources:
https://flyandwire.com/2022/10/20/electronic-countermeasures-introduction/
Victory205 Excerpt
Friedman, N. (2016). Fighters over the fleet: Naval air defence from biplanes to the Cold War. Naval Institute Press.
Kamikazes: The Soviet Legacy
Backfire Overview

Further Reading
How To Find a Carrier Group
Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at Sea
Air warriors Thread on the Cold War: Tokarev makes an appearance!
Arthur K Cebrowksi: A Retrospective
Deception and the Backfire Bomber
 
VF-1 Taco said:
Of the pieces of the Outer Air Battle calculus, I would agree Soviet electronic warfare capabilities were among the most worrisome. This is reflected in this almost comically dramatic CNA video. However, it was also the threat that was trained to. Full disclaimer, I'm not an engineer, so the black magic wizardry of Electronic Warfare is well outside of my wheelhouse. With the anecdotal information I've seen though, Id contend that the AWG-9 for its time was one of the more capable radars in a jamming environment.

As put by Rick Morgan, an EA-6B ECMO:

With the AWG-9, it's best ECCM was the RIO. If you take a look at some of the tools in the RIO pit, such as Automatic Gain Control, Parametric Amplifier, and even TCS using Jam Angle Tracking you get an idea that the RIO had a lot of tools in his toolbox. For more, on the technical side of things, Id suggest hunting down Karon from Fly and Wire. They can be found on the CMO and DCS forums, or the 10% true discord. Aside from an actual RIO (who you can find over on Facebook pretty easily), Karon is likely one of the best technical voices on the AWG-9 itself and how it would work in a Jamming environment.

It should also be noted that the jamming threat made up the majority of 1980s training with regards to Phoenix shots. Victory205 notes:

For a look into a "fleet shot" with jamming, check out this snippet from the F-14 Tomcast.

One of the major limitations of SNA-MRA jamming was the lack of a dedicated jammer variant for the Backfire. As a planner, you quickly start seeing the various problems associated with getting your ~525kn EW aircraft to support your ~725-1100kn Strike aircraft for the duration of the battle. On top of that, keeping your jammers far enough out that they don't become food for HOJ missiles as you don't have any to spare the war. The same calculus applies to the chaff clouds the Soviets were hoping to deploy. If you have to slow down the Backfires, you lose the virtue of the platform. Even in the presence of jamming, every minute wasted after detection is another minute where the fighters get closer to ruining your day. On top of this, the ECM suite in the Backfire-B was considered problematic. I'm sure some people here could elaborate, but from my reading it appeared the jammer interfered with the flight avionics and weapons. According to some sources, this required TU-16Ps to act as their Only protective jamming. Which, as illustrated above causes some major problems.

I recently made a short post on the war college subreddit about this, but when reading Tokarev, it appears the focus of Soviet EW efforts was placed primarily on the fighter controllers:

I theorized this has something to do with the PVO approach to air defense, causing SNAF planners to assume the USN approached FAD much in the same way. Alternatively, it is a lot easier in theory to break down the link between the E-2 and F-14s. At the time, Link4A datalink was a capable system, but it was one of the easier platforms to both intercept and jam. Another way of degrading command and control was the use of ARH missiles to suppress or kill picket ships aiding in fighter control! Vector Logic was in many ways designed to reduce the reliance on external control. Take a look at the "Navgrid" layout on an F-14 TID, Vector Logic was designed around using that and working your grid as autonomy as possible.

This is not to say Jamming was of no concern, it certainly was. But it also is not an "I Win" card that SNA could just throw onto the table and waltz through the OAB unscathed. At the end of the day, I think we are all lucky none of this ever had to be put to the test, but its certainly one of the more interesting "what ifs?" In my humble opinion.


Sources:
https://flyandwire.com/2022/10/20/electronic-countermeasures-introduction/
Victory205 Excerpt
Friedman, N. (2016). Fighters over the fleet: Naval air defence from biplanes to the Cold War. Naval Institute Press.
Kamikazes: The Soviet Legacy
Backfire Overview

Further Reading
How To Find a Carrier Group
Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at Sea
Air warriors Thread on the Cold War: Tokarev makes an appearance!
Arthur K Cebrowksi: A Retrospective
Deception and the Backfire Bomber
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I think you nailed an important point here the F14 isn't as capable as the AEGIS system in stopping missiles or resisting ECM. But it can't put pressure on the raid like the F14 can. The F14 can exert a pressure that forces certain actions from the SNA. Forces a certain timetable and range of attack. Both are important parts of one system.
 
Nhawk said:
I think you nailed an important point here the F14 isn't as capable as the AEGIS system in stopping missiles or resisting ECM. But it can't put pressure on the raid like the F14 can. The F14 can exert a pressure that forces certain actions from the SNA. Forces a certain timetable and range of attack. Both are important parts of one system.
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This is certainly one of the virtues of the outer air battle. While the F-14 is often labelled the "defender of the fleet" in reality, it could really be conceptualized as an offensive weapon (defender of the fleet certainly sounds cooler though).

If we define the SNA-MRA as the Soviet "Battlefleet" (they were), the F-14s are an offensive tool looking to degrade and destroy said fleet before it can launch its own attack. In many ways, the outer air battle is the cold war re-imagining of the classic Mahan style slugfest.

Of course, there is always the more conventional approach of calling OAB simply the outer defensive ring. But when I feel like being pretentious, I take this line of thinking. I'm sure Proceedings would eat it up ;).
 
NMaude said:
Given that the AIM-54A is obsolete I don't know why the details concerning the missile were redacted.
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To be fair, even detail about APR-47 on F-4E was redacted, there are almost zero information about it
 
Ronny said:
Sure HoJ help it home on to the target but wouldn’t noise jamming deny range information thus making lobing (lead intercept) impossible to do?.
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Well, it could use simple constant bearing algorithm to make a lead intercept. It did not require any precise range data; merely the general knowledge that distance is decreasing (which could be approximated by intensity of signal).
 
NMaude said:
Except that Iran already had that data.
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That's why I said "bureaucratic braintwist". Like the idea of scrapping the whole reserve fleet of Tomcats under assumption that it would somehow cripple the Iranian Tomcat fleet by preventing "smuggling of parts" (despite Iran clearly being able to produce parts for F-14).
 
Dilandu said:
Well, it could use simple constant bearing algorithm to make a lead intercept. It did not require any precise range data; merely the general knowledge that distance is decreasing (which could be approximated by intensity of signal).
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I think without range data, you can only do a pure intercept
 
Ronny said:
I think without range data, you can only do a pure intercept
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No. Look, constant bearing works like this:

1705085291715.png
As long as your missile seeker track the target on the same bearin, you are leading the target. You don't need precise range measurement; all you need is just to be sure that range decreasing (otherwise there are 50/50 probability that you are actually going away from target).

So even with home-on-jam, your seeker would be able to use this method.
 
Dilandu said:
No. Look, constant bearing works like this:

View attachment 716925
As long as your missile seeker track the target on the same bearin, you are leading the target. You don't need precise range measurement; all you need is just to be sure that range decreasing (otherwise there are 50/50 probability that you are actually going away from target).

So even with home-on-jam, your seeker would be able to use this method.
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And that's the basics of "proportional targeting" which is very simple to implement.
 
Yellow Palace said:
It's not actually a very good algorithm when dealing with manoeuvring targets - the paths become quite long and inefficient - but it has the advantage of being hard to confuse.
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Granted.

But it was easily doable with 1950s or even late 1940s technology.

And if the ranges are short enough, it still works acceptably. See Sidewinder.
 
Yellow Palace said:
It's not actually a very good algorithm when dealing with manoeuvring targets - the paths become quite long and inefficient - but it has the advantage of being hard to confuse.
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It really make me wonder if we have any study comparing PK of missile in normal mode vs home on jam mode
 
Ronny said:
Can you share the source where this screenshoot from?, I can’t find it
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MODERN FIGHTING AIRCRAFT SERIES #8: F-14 TOMCAT by Mike Spick (1985)

It has a few pages of illustrations like that for the Phoenix tests, making good use of it's oversized format.

That series was also amongst the few books that dwelt on the design phase, rather than just jumping to first flight.
 
Dilandu said:
Most likely some bureaucratic braintwist like "Iran have those missiles... WE MUST DENY THEM ANY DATA ABOUT THIS MISSILES!!!"
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I'd love to see someone reapply for a fully unreacted version of the report as it was published in 1977 (Two years before the Iranian revolution) so no doubt the Iranians have their own uncensored copies and the AIM-54A has been retired for decades (It's an obsolete design).
 
Nhawk said:
There is mention of a test against a high altitude supersonic drone in the below. I can get you the full file here when I get back to my computer in a few days if you want it.
View attachment 715332
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The shot was taken from such insane range that it really confused me how it even possible in pure HOJ mode without range information?
4E111225-330E-4263-A91E-7B4CDA146BDE.jpeg

Would it be possible that AWG-9 switched to angle only mode then pilot used aircraft flight path to estimate the distance?. I know passive ranging mode was added to F-15 radar in around 1982 but not sure if such function was available to AWG-9 in 1973. And if not, how could AWG-9 burn through jamming at such distance
 
Ronny said:
The shot was taken from such insane range that it really confused me how it even possible in pure HOJ mode without range information?
View attachment 719998

Would it be possible that AWG-9 switched to angle only mode then pilot used aircraft flight path to estimate the distance?. I know passive ranging mode was added to F-15 radar in around 1982 but not sure if such function was available to AWG-9 in 1973. And if not, how could AWG-9 burn through jamming at such distance
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An on-off blinking noise jammer from a point source is relatively easy to counter. It simply requires the ability to quickly switch to a HOJ angle track mode and quickly switch back to a range or velocity lock. No burn-through is required here. In a TWS system, the range gate can be stored while the system moves to a HOJ on the jamming target, range can be estimated based on last measured range and range rate, and then the target can be reacquired when the jamming ceases.
And no, passive ranging was not used here. That absolutely required the PSP added to APG-63s. That's a very complex technique using echo/resonance measuring, if memory serves.
 
Heatloss said:
An on-off blinking noise jammer from a point source is relatively easy to counter. It simply requires the ability to quickly switch to a HOJ angle track mode and quickly switch back to a range or velocity lock. No burn-through is required here. In a TWS system, the range gate can be stored while the system moves to a HOJ on the jamming target, range can be estimated based on last measured range and range rate, and then the target can be reacquired when the jamming ceases.
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I guess that sound kinda logical, however, if blinking jammer was that useless in denying range information, wouldn’t it make more sense to make it online full time?. I was under the impression that blinking jammer are on/off frequently enough that it can fully deny range information.
Anyway apparently there was another test where they used a support jammer where it operate full time
F38F89D7-AE5C-4212-B939-04A414E653CE.png
5505B6DC-65FD-4815-B541-0346CA8494D3.jpeg
Heatloss said:
And no, passive ranging was not used here. That absolutely required the PSP added to APG-63s. That's a very complex technique using echo/resonance measuring, if memory serves.
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I just found this snipet from another forum.
So apparently AWG-9 can track the jammer source direaction in JAT mode.
Apparently, it also able to estimate the range by something called “altitude differrence ranging” ADR?. Anyone have any information regarding this capability?
5EF1AEC6-468C-48A5-B6D1-40D74086033F.png
18039C09-539D-492B-99ED-2E30CC58906C.jpeg
 
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Ronny said:
I guess that sound kinda logical, however, if blinking jammer was that useless in denying range information, wouldn’t it make more sense to make it online full time?. I was under the impression that blinking jammer are on/off frequently enough that it can fully deny range information.
Anyway apparently there was another test where they used a support jammer where it operate full time
View attachment 720065
View attachment 720058

I just found this snipet from another forum.
So apparently AWG-9 can track the jammer source direaction in JAT mode.
Apparently, it also able to estimate the range by something called “altitude differrence ranging” ADR?. Anyone have any information regarding this capability?
View attachment 720059
View attachment 720060
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Blinking jammers could often completely throw off a fire control solution or make a radar drop lock entirely because of a lack of being able to switch between HOJ and normal modes fast enough.
This was especially effective against analog radars operating in STT.
Noise jamming is countered by normal HOJ modes, which JAT appears to be. I can't find anything to indicate that JAT was anything more than a normal HOJ/AOJ mode.

I wonder if ADR attempts to use jamming ground echoes to estimate range? I've got no idea. That doesn't sound like APG-63's passive ranging though, that's a different method.
 
Heatloss said:
Blinking jammers could often completely throw off a fire control solution or make a radar drop lock entirely because of a lack of being able to switch between HOJ and normal modes fast enough.
This was especially effective against analog radars operating in STT.
Noise jamming is countered by normal HOJ modes, which JAT appears to be. I can't find anything to indicate that JAT was anything more than a normal HOJ/AOJ mode.

I wonder if ADR attempts to use jamming ground echoes to estimate range? I've got no idea. That doesn't sound like APG-63's passive ranging though, that's a different method.
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Apparently, ADR (altitude different ranging) is just rio guessing the altitude of target, then by knowing altitude of his own aircraft, and the elevation angle of the jammer, he can use trigonometry to calculate/estimate the distance between the two
 
A Tentative Fleet Plan said:
The most important advantage of Typhon (and Aegis) was not range, but the greatly increased number of fire channels hence greatly increasing the effort the Soviets would have to make to saturate the Task Force defences with large missile attacks.
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The main reason Typhon wasn't proceeded with came down to the use of a ramjet missile, along with cost. This limited its maneuverability to somewhere around 4 to 6G at most as more severe maneuvers would or could result in loss of airflow and the engine flaming out. The ramjet was necessary at the time to get the range desired out of the missile. Solid fuel technology hadn't proceeded to a point where you could get a missile that could fly out 75+ miles on solid fuel. Technology simply needed to mature more before an effective, and cost effective, multichannel air defense missile system could be produced.
 

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