p1t1o
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Firstly, its important to know that this is a true "simulation". That is, although it aspires to as much realism as possible, it isn't practical to make it a direct 1-to-1 comparison to reality, this would require immense computing power (on the order of industrial supercomuting), even with this simulation the hardware in your computer puts a hard limit on the complexity of the scenarios you can run - though you can achieve quite a lot.
So...
1) There are a LOT of different aircraft in the world and having accurate models of each ones engine performance would be very difficult to maintain accurately, either becuase of classified information, or because of the sheer number of platforms. It would probably also add to the complexity of calculations and slow the sim down, as alluded to above.
So a simplified engine model is used where the majority (not all) of aircraft have similar speed capabilities, and variability is contained within their fuel consumption under various conditions. In this way it is much easier to build a *broadly* accurate comparison between planes, even if some individual properties suffer.
There are also more real-world reasons. For example, whilst a plane may have a theoretical capability to reach Mach 2.25 at a certain altitude and another only able to reach Mach 2, in real life neither would ever attempt to reach this speed, for any number of reason from reasonable fuel consumption, to service life of engine parts, stress on the airframe etc. etc.
If an aircraft does have a high speed dash capability, for dogfighting, avoiding missiles etc. this can be represented in its agility value, a hidden property that is applied in these situations.
Some aircraft are specifically built to take advantage of their high speed, eg: MiG31 Foxbat, and these do get a higher speed setting.
Similar logic is used for altitude capabilities as well.
So whilst a Su35 may theoretically be able to rach a higher speed than the F35, the fueld consumption at that speed would mean he could still only catch him if he was not too far away (drag increases with the SQUARE of velocity, so a bit more speed = a lot more drag).
Howver, at the standard 950kn max speed, the Su35 may be given, for example, better endurance at that speed meaning that you can still chase him down, but you will still have a hard time catching him if he has a lot of fuel.
In conclusion, there are trade-offs when building a sim, it is more practical to go for broad realism than 1-to-1 and the disadvantages can be dealt with in different ways. In this way, even though aircraft speeds are somewhat standardised, you can still build a realistic picture.
2)ECM
OECM and DECM are treated differently. DECM (Defensive ECM) represents those jammers that aircraft carry for self defence, such as those carried by the F35, super hornet etc. etc.
As you know ECM is terribly good at announcing your presence to the enemy, so for the vast majority of time, DECM jammers are kept off, if they do transmit, it is only momentarily, when a search radar sweeps over them, or if your systems determine that a missile has locked onto you (these are points where you are already detected/would be detected anyway).
In-sim, DECM operates automatically and cannot be manually activated/deactivated and affects things like hit probability and possibly probability-of-detection-at-certain-ranges (although Im not totally sure about that one). If you turn on weapon endgame calculations in the message log options, you will see the calculations that are used, you might see something that says "xxx jammer is attempting to spoof missile, 25% chance of success, roll:37 FAIL" or something like that.
So don't worry, you do get the benefit of onboard self-defence jammers.
For offensive ECM (OECM), these simulate those high-power jammers that seek to blind or confuse enemy radars. These very much give away your presence. For example, if the enemy has a jammer aircraft accompanying a strike group, you will detect them on your radar but you will have very large areas-of-uncertainty, specifically with range, so you get big, directional "spike"-like contacts on your screen so you know there are aircraft there but not exactly where and you cannot target them.
OECM effectiveness is also dependant on range, that is, when they get close enough to you, the contacts will resolve more and more until eventually you get full contacts at a certain range. This is called "burn through" and in reality is the range at which the strength of your radar return is now stronger than the jamming signal.
When you use them yourself, you should notice that the enemy cant seem to locate you as easily, aslo when they do engage you, OECM is very effective at reducing their missile hit chance, many missiles will fail half-way if you have a good jammer.
OECM aircraft only jam on a narrow bearing, between the jammer and the observing radar, and will only effectively protect aircraft who are on a similar bearing. You can keep the jammer with your strike group and they will be protected, but you dont have to, as long as the strike group remains in the same bearing "shadow". For example, keeping a jammer between an enemy radar and your strike group, or vice versa, with the strike group closing and the jammer standing off, will hide the strike group.
If ou have the jammer to the west of a radar and the strike group approaches from the south, they will not be covered and will be more easily detected.
Think of it like shining a vey bright torch in their eyes.
Jamming can be very effective, for example, have a jammer accompanying an anti-sam-site strike and the jammer can prevent the SAM site from shooting down the anti-radiation missiles fired at it.
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