Re: morale/parked command in SG2 and ESM in space

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Wed, 30 May 2001, Thomas Barclay wrote:

Okay, just some thought. Now, I'm not in the ESM business, but in the
radar business, so I might make the odd misinformed assumption ;)

> ESM in FT (well, in real world, but extended):
> I understand it is a difficult thing to execute real 
> life analysis of ESM data for several reasons 
> relating to wash from your own radar if it is on, 

This is why we tell the ESM system exactly when we are transmitting. So
there shouldn't be a direct path from radar to ESM. Still, I can imagine
reflections from our radar coming back to the ESM system.

> reflections from everything (ships water 
> whatever) and the fact that a given pulse 
> detected from a given area might only give you 
> a broad angle to the bogey 

This is true. I wouldn't know any ESM systems that have the same bearing
eresolution as a good radar system. Why is this? Well, you need a good
many antennae in your ESM to get the broad band ESM capability. In
addition, you want 360 degrees coverage. So you'll need 360/area of
coverage antennae per frequency band. And last, radar antennae are big
for
the very reason of getting the narrow beam. Now try to fit umpty of
these
big antennae for your ESM system, and your ESM system suddenly got
thrown
off the ship and off the budget ;)

> and that 
> determining range is another feat on tomp of 
> that. Plus you have to determine if you get 
> multiple pulses if you have more than one 
> target, 

This shouldn't be too much of a problem, as you look for pulses with the
same characteristics. Even modern radar needs several pulses at the same
frequency for doppler measurements

> or if it is a reflection, if it is an air or sea 
> target, etc. etc. 

Air/sea target decisions would, I assume, be made based upon recognition
of the transmitter type.

> And the enemy has systems in his active 
> systems which screw up the signature of his 
> system so it won't match the one in your 
> database (maybe they even vary dynamically) 
> and therefore your stats on pulse repetition 
> (fixed or incremental) and such might be hard 
> to corellate. 

Then again, not everything is that easy to vary, and with high frequency
digital memories becoming available, the game might shift in favour of
ESM
again. Being able to recognize the pulse-shape etc would be rather
interesting.

As for pulse repetition and such, noone uses fixed PRT anymore, do they?

> Additionally, you introduce a pile of civilian 
> contacts in any moderately busy system and  
> you throw in the fact that the enemy emitter 
> may well be able to tune his rig to look like 
> something else (a civilian active system 
> perhaps? or an allied vessel?) and you have 
> quite a challenge. 

Of course. Then again, anyone tuning their rig to seem civilian is
giving
up a lot in the way of performance. Might as well switch off, and switch
on their very civilian decco/kelvin hughed navigation radar.

> Will this collection of challenges vanish in FT? 

No... But a challange is there to be dealt with ;)

> Some terrain related ones might, but what 
> impact does spacial terrain and energy fields 
> have on this picture?  And will civilian shipping 
> be a problem? In the busy areas, I'd think so. 

Of course.
 
> And for every step forward in ESM analysis, 
> don't you get a step forward in the opposite 
> (screwing up ESM by messing up the signature 
> of your active systems?). Someone described 
> the competition like this:
> "You have a pentium-V running at 2 GHz 
> analyzing incoming signal pulses. You have to 
> sort out bounces, reflections, your own 
> emissions, and then take the data, determine 
> range and bearing and how many of them 
> there are, and do this from a fragmentary and 
> maybe not up to date database. Meanwhile, 
> EACH enemy vessel has a pentium-V running 2 
> GHz messing up their outgoing signal in new 
> ways or imitating some other kind of rig. It's a 
> one against many competition."

Hrm. They'd need a pentium-V for each of their active sensors. I'm not
sure who's got the winning argument here... Also, there's still a heck
of
a lot fo outdated stuff floating around, against which your brand new
ESM
rig would have a whopping good time. (And the same argument can be made
for the whopping new radar suite vs old ESM)
 
> Sounds like anyone trying to use ESM to 
> passively figure out what is going on is going to 
> have a bit of a time, no? 

Yup. Doesn't make it impossible, though :) If it was all that
hard/impossible, why is it still being invested in? ;)
 
> To quote Los the oft-right, "for every measure, 
> a counter measure". 

Yes. So, it's going to require a die roll for both sides, with ESM vs
sensor quality taken into account? :)

Cheers,

   Derk
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Made with pgp4pine

iD8DBQE7FKJuJXH58oo6ncURAtZ6AJ9FMR0aGqsKkSosnf4QR7qQIdlCMQCfQpN2
hw2vEmq+fGq5SQZ0BM7RwJE=
=QjXE