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Reply To: It's early 1989 and you're flying in hostile airspace….

Home Forums Modern Military Aviation It's early 1989 and you're flying in hostile airspace…. Reply To: It's early 1989 and you're flying in hostile airspace….

#2126795
Arabella-Cox
Keymaster

Please explain how the AMRAAM has anything to do with situational awareness.

You do not have to go into STT mode at all when you fire on your opponent, so can continue to take advantage of the TWS display which tells you what aircraft other than your target are up to. Mid-course data-link guidance meant STT could be delayed significantly with late-model SARH missiles and other measures probably contributed more to SA, but there absolutely is a benefit from ARH missiles in this regard.

That is not just due to the AMRAAM, it was due to a significantly more powerful radar with LPI modes, sophisticated NCTR, JTIDS, AN/ALQ-135.

JTIDS was only ever installed in a handful of F-15s, it took another 10 to 15 years before the lower-cost MIDS terminal made Link-16 widely available on Western fighters (and then not just the F-15). French EW systems tend to be quite good, pound for pound, so I’d be careful about assuming TEWS was in another league or something.