French and British Sonar

[OKO]

Originally Posted by Kurushio

So genius, either translate or shutup.

There is no need of translation at all, there is a need to improve your military knowledge.
I will help you, because you are asking, and asking and reading is a the best way to get out of myths =>

RWR => radar warning receiver
hardware used to detect ennemy radars when your plane receive their beams
There is different levels :
- receiving a beam (the pilot hear a slow sound and see a small light on the RWR with the type of ennemy radar, so the type of ennemy plane)
- beeing locked by an ennemy radar (sound and light accelerating on RWR)
- and beeing fired at (stressful alarm and flashing light)

With this hardware, a pilot know when he detect a radar around, what kind of radar it is, and what the radar is doing to him (just searching, locking or even firing at him) because according to the action of the radar, the beam change in time frequency (of reception by RWR) and intensity (beam strenght).
But, OF COURSE, to identify a plane with his radar, your RWR need to be programmed to recognize the specific band and identify it for the pilot.
If you want to have some quite nice modelisation of a RWR, try Falcon4 or FA18/E of Jane's.

So, to "translate" the sentence above =>

During an exercice named red flag, where USA invited french, Mirages 2000 (M2000) could lock and fire at F16 without waking up their RWR.
This mean F16 were shooted down without any warning.
During a real fight, this just mean : suddenly your plane expode in the air, and you don't know why.

Why ? just because M2000 were using a radar mode indetectable to F16 RWR.
The Track While Search mode is a specific radar mode.
There is some different radar modes =>

- VS : velocity search, used to see if there is something moving fast at very long distance (the best detecting range of aerial embarqued radars, but no identification with that, just contact speed revelant)

- RWS : range while scan => the typical combat mode : the radar reduce the scan area, so, scan the same place more often (talking about mechanical radar antenna, for older plane like M2000 but not for Rafale with electronic antenna).
This mode show you all contact in the scanned area, but if you lock one contact, all the radar beam will be concentrate on the contact, either to avoid to lost him and to guide missiles accuratly.
2 main shortcomings :
1) this is the mode that makes the emitter the more detectable
2) once radar is locked on a contact, you don't see anything else on your radar than the locked contact.

- TWS : track while search
A more discreet radar mode.
In TWS, not only your radar could be more stealth, but you could track different targets at the same time, and still see all contacts in your radar screen.

When you read that you will ask why using RWS when TWS is better for everything ?
This is exactly what is going to happen in future.
As long as fighters carried semi active missiles, they were needed to lock the bandit until impact of the missile.
That's why RWS was made for => he lock the target in a stronger way than with TWS (it's more difficult to break a RWS lock than a TWS lock) and concentrate all the radar beam on this target.
This way, the semi active missile, receiving the beam return from the contact, had a very strong return and could easily reach the target.

But with the apparition of new active missiles (with their own emitters), TWS became a much more interesting radar mode :
Instead to receive information about the target ... from the target, the missile receive it from the firing plane => the pilot that fired the missile send information from HIS plane to the missile until this missile become autonomous, and use his own little radar to finish the job (at 3 to 4 miles from the target).

And the other great change is the possibility, with TWS, to engage simultaneously 2 or more aerial targets (2 for FA18/E, 6 for the rafale), and to STILL have a global radar picture (the beam is not concentrate only on one plane).

So, I hope this explanation (and not translation ..that was all in english ...yes my english ... ) is more clear now.