Electronic Warfare!

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    • Electronic Warfare!

      So basically, my idea is based around the modern idea of electronic warfare. Basically, my idea is to have jets that are capable of electronic warfare. They would jam radar systems. In an ideal situation, they'd disable ALL radars within their jamming range, but that would be OP, since no unit would be able to track them, and thus they'd be OP. In order to balance this, perhaps it could jam the radar of AWACs and ground radar and strike fighters and air superiority fighters and every other unit, but not that of corvettes & TDSs? And maybe if that's still too OP, it could also not jam the radar of SAMs? I dunno. I'd love to see these come into play, just to jam AWACs and radars and deny the enemy situational awareness. That way, you could keep your enemies disoriented and unsure where to strike. Perhaps another way to balance this unit would be to make it unarmed, like the AWACs, and make it unstackable? I'm really not quite sure how to balance this, but I feel like it would be a great addition to the game, and would be completely awesome! Anyhow, yeah! Let me know what you all think! Critique is welcome!
    • abradyson1 wrote:

      So basically, my idea is based around the modern idea of electronic warfare. Basically, my idea is to have jets that are capable of electronic warfare. They would jam radar systems. In an ideal situation, they'd disable ALL radars within their jamming range, but that would be OP, since no unit would be able to track them, and thus they'd be OP. In order to balance this, perhaps it could jam the radar of AWACs and ground radar and strike fighters and air superiority fighters and every other unit, but not that of corvettes & TDSs? And maybe if that's still too OP, it could also not jam the radar of SAMs? I dunno. I'd love to see these come into play, just to jam AWACs and radars and deny the enemy situational awareness. That way, you could keep your enemies disoriented and unsure where to strike. Perhaps another way to balance this unit would be to make it unarmed, like the AWACs, and make it unstackable? I'm really not quite sure how to balance this, but I feel like it would be a great addition to the game, and would be completely awesome! Anyhow, yeah! Let me know what you all think! Critique is welcome!
      Actually yeah, this isnt a bad idea


      I wouldnt mind seeing some sort electronic warfare stuff.. Maybe they can jam radars within their range, but their range is small. And Only radar not sonar. And maybe top level of the units cant be jammed.

      But I really like the idea :P
      The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants
      - Thomas Jefferson

      Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
      - Milton Friedman

      Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.
      - Sun Tzu
    • @abradyson1 I really like your idea!

      What about jamming all radars and at the same time revealing your own position, unit type (not just 'air' for American strike fighters w/ jammers, but 'EF-111') along with the specific unit type of everything else in the jammer's stack as a kind of balance?
      That'll make the situation more even, because enable home-on-jamming attacks. Home-on-jamming is apparently a fairly common way of guiding weapons to targets across missile type and doctrine everything2.com/title/Home-on-jam

      I would also suggest that if Electronic Warfare is implemented in the game, users of units with radar be able to turn them off, and units using radar be detected at longer ranges (because thats an adverse effect of using radar).
      "The enemy cannot push a button, if you disable his hand."
      Sergeant Zim, Terran Federation
    • dragoljub M. wrote:

      abradyson1 wrote:

      they'd disable ALL radars within their jamming range, but that would be OP
      no offense, but that basically ruins the point of radars....

      it is realistic-ish though
      Not really.....
      The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants
      - Thomas Jefferson

      Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
      - Milton Friedman

      Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.
      - Sun Tzu
    • RasczakRough wrote:

      @abradyson1 I really like your idea!

      What about jamming all radars and at the same time revealing your own position, unit type (not just 'air' for American strike fighters w/ jammers, but 'EF-111') along with the specific unit type of everything else in the jammer's stack as a kind of balance?
      That'll make the situation more even, because enable home-on-jamming attacks. Home-on-jamming is apparently a fairly common way of guiding weapons to targets across missile type and doctrine everything2.com/title/Home-on-jam

      I would also suggest that if Electronic Warfare is implemented in the game, users of units with radar be able to turn them off, and units using radar be detected at longer ranges (because thats an adverse effect of using radar).
      Perfect!
      The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants
      - Thomas Jefferson

      Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
      - Milton Friedman

      Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.
      - Sun Tzu
    • abradyson1 wrote:

      So basically, my idea is based around the modern idea of electronic warfare. Basically, my idea is to have jets that are capable of electronic warfare. They would jam radar systems. In an ideal situation, they'd disable ALL radars within their jamming range, but that would be OP, since no unit would be able to track them, and thus they'd be OP. In order to balance this, perhaps it could jam the radar of AWACs and ground radar and strike fighters and air superiority fighters and every other unit, but not that of corvettes & TDSs? And maybe if that's still too OP, it could also not jam the radar of SAMs? I dunno. I'd love to see these come into play, just to jam AWACs and radars and deny the enemy situational awareness. That way, you could keep your enemies disoriented and unsure where to strike. Perhaps another way to balance this unit would be to make it unarmed, like the AWACs, and make it unstackable? I'm really not quite sure how to balance this, but I feel like it would be a great addition to the game, and would be completely awesome! Anyhow, yeah! Let me know what you all think! Critique is welcome!
      I think this is definitely a great idea, but two more suggestions to make them less powerful:

      1. The jets can be really expensive, both to research and produce, and

      2. Have a limit to how long you can jam radar in a certain period of time (ex. 4 hours every day).

      Again, I think discussion should on this great idea should be encouraged, and eventually change into something all players agree with.
    • B-17 wrote:

      I think this is definitely a great idea, but two more suggestions to make them less powerful:
      1. The jets can be really expensive, both to research and produce, and

      2. Have a limit to how long you can jam radar in a certain period of time (ex. 4 hours every day).

      Again, I think discussion should on this great idea should be encouraged, and eventually change into something all players agree with.


      That could be a good idea! It could be enabled much like you would choose to fire a cruise missile. During that time period, all radar in the area would be rendered inactive, removing the targeting abilities of artillery, AA, planes, etc that enter the area or are already in the area. Perhaps this could be active for a few hours? Enough to complete an airstrike or two or a long-range bombing sortie, and send some troops to attack positions, but not enough to completely cripple an enemy and destroy their entire army.
    • There as brilliant idea, work it like missiles.. takes time to re arm!
      The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants
      - Thomas Jefferson

      Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
      - Milton Friedman

      Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.
      - Sun Tzu
    • Hells yeah. I'm a former Navy Electronic Warfare Technician I have long wondered why there are no modern warfare games with anything EW going on. No modern Navy games anywhere. It's like everyone else gets to see their modern equipment used in games, but when it comes to ships, they basically stopped technologically in WW2.

      Electronic Warfare consists of 3 categories:

      Electronic Support (ES) - Information on enemy electronic capabilities, parameters, location, movement, etc. The Navy uses equipment that enables one to determine what platforms are encountered based on the signal parameters of the radars they are using.

      Electronic Attack (EA) - (as you've mentioned already) denying an enemy the use of their own equipment. Jamming an enemy radar is EA.

      Electronic Protection (EP) - Taking measures that defeat enemy use of EA. Navy ships have several options including Chaff (SRBOC) and NIXIE. Aircraft use flares to defeat heat seeking missiles. There are also electro-mechanical tactics along with software tactics that can deny an enemies effective use of jamming. For example Jamming basically means to send a signal to a radar that overwhelms the radar's ability to read its own information. Since jamming requires sending a signal that would overload a radar, the frequencies of the signal have to be in the range of the radar's operating frequencies. If a radar detects that it's being jammed, or an operator observes this, an EP tactic is to change the operating frequency of the radar.

      This goes back and forth as there are jamming radars that freq shift to defeat the EP freq change tactic, but then that requires more or targeted frequencies, and if you're only targeting some frequencies you're missing others. If you try to target all frequencies, your power output might be low enough that a radar operator can still discern their own signal.

      =====

      I like the idea of having Electronic Attack as a disposable weapon a la missiles that have to be recharged. It could be a tiered upgrade to certain platforms. EW elements could be further used in more passive or progressive ways to not make it an "over powered" element, but just a different element of the game. If you have an aircraft doing a jamming run it could be a timed event (realistic) wherein the strike force could come in and attack without local hostiles being able to counterattack, or give them some kind of "odds of successful counter attack while being jammed" math.

      At the same time if the facility has a decent EP level it could counter the enemy use of EA. The same can be done with any one platform going after another. Even ground troops in the US military carry EW equipment. Tanks have limited EW capabilities.


      In real life there's no single platform that can electronically jam "everything" The amount of power needed would be ridiculous. In fact a defensive land facility should have greater jamming capability than anything mobile. It could be a passive tiered aspect of building up a base or city perhaps if it's introduced its level will have some effect on the odds of a successful missile attack.

      If for example a city has some measure of Electronic Attack capability, and an incoming hostile aircraft is detected it could have for example a chance of effectively jamming the hostile's radars. There could be a combination of passive measures for platforms against attacking enemies like using EA and EP. EP could prevent the radar jamming and the platform could effectively deploy their defenses, and also have EA effectively denying the attacking enemy from using their equipment. It could be an odds factor like 25% chance EP, 10% chance EA based on tiers or upgrades or whatever.

      If the game had both passive forms of EA/EP and active forms for players sending in aircraft to attack a facility for example the active version which requires expending resources could be the more powerful or likely successful version, as the game is more geared this way in everything else, the advantage generally goes to the attacker.


      One final idea, but this is really cutting it thin. This one is about ES. In this game you have "unknown radar contacts" I kind of found this annoying at first because I just assumed deploying a bunch of radar trucks I'd get to see into the dark. Instead I have a lot of glowing green lights instead of ID'd enemies.

      Going further with this EW stuff you could have built into the training tier of some of these platforms, more nuanced ID capability (ES). Not simply expanding a radar view, but expanding the identification level. Lowest level being a green light saying "unknown contact" with greater level of information like (unknown air/land/sea) to (unknown infantry/vehicle) to (5 unknown anti-air/tank/Marines/bombers) to (10 Colombian Air Superiority lvl 2). Even more nuanced would be using increasingly specific icons until finally just a full reveal.


      Edit: And if you really want to go crazy, you could integrate an IFF (Identify friend or foe) system where other nations that you are friendly with will respond with positive IFF data letting you know who they are from radar distances, whereas enemies and neutral parties won't respond with anything. That way you'd know the "unknown contact" is either friendly, or something potentially dangerous.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by J1DW ().

    • J1DW wrote:

      Hells yeah. I'm a former Navy Electronic Warfare Technician I have long wondered why there are no modern warfare games with anything EW going on. No modern Navy games anywhere. It's like everyone else gets to see their modern equipment used in games, but when it comes to ships, they basically stopped technologically in WW2.

      Electronic Warfare consists of 3 categories:

      Electronic Support (ES) - Information on enemy electronic capabilities, parameters, location, movement, etc. The Navy uses equipment that enables one to determine what platforms are encountered based on the signal parameters of the radars they are using.

      Electronic Attack (EA) - (as you've mentioned already) denying an enemy the use of their own equipment. Jamming an enemy radar is EA.

      Electronic Protection (EP) - Taking measures that defeat enemy use of EA. Navy ships have several options including Chaff (SRBOC) and NIXIE. Aircraft use flares to defeat heat seeking missiles. There are also electro-mechanical tactics along with software tactics that can deny an enemies effective use of jamming. For example Jamming basically means to send a signal to a radar that overwhelms the radar's ability to read its own information. Since jamming requires sending a signal that would overload a radar, the frequencies of the signal have to be in the range of the radar's operating frequencies. If a radar detects that it's being jammed, or an operator observes this, an EP tactic is to change the operating frequency of the radar.

      This goes back and forth as there are jamming radars that freq shift to defeat the EP freq change tactic, but then that requires more or targeted frequencies, and if you're only targeting some frequencies you're missing others. If you try to target all frequencies, your power output might be low enough that a radar operator can still discern their own signal.

      =====

      I like the idea of having Electronic Attack as a disposable weapon a la missiles that have to be recharged. It could be a tiered upgrade to certain platforms. EW elements could be further used in more passive or progressive ways to not make it an "over powered" element, but just a different element of the game. If you have an aircraft doing a jamming run it could be a timed event (realistic) wherein the strike force could come in and attack without local hostiles being able to counterattack, or give them some kind of "odds of successful counter attack while being jammed" math.

      At the same time if the facility has a decent EP level it could counter the enemy use of EA. The same can be done with any one platform going after another. Even ground troops in the US military carry EW equipment. Tanks have limited EW capabilities.


      In real life there's no single platform that can electronically jam "everything" The amount of power needed would be ridiculous. In fact a defensive land facility should have greater jamming capability than anything mobile. It could be a passive tiered aspect of building up a base or city perhaps if it's introduced its level will have some effect on the odds of a successful missile attack.

      If for example a city has some measure of Electronic Attack capability, and an incoming hostile aircraft is detected it could have for example a chance of effectively jamming the hostile's radars. There could be a combination of passive measures for platforms against attacking enemies like using EA and EP. EP could prevent the radar jamming and the platform could effectively deploy their defenses, and also have EA effectively denying the attacking enemy from using their equipment. It could be an odds factor like 25% chance EP, 10% chance EA based on tiers or upgrades or whatever.

      If the game had both passive forms of EA/EP and active forms for players sending in aircraft to attack a facility for example the active version which requires expending resources could be the more powerful or likely successful version, as the game is more geared this way in everything else, the advantage generally goes to the attacker.


      One final idea, but this is really cutting it thin. This one is about ES. In this game you have "unknown radar contacts" I kind of found this annoying at first because I just assumed deploying a bunch of radar trucks I'd get to see into the dark. Instead I have a lot of glowing green lights instead of ID'd enemies.

      Going further with this EW stuff you could have built into the training tier of some of these platforms, more nuanced ID capability (ES). Not simply expanding a radar view, but expanding the identification level. Lowest level being a green light saying "unknown contact" with greater level of information like (unknown air/land/sea) to (unknown infantry/vehicle) to (5 unknown anti-air/tank/Marines/bombers) to (10 Colombian Air Superiority lvl 2). Even more nuanced would be using increasingly specific icons until finally just a full reveal.


      Edit: And if you really want to go crazy, you could integrate an IFF (Identify friend or foe) system where other nations that you are friendly with will respond with positive IFF data letting you know who they are from radar distances, whereas enemies and neutral parties won't respond with anything. That way you'd know the "unknown contact" is either friendly, or something potentially dangerous.
      We need this stuff implemented ^
      The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants
      - Thomas Jefferson

      Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
      - Milton Friedman

      Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.
      - Sun Tzu
    • I don't know if it can be implemented, but the least i can say, it's that J1DW point is decisive and absolutely convincing.
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
    • Good.but it will be better to make it that way:
      They don't totally jam radars,they just escort troops,making them invisible.
      they can hack UAVs(hack them and turn them into yours,but with really long chances to do that.And when they fail,just to tak 1 hit points or two,and the enemy just to know that the UAV have virus in the system.And it will need a UAV control building to control them.It will make the thing acceptable (and not making you a total "god").Plus they can hack naval vessels(jus damaging their electronics(1hit point per 2 hour,maximum 5 hours a day) and subs(if sucseed,can damage their command center,making it fully uncontrollable for the time they are active).Can disable stealth units(disable their "stealthy"role).
      THREE THINGS YOU MUST REMEMBER FROM ME-
      1:When you play,never foget to research as many technology as you can-later will be useful
      2:.Don't overbuild-Or when the fuel bills come,you will cry .
      3:First attack playable countries-or later they will eat you alive.
      thanks for reading.
    • Just a different take on this, why not instead of trying to break radar why not have an EW plane have a "radar circle" like awacs, but instead of detecting enemy units, it's stealths your own units. It would just be a matter of any friendly unit in the circle gains the same stealth setting that special forces do, and they can be detected or avoid detection the same way.

      So a radar unit that is upgraded and can detect stealth units would be able to detect through, but it would allow you to stealth an invading force into combat range.

      I figure this would be relatively easy to implement as it would just be adding a temporary setting that other units already have.

      Thoughts?
      ----------------------

      Jacopo: Why not just kill them? I'll do it! I'll run up to Paris - bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm back before week's end. We spend the treasure. How is this a bad plan?

      Remember that no one ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb idiot die for his country.
    • Germanico wrote:

      Hm hm. And they run on Tiberium afaik... ;)

      But in truth we do have designs for jammer units - it's just we don't have the time and the place for them right now.
      Any chance we could enjoy a hint of what was included in the jammer units?

      Its a great idea, but Id say there are a few more pressing matters at the moment
      The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants
      - Thomas Jefferson

      Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
      - Milton Friedman

      Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.
      - Sun Tzu