if a missile launch, whether it be A-G or A-A, is friendly or enemy if the MWS cannot differentiate UV missile plumes? I find it difficult to believe that in a hot battlefield, the MWS would be blaring almost continuously and there's no way to filter out friendly launches of A-G mavericks. I'm told this is normal IRL. I'd really like to hear from a real combat pilot how he does not see this added "noise" as anything but distracting. You tell your wingman to attack ground targets and every mav he fires gives the MAWS a reason to go bonkers and even trips the ECM. I cannot believe that in this day and age of hi-tech that there is no IFF for missile launches.

AFAIK, no there isn't. It would require a constant flood over datalinks between all the units to know that, and currently that doesn't exist.
Before MWS, all the pilots had were their eyes, and how do you tell a friendly from an enemy missile with your eyes? Only by knowing who launched it. Besides, with blue-on-blue not being out of the question, it doesn't really matter if it's friendly, you should make sure it's not tracking you regardless!
Pilots call out launches via "Rifle" or "Fox" calls so if you got an alert simultaneous with one of those calls, you'd know to ignore that. You could also turn down the MWS volume if you liked, but I think most pilots would prefer to hear all those calls instead of possibly missing the one with their name on it.



The Jedi Master

You're telling me there's no way they could put a transmitter on the missile that sends out a specific frequency that any friendly aircraft could identify and consequently filter out? I can't believe that. Especially considering that the military would want to make it as distraction free for the pilot whose workload already is over-whelming. How do they manage the IFF between aircrafts then? Why couldn't that thinking be used for missile ID?

I remember seeing General Robin Olds in a documentary talking about the information overload pilots experienced in Vietnam. He said someone was always screaming on Guard frequency, the RWR had a steady audio output, and your Sidewinder growler was usually going off in your headset. This inundation of info often lead pilots to miss calls critical to their wellbeing. Eventually they dealt with it by turning off the RWR and other audio and depended on the ol' Mark-I eyeball to sort it out. Most AN/ALR type of RWR systems will show you a indication of which quadrant around your aircraft the threat is coming from based on the targeting radar emissions. With the proliferation of heat-seeking missiles and their passive seekers, AN/AAR MWSs use optical devices to detect the exhaust signatures of inbound missiles. I gather they do not differentiate between the heat plume of an infrared or radar guided system nor can distinguish friend from foe. All they know is that it's a threat and it's headed your way...take appropriate action.

I think IFF is only used for civvie aircraft, else why would we scramble jets out to intercept an "unknown" target?

Fly in one of the DCS A10 servers... it is very annoying to stalk your target, come in for an attack run, then have to break off due to a missile launch warning... only to have someone call out "Rifle" two seconds later. Or not even call it out at all.

But even in simming, I'd rather go defensive and find out I didn't have to than be over-confident and find myself in a flaming ball. When your actual flesh-and-blood-and-guts is on the line, you bet pilots call out "Rifle" properly to save their mates from all the "excitement" of defensive maneuvers.

LOL, I can't imagine that too many civie aircraft would have to worry whether an approaching aircraft was Friend or Foe. "Uh oh, I didn't receive the correct response, better go hot. Ooops, I'm not armed." hehe

If the MWS picks up all missile launches, does it completely break when someone is using a rocket pod?

IFF (Identification: Friend or Foe) is absolutely a military application. Civil aviation may generically refer to transponder operation as "IFF", but every military aircraft flying has IFF for the reason stated in the acronym. You don't have to log many flight hours to realize many people that have a bona fide pilot license simply do not follow rules and regulations, not the least of which is busting into air space without proper clearance. Part of obtaining said clearance is often received along with assignment of a transponder "squawk" code which uniquely identifies the aircraft so they can manage everyone within the space.

During Desert Storm I remember hearing that, due to the congested airspace with traffic ingressing and egressing the battle area, two aircraft had to confirm agreement with their respective IFFs before being cleared to engage a target BVR. The fog of war is as real today as it was in yesteryear. Battle lines are constantly changing and that unidentified aircraft at your 12 o'clock could be a bad guy or it could be an allie with a malfunctioning IFF system due to damage or simple a avionics glitch. IFF codes are changed regularly for security purposes and it would not be practical to reprogram every missile hung on every aircraft in theater.

These computer games are fun and engaging, but they do not prepare you for the real world of aerial combat where things are not orderly and sorted out.

AFAIK, IFF is a query/response system using the radar of the one making the query and separate antennas for the responder (as it may not be facing the one doing the query). It's not like all friendlies in a theater go around making a constant IFF broadcast "friendly here" as it would flood the freq with a lot of jabber. Only on a specific query from a friendly radar using IFF does it respond. I don't know if the query and response are on different freqs or not, lots of that IFF stuff is classified.
So if a missile had an IFF on it, well few radars are likely looking its direction at launch, so a query wouldn't be received from many planes in the area. An unsolicited broadcast is announcing a missile launch that could be detected by the target and is poor EMCON anyway.

The "holy grail" is a datalink network between all friendly units, air, land, and sea, in a theater that would send an "I'm firing a missile" notification to all parties. That doesn't even come close to existing yet.



The Jedi Master

I just play my flight sims with labels on. Oh wait....you guys are talking about the real world.