Originally Posted By: Hpasp
Also one additional comment for the RCS debate...
... when you are reducing the RCS, through a certain level, the detection range will not change so much...

Neva SNR detection range:

10sqr m - 80km* (bigger fighter)
1sqr m - 80km* (smaller fighter)
0,1sqr m - 10 sqr dm - ~50km (football)
0,01sqr m - 1 sqr dm - ~25km (tennis ball)
0,001sqr m - 10 sqr cm - ~15km (golf ball)
0,0001sqr m - 1 sqr cm - ~10km (dice)
0,00001sqr m - 10 sqr mm - ~5km (carbine bullet)

*limited by maximum displayed range

... so there is no point reducing it further of a point.
This is why newer US planes were designed with bigger RCS, but better flight performance.


Yes, those values are IMO very believable indeed.

Some RCS reductions may not decrease the detection range by much which I understand because RCS versus detection curve is exponential and not arithmetic but nevertheless a reduction of detection range will still happen. That's why for example, the RCS in the F-35 was extremely reduced on its frontal arc (it's even said that the front arc RCS in the F-35 is lower than the frontal arc RCS in the F-117) but not so much on the other sides/arcs (which in the end means that for example the average RCS in the F-117 is lower than the F-35).

Anyway my question whether "SAM Simulator models different RCS for the same aircraft, depending on its angle towards the radar or not (RCS is the same for every angle)?" is only for personal curiosity.
I'm not suggesting that SAM simulator should model different RCS for the same aircraft depending on its angle facing the radar. I completely understand if a single RCS value is used for each aircraft, after all for a PC simulation purposes this should be more than enough (IMO).