As i was completing a SEAD strike mission, i called in to my AWACS command and asked him for the general picture of the skies ahead of me. He relayed to me that there were boogies at my 9. So i turned and painted a aircraft and asked the AWACS to declare target. He said it was a boggie so fired on the target. I asked for declaration on a another target, AWACS called it a boogie and i fired. When i landed an debriefed, i was court martialed for firing on friendlies!!!! I shot down a F-111 and a F-16. My question is:

1)As i locked on to my target, i noticed a cross in the middle of the locked target. Did this mean it was a friendly?

2) There were no other targets in the area, so i know my shot didn't go off course and hit a friendly by mistake. Why would AWACS declare a friendly a boogie?

Didn't they call out a buddy-spike when you locked them up?

I thought a bogie was an unknown. If they are hostile, the AWACS usually states as such.

Sounds like the ol' HARM issue. By chance, did you lock up any radars with your HTS prior to declaring on the bogeys?

Russki is correct.
A bogie is an unknown contact.
A bandit is a hostile contact.

I think you have to lock them up twice (STT mode) before they call out buddy spike

I read this hear before and then I created a document for future mistakes or questions:

Is it possible in F4 that a damaged friendly could be reported as bogie?

I did have a lock on a SA-6 before switching over to air radar. I thought a boogie was considered a enemy aircraft? i have never heard the AWACS commander call out hostile jet, he always says boogie or friendly. I guess i will have to be more careful when switching from HARM to A2A weapons. And i did hear the buddy spike call, but there is so much communicating throughout the game i did not know it was directed at me. One question no one addressed:

1)When locking a aircraft into STT, does the cross in the middle of the contact indicate that it is friendly?

Why not have a better IFF or aircraft identification system on the update agenda. I have been shot down to many times because i was indecisive about a contact. Why not have a specific button for contact ID, kind of like Jane's F/A 18? I think the Falcon 4.0 target id system is to cumbersome for practical use in a combat enviroment

Oopps................ I am sorry it is bogie not boogie. I gues i was thinking about the boogie man while i was writing this!!!!!!!

The only sure enemy responses are bandit or hostile. Outlaw is likely enemy (and I haven't shot one yet that wasn't).

Bogey simply means unidentified.

I don't think there's any 'HARM/HTS issue'. I saw that thread and I think it's just a matter of wrong conclusions.

If you ever hear a buddy spike call it is only for you, you will never hear it otherwise. STT is the poor man's IFF in this sim.

:) Coming from the excellent IFF, SA, etc. in F/A-18, you'll find the Fx IFF, Awacs, etc. is pretty poor. NCTR program is basically useless for IFF, i.e.

Best to use the hints already listed. Another good one is with a wingman; ask him to attack your target, and if he says negative, you know it's a friendly.

Not realistic of course, but that's the way you have to use what the game gives you.

IFF is some pretty top secret junk, that's why it's probably not implemented!

That's no excuse Other "top secret/semi-top secret stuff" is in the game.
Some kind of representation of an IFF function could have been made (already is, in Cobra), to compensate for the fact that it's a game on a pc, and the limitations therein.

Iirc, the actual F16 doesn't have an iff function in reality, but then, an actual F16 doesn't have to deal with the lousy awacs/nctr code in the game, nor pc limitations either.

I think you shot them down due to your inexpirience. Bogies are UID. They are unidentified and you should call the AWACS shortly after and keep calling them until you get a definate friendly or bandit call. Outlaw is no exception as I have killed friendlies that way.

You don't want to kill friendlies, that's fundamental so either VID or keep getting that AWACS call. If it's getting closer and you can't get a good call on it then break off the engagement.

THE LAST WAY YOU EVER WANT TO IDENTIFY A BANDIT IS BY MISSING YOUR CHANCE TO GET YOUR MISSILE OFF AND BY REALIZING TOO LATE THAT A MISSLE HAS JUST BEEN FIRED AT YOU.

That's why you extend from the bogey and maybe ask the picture again. Don't be afraid to get upclose and get a VID. If you are so stupid that you 'must' get another kill then you realistically have no place flying F-16s. Risking your skin to VID or maintaining lock on a bandit while you waist time getting AWACS ID will kill you.

Lesson?

Stay on your waypoints and engage only when you have to! Don't seek a fight if you're supposed to fight SAMs!

BTW, I don't think it's a bug.... it's the frustrating fog of war modeled.

My HTS question was directly tied to a known bug with the 1.07 patch. (as Panther already notated) If you lock a radar in HTS, but do not break lock prior to engaging AA, most anything you then declare will have an AWACS response of "BOGEY", regardless of it being friendly or hostile. As previously mentioned (in an AA engagement), a Bogey is an unknown contact, not a confirmed hostile...

To exausted:

i was not seeking a fight, i was making my egress and wanted to make sure my six was clear of bandits. When AWCS called out bogey at 315 degrees, it was right in my flight path, it was engage or die. Anyway, i will use the STT suggestion to ID aircrafts from here on. I am not inexperienced either, i have been flying sims since the mid '80's. Microsofts Gunship, Red Storm Rising, F-19. I hate visually identifing a target, that gives my enemy to much time to take offensive action, i like to fire from BVR, keeping my opponent on the defensive. Even if the REAL F-16 doesn't have an IFF system(i find that hard to believe from such a modern jet) i think it should be included in 4.0. It would ease some of the workload in the cockpit.

He's not flying an F-16. It's a game

I know that this is just a sim, but one that we play to "simulate" really flying an F-16, so on the premise of this assumption, don't you think that if in a real F-16, with a bogey (unidentified a/c) on your 12 o'clock, and with no IFF, you'd rather risk doing a visual ID rather than firing on a neutral or worse, a friendly?

Personally, I'd go for a visual ID, but keep the bogey in my sights and with a missile ready for launch. If he launches at me, then I'm all for firing --- if he gets me, at least I got one for him.

Not to be a jerk, but . . .

Unless you have actually flown combat in a Viper, you might want to rephrase that . . .