If modern missiles can track targets from beyond visual range, how do their operators verify that they’ve acquired the targets they’re looking for?
In: Technology
Extra info from the world’s biggest net of information. All ground radars, jets, AWACS, and sensors communicate to each other over a link. There are people constantly monitoring this link. For a track on the link to warrant scrambling a jet it already has some factors making it worth engaging.
By the time the jet takes off it probably knows why it’s taking off, what its rules of engagement are, and all of the information available about the track.
The point of origin, the speed, altitude, bearing, detected length, transponder codes, and even the method in which it intakes air can be used to help identify a track through sensors. Hell if you can’t get enough information one of the last resorts before engaging with a ground based system is a visual identification from a friendly jet.
Before a track is ever engaged it has been examined closely by a ton of different levels and decisions have been made on how it will be engaged. Air defense is a giant interconnecting machine that very rarely falters.
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