Glossary
Every stat label and term used across the database reference, defined in a line.
Stat labels#
| Label | Appears on | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Aerial refueling | Aircraft | Shown when the aircraft can receive fuel in flight. Absent means it cannot. |
| Aviation | Ships, ground | Aircraft capacity as hangar then deck. Hangar capacity is what sustains operations. |
| Azimuth coverage | Sensors, jammers | How much of the horizon the sensor watches. 360 degrees is all-round. |
| Battery endurance | Submarines | Hours a diesel-electric boat operate submerged at slow speed before recharging. |
| Beam | Ships | Hull width. |
| Cavitation speed | Submarines | Speed at which the propeller starts making excessive noise, shallow then deep. |
| Ceiling | Aircraft | Service ceiling, the highest altitude the aircraft can maintain a minimum rate of climb at. |
| Climb rate | Aircraft | Maximum rate of climb in altitude. |
| Combat radius | Aircraft | Out and back on internal fuel, from the game's flight model. Jets carry a 75% weapon load; other types assume a 30 minute reserve. Low flying and loiter reduce it. |
| Datalink range | Weapons | How far the launching platform can keep guiding the weapon. Reads "None, semi-active homing" when the launcher must illuminate the target until impact. |
| Displacement | Ships | Weight of water that a ship's hull displaces when floating. |
| Draft | Ships | Depth below the waterline. Sets required water depth for ship to operate without grounding. |
| Effective against | Jammers | Whether the jamming works on search radars, on missile seekers, or on both. |
| Effective radiated power | Jammers | Jamming power on the target's bearing, in dBW. Ten more dBW is ten times the power. |
| Elevation coverage | Sensors, jammers | The vertical band searched. Negative looks down, positive looks up. |
| Frequency | Sensors | Operating range in megahertz. The hint names the IEEE radar bands it spans. |
| G limit | Aircraft | Acceleration limit, in multiples of gravity. |
| Launch altitude | Weapons | Altitudes the weapon can be released from, not the altitude of targets. |
| Length | Ships | Overall length of ship. |
| Max depth | Submarines | Maximum safe operating depth. |
| Max effect range | Jammers | Farthest a radar can be and still be jammed. Not a detection range. |
| Max range | Sensors | Maximum instrumented limit for large targets within radar horizon. |
| Max speed | All platforms | Maximum speed of platform |
| Max takeoff weight | Aircraft | Heaviest the aircraft can get airborne, including weight of the aircraft, equipment, and fuel. |
| Min runway | Aircraft | Shortest runway the type can operate from. |
| Payload | Aircraft | Weight left for weapons with full internal fuel. |
| Propulsion | Ships, submarines | Installed power, or nuclear against diesel-electric. |
| Radar cross-section | Aircraft, ships, missiles | How visible the platform is to radar, in dBsm. The hint gives the range it presents across aspect angles and radar bands. |
| Radiated noise | Submarines | Noise from creep speed to full speed. Affects detectability and the submarine's own sonar sensitivity. |
| Range | Weapons | Engagement envelope, minimum to maximum. |
| Reference range | Sensors | Detection range against a reference-size target. |
| RF coverage | Jammers | The frequency range the jammer can work in. A radar outside it is unaffected. |
| Scan period | Sensors | Seconds to revisit a contact. |
| Targets | Weapons | What the weapon can engage. A air, U surface, S subsurface, L land. |
| Warhead | Weapons | Damage model naming type, target medium and approximate weight. |
| Weight | Weapons | All-up weight of the round. Counts against a launching aircraft's payload. |
| Wire guided | Torpedoes | Whether the launching submarine can steer it down a cable after firing. |
Terms#
Active sensor. A sensor that transmits and listens for the return. Longer ranged and more precise than passive equivalents, at the cost of revealing your position.
Cavitation. Vapor bubbles forming and collapsing on a propeller, producing a loud broadband noise. Occurs when speed is over a threshold, which increases with depth.
Class. A type of platform or equipment, such as F-16C/D Block 40. Every catalog entry is a class. Individual units in a scenario are instances of one.
dBsm. Decibels relative to one square meter, the unit of radar cross-section. Zero dBsm is one square meter, roughly a fighter, and it is the reference for sensor reference range. A difference of 10 dB changes cross-section by a factor of 10.
Datalink. A network connection letting one platform shoot on another's sensor picture. It is how a task group's reach exceeds any single ship's.
Decibel A ratio of two values on a logarithmic scale (abbreviated dB). For power quantities decibels are 10 * log10(ratio).
ECM. Electronic countermeasures. Radiofrequency jamming that degrades hostile sensors while making you detectable by passive sensors. Each jammer works over a set frequency range and against search radars, missile seekers, or both.
ERP. Effective radiated power. How much jamming power a set puts on the target's bearing, in dBW. It is the figure that decides whether jamming overcomes a radar at a given range.
Emissions control. Deciding what and when to radiate to balance awareness and stealth.
ESM. Electronic support measures. A passive receiver that detects other radiofrequency emissions, usually at greater range than those emitters detect you.
EW. Electronic warfare (or early warning in the context of radars).
Hertz. (Hz) a unit of frequency, one cycle per second. Abbreviated as Hz, kHz (kilohertz), MHz (megahertz), and GHz (gigahertz).
Infrared. (IR) Electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths longer than visible light but shorter than radiofrequency signals. Typical sensor bands are short-wave IR (SWIR) from 0.9 to 1.7 micrometers, mid-wave IR (MWIR) from 3 to 5 micrometers, and long-wave IR (LWIR) from 8 to 14 micrometers.
Layer. A thermal boundary in the ocean that bends sound. Being on the opposite side of the layer from a searching sonar reduces detection.
LEO, MEO, GEO. Satellite orbit categories for Low, Medium, and Geostationary/Geosynchronous Earth Orbit. LEO includes altitudes up to 2,000 km. MEO is between 2,000 and 35,700 km. GEO is at 35,786 km altitude.
Load factor. The g-force an airframe sustains in a turn. Higher limits mean harder turns and better missile evasion.
Magazine. Storage holding reloads for a platforms launchers or other equipment. Capacity decides how long a unit can keep shooting.
Minimum range. The distance below which a weapon cannot engage. Creates holes in air defenses and torpedo envelopes.
Passive sensor. A sensor that only receives. Silent but often unable to precisely determine range.
Radar cross-section. (RCS) How strongly a target reflects radar energy, in dBsm. Detection range scales with its fourth root for noise-limited detection. Halving your RCS cuts detection range by 16%, 10 dB of reduction cuts it to 56%. It varies with the angle a target is seen from, and with radar wavelength as well.
Radar band. A named slice of the radio spectrum, using the IEEE designations HF, VHF, UHF, L, S, C, X, Ku, K, Ka, and MMW. Band sets what an ESM receiver or a jammer can work against, and it indicates what a radar is built for. See Frequency and radar bands.
Radar horizon. The range at which the earth's curvature hides a low target. The radar horizon can cause sea-skimming missiles to arrive with little warning, and provide longer detection range for airborne early warning aircraft.
Radiofrequency. (RF) Electromagnetic signals that radars and communication systems use with frequencies from 3,000 hertz to 300 gigahertz. Radars typically operate from 0.1 to 30 gigahertz, with search radars using lower frequencies.
Reference-size target. The standard target that sensor reference range is measured against in the simulation, 0 dBsm for radar.
Scan period. How long a sensor takes to revisit a point in its coverage. Long periods mean stale tracks and missed pop-up threats.
Semi-active homing. A seeker that homes on energy reflected off the target from the launching platform's radar. The launcher must illuminate the target until impact, which limits how many targets it can engage at once and keeps it committed.
Snorkeling. A diesel-electric submarine running its diesels at shallow depth to recharge. Loud, detectable, and unavoidable once battery endurance runs out.
Sprint and drift. Searching by alternating fast repositioning with slow quiet listening.
Target strength. How well a submarine reflects active sonar, unrelated to how much noise it radiates. Analogous to radar cross-section in radar.
Track. A contact your sensors are monitoring and estimating position, speed, and heading. Tracks can be ambiguous or stale.
VLS. Vertical launching system. Cells in ships or submarines that launch missiles straight up, usually split into banks holding different weapons.