E-4 Overlord

"Airborne early warning radar jet (AWACS). It can scan a large area and provide aircraft positions via data link to allies."

― Mission Editor Description

The E-4 Overlord is an allied AI-controlled aircraft with an AWACS radar affixed to the top. It uses its mounted 360 degree rotating radar dish to sweep long ranges (250–400 miles) scanning for targets and allies. The E-4 can then transmit this data to allied units and direct attack missions.

The AWACS radar dish scans on the LOW band, offering consistent target identification over very long distances and making it unable to lock targets on its own. In game, units detected by the E-4 Overlord are always visible to the player, and there is no datalink or radio range simulated. If an AWACS is jammed on the LOW band, its ability to locate tracks will be negatively affected.

The E-4 has no defensive or offensive capability by itself (aside from some basic countermeasures), and instead relies on its powerful radar to detect threats and direct units to attack them. Players should be vigilant to defend it as enemy AI will engage it under most circumstances.

AEW-50 Bulwark
The AEW-50 Bulwark, wearing its specialized REDFOR livery The AEW-50 Bulwark is the REDFOR analogue of the E-4 Overlord. It behaves and performs in the same way as its BLUFOR counterpart, but has a different livery to represent its different allegiance.

Commands

Interaction with it is facilitated through the game's radio communication feature. There is a section in the COMMS MFCD page for it. The available commands are as follows:

• Bogey Dope: Provides a BRAA (see section below) to the nearest enemy fighter squadron.
• Picture: Provides the BRAA for the three nearest enemy fighter squadrons.
• RTB: Provides a bearing and range to the nearest friendly airbase. While AWACS will say "BRAA", it will not give you altitude nor aspect, since they wouldn't make sense in this context.

These can also be used as Voice Commands; you will need to prefix them with "AWACS"* or "Overlord" and this will need to be enabled beforehand in the Mission Editor. The recognized voice commands are as follows:

• Bogey Dope
  • "Bogey dope."
  • "Request bogey dope."
  • "Ready for tasking."
  • "BRAA"
  • "Who is next"
  • "Give me a target."
  • "Where are they"
• Picture
  • "Picture."
  • "Request picture."
• RTB
  • "RTB."
  • "Request RTB."
  • "Homeplate."
  • "Vector to base."

*Pronounced like "Ayy wax".

Terminology

AWACS uses a specific terminology for its callouts, one that provides relevant information about an enemy's position in a fashion as concise as possible. Here is how a callout is formed:

"[Callsign], Overlord. (Popup) (Contact) [BRAA/Bullseye]: [BRAA data], [Modifiers]."

• Callsign - AWACS will address you by your callsign for all communications. This is a phonetic alphabet word along with two numbers and is shown to you in the briefing room. For example, Alpha 1-1 or Tango 4–2.
• Overlord - AWACS will always refer to itself as Overlord.
• Popup - If a hostile is spotted within the AWACS' scanning range, meaning that it did not simply fly in to the engagement zone, AWACS will say "popup" to indicate. Reasons for this include enemies hiding via terrain and then being unmasked, or if the radar simply loses a signature.
• Contact identifier
  • Group - The AWACS will use this term if it determines that multiple aircraft are flying in formation/a group.
  • Hostile/Bandit: A blanket term for individual enemy aircraft not flying in formation.
• BRAA/Bullseye - If a bullseye is defined for the mission, AWACS will give you BRAA from the bullseye's perspective instead of your own in most cases. However, AWACS will always give you BRAA from your own perspective when you're requesting bogey dope.
• BRAA data - BRAA is an acronym that stands for Bearing, Range, Altitude, Aspect.
  • The first term, bearing, is your true bearing to the target. For example, a bearing of 260 means that you should turn to heading 260 to head directly toward the target.
  • The second term, range, is your range to the target in whatever units you have set in your preferences.
  • The third term, altitude, is the target's altitude ASL in thousands of feet.
  • The fourth term, aspect, is the target's heading compared to you. Hot means that the target is headed directly towards you, cold means directly away, and tracking north/south/east/west means the target is heading in that general direction.
• Modifiers - AWACS will append a callout with several modifiers based on specific triggers. It will use multiple terms in one callout where appropriate:
  • Altitude modifiers
    • Weeds - Target is below 2,000 feet ASL.
    • Low - Target is between 2,000 feet and 10,000 feet ASL.
    • High - Target is between 25,000 and 40,000 feet ASL.
    • Very High - Target is above 40,000 feet ASL.
  • Speed Modifiers
    • Fast - Target's speed is at least Mach 1 (600 knots ground speed).
    • Very Fast- Target's speed is at least Mach 2 (1200 knots ground speed).
  • Leans on Overlord - Target is becoming dangerously close to AWACS and it fears that it may be engaged. If this criterion is met, AWACS will immediately give you a callout to the target without being prompted.

In addition to this, AWACS will use the following terms where appropriate:

• Grand Slam - AWACS will say this when all hostile aircraft for the mission have been shot down. However, it will not say this term if a hostile is simply evading radar contact and cannot be seen.
• Clean - AWACS will say this if the player requests a picture or a bogey dope but it cannot see any hostiles.
• Homeplate - AWACS will refer to the closest allied airbase as this in cases of RTB requests.

Trivia

• The E-4's radar dish has no collision box.
• The aircraft's model is reused from the KC-49 Tanker.