On Apr 8, 6:36 am, Eunometic wrote:
On Feb 16, 7:37 am, Mike wrote:

Fading Signal: The Neglect of Electronic Warfare.
Lexington Institute.http://lexingtoninstitute.org/1223.shtml

When you consider how much money Americans spend on defense -- about
$4 trillion so far in this decade alone -- it's amazing what a poor
job we do of maintaining our military arsenal. In the years since the
cold war ended, the Navy's fleet has shrunk by half to fewer than 300
ships, the Air Force's planes have "matured" to twice the age of the
commercial airline fleet, and the Army has largely abandoned the
production of heavy armored vehicles. There's a simple reason for all
these signs of military decay: the threat went away. No peer
adversary has taken the place of the Red Army or the Imperial Navy.

I note that the USN Grumman EA-6B is being used to create a jammed
space around ground US patrols in Iraq.

The jamming prevents the detonation of improvised explosive devices.
Presumably highly directional
electronically shaped antenna create temporal grace around the patrol.

The USAF apparently can't do this mission due to the degradation of
this type of aircraft.

The money is going into the occupation of Iraq. Eventually advanced
tech will be needed, maybe to
protect Taiwan for a little longer from a rapidly empowering China.

http://icasualties.org/oif/IED.aspx

IED Deaths by month, 1746 to April 1, 4024 total U.S. deaths, equal
43% of all dead are victims of IEDs. No number on wounded, but the
given ratio is 16 wounded for each death. ie about 28k