Fading Signal: The Neglect of Electronic Warfare.

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.

The decline of electronic warfare is harder to explain, because there
the threat never went away -- it got worse. Electronic warfare is the
fight for control of the electromagnetic spectrum, the medium via
which all of our communications and information systems operate.
During the cold war, each military service nurtured a community of
specialists adept at blocking or manipulating enemy transmissions
while countering enemy efforts to do the same to us. They jammed
radars, disrupted command links, confused sensors and in general made
it difficult for adversaries to employ any electronic device.

When you're really good at electronic warfare, your enemy is nearly
helpless. He can't see, he can't hear, he can't even turn on the
lights. Electronic warfare is the reason why Syria's military didn't
know it was under attack last year until Israeli bombs began exploding
at its sole nuclear-weapons facility -- even though the jets dropping
the bombs had to transit Syrian air space to get to the target. Like
cyber warfare, it's the kind of warfighting skill that only a
technologically advanced country can be really good at, so you'd think
U.S. military planners would want to exploit it for maximum
leverage.

Well, guess again. Aside from the U.S. Navy and a small band of
dedicated congressmen called the Electronic Warfare Working Group,
this arcane specialty has become an orphan in the budgeting process.
The Air Force walked away from electronic warfare when it decided that
stealthy aircraft could be invisible to any radar (it later learned
that wasn't entirely true). The Army aborted plans to build an
"aerial common sensor" that could find hostile emitters on the
battlefield, only to discover that insurgents in Iraq were using cell
phones and electronic bomb detonators to great effect. And the
Marines just stopped thinking about the subject.

The Navy held on, developing a replacement for the aging Prowler
jamming plane called the Growler (a variant of the F/A-18 Super
Hornet). Part of the reason was that naval aviators weren't as
impressed with stealth as their Air Force counterparts, and so they
continued investing in other approaches to defending aircraft. The
Army has now rediscovered electronic warfare as a result of setbacks
in Iraq, and has sent soldiers to train with Navy specialists. But
even the Navy has lagged in funding next-gen capabilities, which
probably require unmanned aircraft that can get closer to hostile
emitters.

Perhaps the time has come to put the Navy in charge of all joint
electronic warfare activities. The other services don't have their
acts together, and the Navy is less stressed at the moment than the
ground forces. That could change, but the problem right now is that a
vital skill is being neglected, and the Navy may be the only service
with enough expertise and imagination to keep it alive.

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.

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.

Cite, on the jamming being successful?

"Eunometic" wrote in message
...

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 British did something similar in Northern Ireland.

The IRA switched to command detonated devices.

After the British started looking for the wires after the bang they moved on
to more sophisticated radio equipment such as that found on the dead IRA
people shot in Gibraltar which required a series of thumb wheels to be set
to the correct number to transmit the firing signal.

The stuff is 'Radio Amateur' technology and can be picked up in any major
city.

It is reasonable to assume that the Iraqi bad guys have access to all this
sort of thing at that technical escalation will happen in exactly the same
way...

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.


..

"Juergen Nieveler" wrote in message
. ..
"William Black" wrote:

It is reasonable to assume that the Iraqi bad guys have access to all
this sort of thing at that technical escalation will happen in exactly
the same way...

Or they'll stick to line-of-sight stuff like IR or lasers, or they'll
switch to using mobile phones and planting the bombs in areas where
people will complain abou too frequent mobile phone outages.

Or they'll shift to using something that detects a jam of the radio-
command-link and then activates a motion sensor... after all, jamming
means "the patrol is coming, get ready".


The more sophisticated jammers only switch on when a signal is detected,
hopefully quickly enough to stop a detonation.

Jeff

"Jeff" wrote in message
. com...


The more sophisticated jammers only switch on when a signal is detected,
hopefully quickly enough to stop a detonation.

They'll make electronic garage door openers, radio type car alarm tags and
a huge assortment of other things entertaining to use...

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.

In message , William Black
writes

"Jeff" wrote in message
.com...


The more sophisticated jammers only switch on when a signal is detected,
hopefully quickly enough to stop a detonation.

They'll make electronic garage door openers, radio type car alarm tags and
a huge assortment of other things entertaining to use...

You'll just have to wait for the HMMWVs to drive past before your car
will unlock, your garage door open or your cordless phone ring.

It's counterproductive to shut down a neighbourhood, you just need to
prevent detonations within lethal distance.

--
The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its
warriors, will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done
by fools.
-Thucydides


pauldotjdotadam[at]googlemail{dot}.com

"Juergen Nieveler" wrote in message
. ..

BTW, do those jammers send white noise, or are they smart enough to
fake a signal? Say, I build a small detonator from RC car parts, and it
depends on the transmitter sending "left, right, left..." every 30
seconds, with a timer starting on every signal, counting down until the
opposite side timer is started.

With a white noise jammer, no signal gets through anymore, 30 seconds
later you get *bang*...

All this stuff came out at the inquest into the people shot in Gib. The
claim was made that the security forces should be able to jam the signal.

They explained in some detail why they couldn't.

It seems that the IRA people used a Trio Radio Amateur 144 MHz pocket radio
system that requires a sequence of reversals transmitted by VHF FSK to
trigger an open channel. The sequence is set by a row of five thumbwheels,
each of ten digits.

So you've got a million, minus one, possible combinations.

I leave as an exercise for the reader the calculation of the linear
recursive sequence necessary to trigger the thing prematurely...

This, of course, assumes the security forces know the radio frequency and
the FSK baud rate and frequency shift.

White noise generators don't work once the bad guys get up to 'radio
amateur' levels of knowledge of triggering technology...

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.

On Apr 8, 7:41*am, "William Black"
wrote:
"Juergen Nieveler" wrote in message

. ..



BTW, do those jammers send white noise, or are they smart enough to
fake a signal? Say, I build a small detonator from RC car parts, and it
depends on the transmitter sending "left, right, left..." every 30
seconds, with a timer starting on every signal, counting down until the
opposite side timer is started.

With a white noise jammer, no signal gets through anymore, 30 seconds
later you get *bang*...

All this stuff came out at the inquest into the people shot in Gib. The
claim was made that the security forces should be able to jam the signal.

They explained in some detail why they couldn't.

It seems that the IRA people used a Trio Radio Amateur 144 MHz pocket radio
system that requires a sequence of reversals transmitted by VHF FSK to
trigger an open channel. *The sequence is set by a row of five thumbwheels,
each of ten digits.

So you've got a million, minus one, possible combinations.

I leave as an exercise for the reader the calculation of the linear
recursive sequence necessary to trigger the thing prematurely...

This, *of course, assumes the security forces know the radio frequency and
the FSK baud rate and frequency shift.

White noise generators don't work once the bad guys get up to 'radio
amateur' levels of knowledge of triggering technology...


Gibraltar was 20 years ago. They've learned a lot since then and
deaths from IED's have dropped dramatically since the USN's EW experts
have trained the soldiers to use the equipment correctly.

"They called themselves "sand sailors," and they did their job well by
reducing IED fatalities at their bases. Monthly U.S. troop deaths from
IEDs have dropped since reaching a high of 90 in May to 17 last month,
in part because of their efforts, the military said in awarding Bronze
Stars to Dye and others."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar...ead_ied_fight/


BB

I guess everybody has some mountain to climb.
It's just fate whether you live in Kansas or Tibet...

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