Electronic Warfare: East vs West

[boogieman]

Over the last decade or more it has become increasingly obvious that the east and west have diverged significantly in their approach to electronic warfare. While the US has capitalised on its advantage in the development of VLO aircraft and used this synergistically with its EW capability, Russia in particular appears to have forged ahead with a host of dedicated EW platforms that are both airborne and ground based.

Information on these platforms has been hard to come by in the public domain until fairly recently - the Russians have clearly used deployments in the Ukraine and Syria to validate CONOPS and test new equipment in this space. Below I have listed a few ground based platforms (that appear to have no western equivalent) to promote discussion on how they might be used, what effect they may have on western operations and how they might be countered:

Borisoglebsk 2 - The Borisoglebsk 2 is a mobile system. Its role is to disrupt mobile satellite communications and satellite-based navigation signals (GPS), basically jamming of HF/UHF (both terrestrial and aircraft) radio channels and GPS



Leer 3 - The Leer-3 role is to jam GSM (cellular) signals with the support of Orlan-10 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). In this case, the jammer is the actual drone. It is designed to locate electromagnetic emission sources and suppress wireless communications, including cellphones, within a 3.7-mile (+6 kilometers) radius of the drone. The system can “read” GSM networks (cellular network in the GSM 900 and GSM 1800 frequency bands) and pinpoint mobile phone users, substitute itself to the network and send messages to mobile phone users in its zone of operation or simply jam and neutralise the network.



Murmansk - BN - This system is specifically designed to target the High Frequency Global Communications System which is the global communication system used by the US Navy and US Air Force. The range given varies depending on the sources, but it is estimated at between 3000km and 5000 km.



Rtut-BM - The Rtut is defensive in design. Its role is simple: jamming radio controlled proximity fuses of incoming ammunition. Basically, the Rtut acts as an umbrella and protects nearby troops from artillery fire, should the enemy artillery shells or rockets be equipped with proximity fuses. The Rtut ensures the incoming projectiles (prematurely) explode at too high an altitude or not at all.



The Moskva-1/Moscow-1 - used as a passive radar capable of detecting and identifying airborne targets at a distance of up to 400km. As it is passive, it does not emit radiation and is therefore harder to detect. Furthermore, this platform can vector in friendly jets toward airborne targets or relay their coordinates to nearby AA systems. It means potent systems such as the S-300 and S-400 working in tandem with a Moskva-1 unit could potentially be used without being detected until they actually launch their missiles.



1RL257 Krasukha-4 - big brother to the Krasukha 2. A broadband multi-functional jamming station. designed to disrupt ground based and airborne radars including AWACS and radar guided missiles at a range of between 150km and 300km. It has apparently the range necessary to jam and damage Low Earth Orbit Satellites



https://defensionem.com/russian-electro ... e-systems/

[boogieman]

Airborne EW Aircraft/Systems

- Il22-PP - A Russian contemporary of the EC-130H Compass Call. Likely capable of long range standoff jamming and ELINT.



- Mi-8 MTPR-1- EW variant of the venerable Mi-8 helicopter fitted the new Rychag-AV jamming set. Likely targeted at western radar based GBAD systems like NASAMS, Patriot and MEADS.



- Su34 & SAP14 - The SAP14 appears to be a modern standoff/escort jamming pod similar in role to the US ALQ99. Generally found on the centreline station of Russian Su34s.



- Tu214R - New Russian ELINT aircraft possibly analogous to the RC135.

[underscan]

Some news sources I have received suggests that the Peresvet laser system is used as a mobile nuclear reactor to blind infrared systems which I am assuming counts as EW. I guess it has some decent amount of power considering the size of the system.

https://topwar.ru/159438-predstavleny-p ... hassi.html
https://topwar.ru/167342-sekrety-komple ... -mech.html

Also the US is pursuing nuclear reactors in which it might be a matter of time they get a land based laser version.

https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releas ... vDelivery/

DOD uses approximately 30 terrawatt hours of electricity per year and more than 10 million gallons of fuel per day-levels that are expected to increase. A safe, small, mobile nuclear reactor would enable units to carry a nearly endless clean power supply, enabling expansion and sustainment of operations for extended periods of time anywhere on the planet.

"The United States risks ceding nuclear energy technology leadership to Russia and China," said Mr. Jay Dryer, SCO director. "By retaking technological leadership, the United States will be able to supply the most innovative advanced nuclear energy technologies."

Microreactors would significantly reduce the need for investments in costly power infrastructure. In civilian applications, they could be easily relocated to support disaster response work and provide temporary or long-term support to critical infrastructure like hospitals, as well as remote civilian locations where delivery of electricity and power is difficult.

The engineering design phase of Project Pele will continue for up to two years, after which the DOD will make an assessment on whether a microreactor capable of meeting necessary safety requirements is feasible.

[boogieman]

Yes Peresvet is quite a mysterious system. Could be a strictly C-UAV platform, could be something more substantial. Realistically a turreted system like this is going to be limited to one target at a time but it is worthy of mention regardless.

[knowan]

Persevet is most likely just a dazzler; if it was capable of shooting something down, Russia would have produced videos of it doing so.
And a laser doesn't need a nuclear reactor to do that, so sources speculating on the existence of such a reactor for Persevet are garbage.

The USA is well beyond dazzlers despite not using mobile nuclear reactors; the 30 kW AN/SEQ-3 was field tested in 2014, the 60 kW HELIOS is due for installation on an Arleigh Burke next year and the 150 kW SSL-TM to be installed on the USS Portland sometime soon.

[boogieman]

While looking at the platforms themselves is important, it is also equally (if not more) important to understand the rationale behind their employment. The following comes from an interesting article on Russian A2/AD capabilities:

The problem with the A2/AD lens is born from the term’s origins. As Luis Simon has observed, the term began among the China-watcher community and has since been applied to Russia, a continental land power in a decidedly different geographical theater, and with a tradition of military thought distinct from China’s. The concept admittedly has utility when looking at a maritime theater involving Russia or China. Still, while there is commonality in capabilities between America’s great power adversaries, when broadly applied to two very different countries the term confuses more than it reveals because Russia is not China, and Europe is not the Pacific. In fact, the Russian term for A2/AD — restriction and denial of access and maneuver, (ogranicheniye i vospreshcheniye dostupa i manyuvra) — is just a ham-fisted transliteration of the Western term A2/AD because there is no Russian term for A2/AD. This is not a concept in Russian military thought, and there is no Russian strategy bearing that name...

...A2/AD sticks because it plays to the U.S. defense community’s tendency to fixate on adversary capabilities, seeking counters or an edge, while frequently overlooking how the other side intends to employ them in war. As a consequence, the discourse turns into technology fetishism, planners and strategists focus on procurement solutions to adversary capabilities rather than developing strategies to counter their operational concepts...

The overarching concept is driven by the assumption that the initial period of war will be decisive because deflection, attrition, and disorganization will stop the U.S. military from executing its preferred way of war, and a U.S. failure to attain quick victory will decisively affect American political resolve. Although the Russian General Staff would love to impose a cost to theater access and maneuver, they expect a U.S. aerospace blitzkrieg which cannot be blocked at the outset. Their answer is to deflect, degrade, suppress, or preempt in order to functionally destroy the adversary’s ability to fight, and ultimately win the attrition exchange.

In short, the Russian military expects that U.S. forces will arrive in theater, and that Russian strategic operations can successfully counter U.S. concepts of operations during the relevant conflict period or impose high enough costs to force a de-escalation. If not, there is always theater employment of non-strategic nuclear weapons, an area where Russia does not suffer credibility problems.

https://warontherocks.com/2019/09/its-t ... challenge/

[eloise]

Persevet is most likely just a dazzler; if it was capable of shooting something down, Russia would have produced videos of it doing so.
And a laser doesn't need a nuclear reactor to do that, so sources speculating on the existence of such a reactor for Persevet are garbage.

The USA is well beyond dazzlers despite not using mobile nuclear reactors; the 30 kW AN/SEQ-3 was field tested in 2014, the 60 kW HELIOS is due for installation on an Arleigh Burke next year and the 150 kW SSL-TM to be installed on the USS Portland sometime soon.

From the look of it, Peresvet is very similar to IFPC-HEL, I think It could be used to intercept rocket and small UAV

[eloise]

Over the last decade or more it has become increasingly obvious that the east and west have diverged significantly in their approach to electronic warfare. While the US has capitalised on its advantage in the development of VLO aircraft and used this synergistically with its EW capability, Russia in particular appears to have forged ahead with a host of dedicated EW platforms that are both airborne and ground based.

Information on these platforms has been hard to come by in the public domain until fairly recently - the Russians have clearly used deployments in the Ukraine and Syria to validate CONOPS and test new equipment in this space. Below I have listed a few ground based platforms (that appear to have no western equivalent) to promote discussion on how they might be used, what effect they may have on western operations and how they might be countered:

Borisoglebsk 2 - The Borisoglebsk 2 is a mobile system. Its role is to disrupt mobile satellite communications and satellite-based navigation signals (GPS), basically jamming of HF/UHF (both terrestrial and aircraft) radio channels and GPS



Leer 3 - The Leer-3 role is to jam GSM (cellular) signals with the support of Orlan-10 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). In this case, the jammer is the actual drone. It is designed to locate electromagnetic emission sources and suppress wireless communications, including cellphones, within a 3.7-mile (+6 kilometers) radius of the drone. The system can “read” GSM networks (cellular network in the GSM 900 and GSM 1800 frequency bands) and pinpoint mobile phone users, substitute itself to the network and send messages to mobile phone users in its zone of operation or simply jam and neutralise the network.



Murmansk - BN - This system is specifically designed to target the High Frequency Global Communications System which is the global communication system used by the US Navy and US Air Force. The range given varies depending on the sources, but it is estimated at between 3000km and 5000 km.



Rtut-BM - The Rtut is defensive in design. Its role is simple: jamming radio controlled proximity fuses of incoming ammunition. Basically, the Rtut acts as an umbrella and protects nearby troops from artillery fire, should the enemy artillery shells or rockets be equipped with proximity fuses. The Rtut ensures the incoming projectiles (prematurely) explode at too high an altitude or not at all.



The Moskva-1/Moscow-1 - used as a passive radar capable of detecting and identifying airborne targets at a distance of up to 400km. As it is passive, it does not emit radiation and is therefore harder to detect. Furthermore, this platform can vector in friendly jets toward airborne targets or relay their coordinates to nearby AA systems. It means potent systems such as the S-300 and S-400 working in tandem with a Moskva-1 unit could potentially be used without being detected until they actually launch their missiles.



1RL257 Krasukha-4 - big brother to the Krasukha 2. A broadband multi-functional jamming station. designed to disrupt ground based and airborne radars including AWACS and radar guided missiles at a range of between 150km and 300km. It has apparently the range necessary to jam and damage Low Earth Orbit Satellites



https://defensionem.com/russian-electro ... e-systems/

The most obvious way to deal with a jamming source is to launch an RF homming missile at them, or any missile with HoJ feature. AARGM-ER sound like a good start. If it works against airborne jammer, it will work against ground jammer, even more effective because these ground jamming system can't move around as quick as an EA-18G


and there are some anti jam -GPS device that can offer +125 dB improvement in J/S ratio

[zhangmdev]

A bit of history about space communication.

https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4217/ch8.htm

The US spent a lot on updating its space system to counter jamming.

GPS III has improved anti-jam capability.
WGS has limited protection.
AEFH is jam-proof.

Needless to say, very little information about this ongoing war in the electric realm is available to the general public. I think the idea is largely:

Using extremely high frequency. Higher power. Phase-steered beams. Line of sight. And laser-comm.

Alos, the West has mobile anti-uav defense system AUDS

https://defense-update.com/20171026_dsei2017.html/8

[boogieman]

Yes I suppose the intuitive downside to using so many electronic attack systems is that they must all emit RF energy in some form to do their job, which is not conducive to concealment. It would be interesting to know how well a missile like AARGM-ER would fare when targeting something like a Krasukha system. Could the Krasukha perform some EW sorcery and soft kill the inbound missile(s)? Probably impossible to know. Its role seems to be oriented toward the protection of high value targets so you'd also have to expect that it would be operating under the protection of something like S400, with hard kill options available too.

That said, it is important to note that even the mighty S400 can only handle a certain number of simultaneous targets in a given window of time. The beauty of a missile like AARGM-ER is not just that it can be launched from longer range, but that it will get to its target more quickly at shorter ranges. A traditional HARM launched from ~50nm may hit a peak speed of ~Mach 2 and then slow down after motor burnout, giving the target more time to respond. The motor on an AARGM-ER launched from the same range will be burning its way to the target a lot longer, giving that target a much shorter response window. If its peak speed is even higher than HARM (seems likely given the larger motor and more streamlined design of AGM88G) this effect will be even more pronounced. Launching simultaneous salvos of AARGM-ER from multiple F35s on different approach vectors would only make them that much harder to deal with.

[knowan]

From the look of it, Peresvet is very similar to IFPC-HEL, I think It could be used to intercept rocket and small UAV

High-Energy-Laser-Mobile-Test-Truck-HELMTT.jpg

Russia can't help but brag about its weapons; if Peresvet had the capability of destroying anything, they would have produced a bunch of propaganda videos demonstrating that.

[eloise]

. The beauty of a missile like AARGM-ER is not just that it can be launched from longer range, but that it will get to its target more quickly at shorter ranges. A traditional HARM launched from ~50nm may hit a peak speed of ~Mach 2 and then slow down after motor burnout, giving the target more time to respond. The motor on an AARGM-ER launched from the same range will be burning its way to the target a lot longer, giving that target a much shorter response window. If its peak speed is even higher than HARM (seems likely given the larger motor and more streamlined design of AGM88G) this effect will be even more pronounced. Launching simultaneous salvos of AARGM-ER from multiple F35s on different approach vectors would only make them that much harder to deal with.

AARGM-ER is two time faster than HARM

'Increased Survivability' is built into the AARGM ER requirement, although Stuart declined to comment on the specifics of the Orbital ATK solution, noting only that "speed is in the equation. We're going double the range in about the same amount of time, and you have to increase speed to achieve that; so speed in and of itself is an improvement to survivability. There are other aspects of our design solution that improve survivability, but these are not releasable".

https://www.janes.com/article/71285/orb ... gn-concept
I had a discussion about it with Spurt in viewtopic.php?f=38&t=56673&start=15 ,AARGM-ER speed and range is similar to Kh-15

[boogieman]

..which makes it that much nastier. To my mind the real value in AARGM-ER is not what it can accomplish when fired from max range, but what it can do when your F35 flight closes to just outside of SAM detection range. I dare say available reaction time will be very short indeed.

BTW I wonder if you could use it as an anti-AWACS weapon. Guidance package probably isn't ideal but it might be one way to force a radar shutdown from the local A50/A100/KJ500

[knowan]

..which makes it that much nastier. To my mind the real value in AARGM-ER is not what it can accomplish when fired from max range, but what it can do when your F35 flight closes to just outside of SAM detection range. I dare say available reaction time will be very short indeed.

BTW I wonder if you could use it as an anti-AWACS weapon. Guidance package probably isn't ideal but it might be one way to force a radar shutdown from the local A50/A100/KJ500

AARGM-ER has a MMW active radar seeker; while mmW isn't normally used in anti-air missiles, it probably can do the job, given the similarly MMW active radar AGM-114L-7/8 has anti-air capability.

That said, I suspect a new guidance package would be developed if there was a real desire to use the AARGM-ER in A2A role.

[boogieman]

It wouldn't surprise me if we see such a weapon materialise sooner rather than later (LREW?). The PLAAF AWACS fleet is actually getting pretty large nowadays and the Russians have enough A50's to maintain a fairly consistent presence over their western approaches.