USANG and BriteCloud

[basher54321]

Can new spoofing tech give US aircraft a shroud in the clouds?

The U.S. Air National Guard is set to test next-generation decoy technology that was originally designed and fielded in the United Kingdom to protect Royal Air Force aircraft against advanced radar-guided missiles.

Leonardo announced May 13 that its expendable active decoy technology — known as BriteCloud — will be evaluated under the Office of Secretary of Defense Foreign Comparative Testing (FCT) program, potentially leading the way for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy to adopt the technology across its fighter fleets.

As part of the BriteCloud trials, F-16s will dispense the decoys “in a variety of challenging scenarios,” Leonardo officials said.

Working with its U.S. subsidiary Selex Galileo, testing will begin this summer, said Jon McCullagh, Leonardo Electronics’ head of strategic campaigns for electronic warfare. “Trials will take place at Air National Guard ranges in the United States. There will initially be ground-based evaluation using ‘hardware-in-the-loop’ testing, followed by flight trials,” he told C4ISRNET.

He added: “Assuming the results are positive, as has been seen in all previous trial campaigns, then we understand that the U.S. Air National Guard will take BriteCloud into service.”

BriteCloud can be ejected from existing flare and chaff dispensers — negating the need for costly integration work — and utilizes what is known as Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) techniques, meaning it can digitally capture the signals coming from a radar-guided missile, analyze them against its own on-board threat library, and then emit a spoofing signal to cloak the targeted aircraft.

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Read more: https://www.c4isrnet.com/electronic-war ... witter.com

[gc]

Wonder how does the Britecloud compare to the ALE-50. I suppose the ALE-50 will be capable of more power and complex algorithm by virtue of it remaining tethered to the launch platform. But the F-16 is limited to 4 while they can potentially carry more Briteclouds. Miss distance will be greater in the Britecloud but the ALE-50 will project a more realistic flight profile as its dragged along by the fighter. Is this procurement driven by the ALE-50 being not compatible with ANG’s earlier F-16 blocks?

[garrya]

Wonder how does the Britecloud compare to the ALE-50. I suppose the ALE-50 will be capable of more power and complex algorithm by virtue of it remaining tethered to the launch platform. But the F-16 is limited to 4 while they can potentially carry more Briteclouds. Miss distance will be greater in the Britecloud but the ALE-50 will project a more realistic flight profile as its dragged along by the fighter. Is this procurement driven by the ALE-50 being not compatible with ANG’s earlier F-16 blocks?

ALE-50 is a simple repeater
Brite cloud is a DRFM jammer
So Brite cloud can use more complex jamming techniques.
ALE-50 is tethered to the aircraft but it has no link with the aircraft unlike ALE-55 or ALE-70

[basher54321]

The Expendable Active Decoy will be tested on US F-16s after the recent tests on Italian Tornados and Danish F-16s.

March 26, 2022

The U.S. Air Force’s Seek Eagle Office has approved Leonardo’s BriteCloud 218 Expendable Active Decoy to be flown on Air National Guard F-16C Block 30 aircraft as part of the Defense Department’s Foreign Comparative Testing (FCT) program. The operational testing program, first announced in 2019, is expected to be completed this year, with possible procurement to follow.

As we reported in an in-depth story last year, BriteCloud is a battery powered, self-contained cartridge that provides an off-board jamming capability that can be dropped like the classic chaffs and flares, creating a large distance between the aircraft and the decoy so the missile and its shrapnel miss completely the aircraft. According to Leonardo, BriteCloud has the capability to defeat the majority of RF-guided surface-to-air and air-to-air threat systems, including the ones that rely on the “home-on-jam” guidance.

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https://theaviationist.com/2022/03/26/l ... n-the-u-s/

[basher54321]

U.S. Air National Guard Recommends Fielding Of BriteCloud 218 Decoy
December 19, 2022

The U.S. Air National Guard has issued a “fielding recommendation” for Leonardo’s BriteCloud 218 Expendable Active Decoy, after the successful completion of the Foreign Comparative Testing on the service’s F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets.

BriteCloud 218 is a smaller variant of the 55 mm cylindrical BriteCloud round which can fit the 2”x1”x8” US-made chaff/flare dispensers, like the standard AN/ALE-47 countermeasure dispensers installed on the F-16.

According to the press release, the ANG “is confident that the decoy meets and, in some instances, even exceeds operational requirements, delivering an increased platform protection capability to 4th generation fighter aircraft”. With the fielding recommendation, the U.S. Air Force has now subsequently designated BriteCloud 218 as AN/ALQ-260(V)1, identifying it as an airborne electronic warfare countermeasure.

https://theaviationist.com/2022/12/19/u ... 218-decoy/