Fading Signal: The Neglect of Electronic Warfare.

In article 25be0da4-ab1b-45a1-9050-64e90dcf360d@
1g2000prg.googlegroups.com, says...
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.

Where did you rear that ?

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.

They guy in the aircraft may very well be USAF.
The Ea-6B are dual crewed since the EF-111 went away.



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.


--

"Oh Norman, listen! The loons are calling!"
- Katherine Hepburn, "On Golden Pond"

They guy in the aircraft may very well be USAF. The Ea-6B are dual crewed since the EF-111 went away.

I thought the USN reverted its three or four expeditionary ("purple") EA-6B squadrons back to "fleet" (USN only) outfits not too long ago, due to the aging of this National Asset platform and the need to conserve the remaining good airframes until the EF-18G Growler comes on line. If so, then the USMC Prowlers have become the only EA-6Bs primarily land-based or "expeditionary."

I might be wrong, though...

--
Mike Kanze

"Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure."

- Mark Skousen

"tankfixer" wrote in message ...
In article 25be0da4-ab1b-45a1-9050-64e90dcf360d@
1g2000prg.googlegroups.com, says...
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.

Where did you rear that ?

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.

They guy in the aircraft may very well be USAF.
The Ea-6B are dual crewed since the EF-111 went away.



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.


--

"Oh Norman, listen! The loons are calling!"
- Katherine Hepburn, "On Golden Pond"

In article ,
says...
They guy in the aircraft may very well be USAF. The Ea-6B are dual crewed since the EF-111 went away.

I thought the USN reverted its three or four expeditionary ("purple") EA-6B squadrons back to "fleet" (USN only) outfits not too long ago, due to the aging of this National Asset platform and the need to conserve the remaining good airframes until the EF-18G Growler comes on line. If so, then the USMC Prowlers have become the only EA-6Bs primarily land-based or "expeditionary."

Could be. Last I had heard they were dual crew.


I might be wrong, though...



--

"Oh Norman, listen! The loons are calling!"
- Katherine Hepburn, "On Golden Pond"

On Feb 15, 4:37*pm, 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.

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.

Well, the reason for that is simple. The Navy never actually diid
Electronic Warfare. They still do what they did in WWII
"Raster Warfare". Since sending a squadaron of jets to harass
emeny positions, isn't electonic warfare, it's grid warfare.

And the Air Force had to walk from electronic warfare.
Since the idiots still don't understand that nothing is as
stealthy as an electonic Satellite.. Since the "Radar"
the idiots are evading, isn't radar, it's the media.





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.