thedrifter
08-30-05, 01:23 PM
September 05, 2005
Do-it-all aircraft
Electronic warfare role explored for Corps’ Joint Strike Fighters
By Michael Fabey
Special to the Times
The Marine Corps wants its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to be more than an affordable replacement for the AV-8B Harrier close-air support plane. It wants the next-generation aircraft to jam the cell phones that trigger roadside bombs.
“For about the past six months, the Marines have been coming to us and asking if there was anything the JSF could do to support the guys on the ground, to shut down a communications system,” said David Jeffreys, a program manager with F-35 maker Lockheed Martin.
And in February, the Corps hired Penn State University to study how the JSF might handle other forms of electronic warfare. The service relies on the decades-old EA-6B Prowler, which is set to retire in a decade or so.
“Given our part in the electronic attack role and the aging of the EA-6B, we must assess the possibilities of the F-35 taking on an electronic attack mission,” said the February Marine document that authorized the study.
The Corps, which intends to buy up to 600 F-35s, is hardly the only JSF customer intrigued by combining strike and electronic warfare roles in a single plane.
“We have discussed electronic attack with every customer, and every single one of them said, ‘We want more of that,’” said Jeffreys, who manages JSF upgrades for Lockheed Martin.
Thousands of JSFs are expected to be built for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and the British Royal Navy, and will be offered to other countries, as well. The plane’s potential as a digital killer blurs the traditional line between platforms that collect aerial electronic intelligence and those that act on it.
A plane that drops precision munitions may also sever analog and digital links in an enemy network: between troops, between anti-aircraft missiles and their guidance radar, and between an insurgent’s cell phone and a roadside bomb.
Some countries, such as Israel, have long loaded jamming pods onto their strike aircraft because they could not afford dedicated planes to do the job.
Even at the Pentagon, which has used the Prowler for decades along with other specialized platforms, the appeal of a do-it-all aircraft may be growing because of rumors of program cuts and belt-tightening in the ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review.
Improving electronic warfare
The Pentagon has seen the need for a better electronic warfare aircraft since at least 2000, when its Kosovo after-action report to Congress said NATO forces had difficulty targeting missile sites. A separate report noted problems such as interference from the Prowlers’ jammers with friendly targeting devices.
The report to Congress launched a classified study of electronic warfare improvements, which in 2001 identified the JSF and the F/A-22 Raptor as electronic warfare candidates. Lockheed is building the F/A-22 for the Air Force.
Marine officials say they won’t talk about their specific electronic warfare needs until their study is finished.
The service has relied on Prowlers for traditional jamming along with electronic deception — a subtler form of electronic warfare that involves mimicking, redirecting or slightly altering an adversary’s signals to confuse his weapons and distort his view of the battle zone.
“What they can do is get into the enemy’s radar and alter it without the bad guys even knowing,” one analyst said.
“It’s like that line in the movie, ‘The Sting’: ‘The best con is when they don’t even know they’ve been conned.’”
The Air Force, which abandoned tactical electronic warfare when it retired its EF-111s a decade ago, may soon add an electronic warfare suite to its B-52 bombers. But officials say they are taking a good look at the EW and intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance capabilities of the JSF and the F/A-22.
The Navy seems less interested in the do-it-all bandwagon. The service is developing and in 2009 will field an electronic attack version of its F/A-18F Super Hornet, the EA-18G.
It takes a dedicated plane to do the job, said James Smith, who is leading the Navy’s EA-18G analysis and integration team.
“The goal of a dedicated electronic-warfare aircraft is versatility with different capabilities across a very wide frequency spectrum,” and multiple-use systems have a limited capability, Smith said.
Enter the AESA
Some of the JSF’s electronic attack capability resides in the phased-array radar in its nose. Unlike a traditional radar with a moving dish antenna, the JSF’s Active Electronically Scanned Array radar includes a myriad of individual, solid-state emitter-receivers. This allows the radar to keep tabs on multiple objects and to focus energy on electromagnetically sensitive targets.
This gives a factory-standard AESA-equipped plane some electronic warfare capability before other EW gear is installed.
Boeing sees the value of AESA radar; the firm is retrofitting one on Super Hornets.
But the company’s AESA program manager said there are limits to the radar’s electronic attack abilities.
For one thing, it can zap only electronic systems within a limited frequency range.
Those interested in the electronic warfare capabilities of the JSF and Raptor include defense analysts, industry officials and several dozen U.S. lawmakers who belong to the Electronic Warfare Working Group.
They point to the sensors embedded in the JSF’s fuselage and wings, which give the JSF an innate ability to gather electronic intelligence.
“Electronic warfare really starts with ELINT,” said Congressional Research Service analyst Christopher Bolkcom.
Moreover, the jet is built with the ability to distribute its information.
“Each one of them out there becomes a flying router,” said Lilian Goleniewski, the author of “Telecommunications Essentials,” a telecom industry bible and a former consultant to the military on telecom issues.
Planes with that kind of data link capability are becoming “the Internet in the sky,” she said.
“It’s really an all-singing and all-dancing plane,” said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis and military jet expert at the Teal Group.
Michael Fabey is a staff writer at Defense News.
Ellie
Do-it-all aircraft
Electronic warfare role explored for Corps’ Joint Strike Fighters
By Michael Fabey
Special to the Times
The Marine Corps wants its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to be more than an affordable replacement for the AV-8B Harrier close-air support plane. It wants the next-generation aircraft to jam the cell phones that trigger roadside bombs.
“For about the past six months, the Marines have been coming to us and asking if there was anything the JSF could do to support the guys on the ground, to shut down a communications system,” said David Jeffreys, a program manager with F-35 maker Lockheed Martin.
And in February, the Corps hired Penn State University to study how the JSF might handle other forms of electronic warfare. The service relies on the decades-old EA-6B Prowler, which is set to retire in a decade or so.
“Given our part in the electronic attack role and the aging of the EA-6B, we must assess the possibilities of the F-35 taking on an electronic attack mission,” said the February Marine document that authorized the study.
The Corps, which intends to buy up to 600 F-35s, is hardly the only JSF customer intrigued by combining strike and electronic warfare roles in a single plane.
“We have discussed electronic attack with every customer, and every single one of them said, ‘We want more of that,’” said Jeffreys, who manages JSF upgrades for Lockheed Martin.
Thousands of JSFs are expected to be built for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and the British Royal Navy, and will be offered to other countries, as well. The plane’s potential as a digital killer blurs the traditional line between platforms that collect aerial electronic intelligence and those that act on it.
A plane that drops precision munitions may also sever analog and digital links in an enemy network: between troops, between anti-aircraft missiles and their guidance radar, and between an insurgent’s cell phone and a roadside bomb.
Some countries, such as Israel, have long loaded jamming pods onto their strike aircraft because they could not afford dedicated planes to do the job.
Even at the Pentagon, which has used the Prowler for decades along with other specialized platforms, the appeal of a do-it-all aircraft may be growing because of rumors of program cuts and belt-tightening in the ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review.
Improving electronic warfare
The Pentagon has seen the need for a better electronic warfare aircraft since at least 2000, when its Kosovo after-action report to Congress said NATO forces had difficulty targeting missile sites. A separate report noted problems such as interference from the Prowlers’ jammers with friendly targeting devices.
The report to Congress launched a classified study of electronic warfare improvements, which in 2001 identified the JSF and the F/A-22 Raptor as electronic warfare candidates. Lockheed is building the F/A-22 for the Air Force.
Marine officials say they won’t talk about their specific electronic warfare needs until their study is finished.
The service has relied on Prowlers for traditional jamming along with electronic deception — a subtler form of electronic warfare that involves mimicking, redirecting or slightly altering an adversary’s signals to confuse his weapons and distort his view of the battle zone.
“What they can do is get into the enemy’s radar and alter it without the bad guys even knowing,” one analyst said.
“It’s like that line in the movie, ‘The Sting’: ‘The best con is when they don’t even know they’ve been conned.’”
The Air Force, which abandoned tactical electronic warfare when it retired its EF-111s a decade ago, may soon add an electronic warfare suite to its B-52 bombers. But officials say they are taking a good look at the EW and intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance capabilities of the JSF and the F/A-22.
The Navy seems less interested in the do-it-all bandwagon. The service is developing and in 2009 will field an electronic attack version of its F/A-18F Super Hornet, the EA-18G.
It takes a dedicated plane to do the job, said James Smith, who is leading the Navy’s EA-18G analysis and integration team.
“The goal of a dedicated electronic-warfare aircraft is versatility with different capabilities across a very wide frequency spectrum,” and multiple-use systems have a limited capability, Smith said.
Enter the AESA
Some of the JSF’s electronic attack capability resides in the phased-array radar in its nose. Unlike a traditional radar with a moving dish antenna, the JSF’s Active Electronically Scanned Array radar includes a myriad of individual, solid-state emitter-receivers. This allows the radar to keep tabs on multiple objects and to focus energy on electromagnetically sensitive targets.
This gives a factory-standard AESA-equipped plane some electronic warfare capability before other EW gear is installed.
Boeing sees the value of AESA radar; the firm is retrofitting one on Super Hornets.
But the company’s AESA program manager said there are limits to the radar’s electronic attack abilities.
For one thing, it can zap only electronic systems within a limited frequency range.
Those interested in the electronic warfare capabilities of the JSF and Raptor include defense analysts, industry officials and several dozen U.S. lawmakers who belong to the Electronic Warfare Working Group.
They point to the sensors embedded in the JSF’s fuselage and wings, which give the JSF an innate ability to gather electronic intelligence.
“Electronic warfare really starts with ELINT,” said Congressional Research Service analyst Christopher Bolkcom.
Moreover, the jet is built with the ability to distribute its information.
“Each one of them out there becomes a flying router,” said Lilian Goleniewski, the author of “Telecommunications Essentials,” a telecom industry bible and a former consultant to the military on telecom issues.
Planes with that kind of data link capability are becoming “the Internet in the sky,” she said.
“It’s really an all-singing and all-dancing plane,” said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis and military jet expert at the Teal Group.
Michael Fabey is a staff writer at Defense News.
Ellie