Thread: Can AESA be jammed?

[QUOTE=Maxor;709912]

Originally Posted by Aussiegunner

At that point you've got roughly 1 billion in fighters tied up jamming a significant portion of the spectrum. They still are fairly vulnerable a similar number of cap aircraft. They are inhibiting each other in radar detection of that cap force and the number of fighters designated to this role comes out of your strike force. Its not a terrible idea but it doesn't have a huge ammount of return to $ value. Now having an occasional strike package of 6 to 8 fighters all carring jamming pods that you turn on when detected would probably be a more useful appilcation of this than trying to use them for constant jamming.

I'm really kinda all over the place with this someday I'll need to go and wrte a coherent summary of all of this.

My understanding is that the US generally sends two offensive jammers along in mutually supporting strike packages now. This would just allow an increase power of the jamming in the face of an enemy with AESA radars. On the extra cost, I'd suggest that if it allows a strike package that would have otherwise been butchered by a superior opponent to get through then it is worth it. If the strikers own jammers could contribute then that is even better.

A standard fighter with a single jamming pod is not wild weasel aircraft it is there to keep Surface to air batteries honest. This is especially true of single east non-wild weasel versions, but even two seat fighters are no where near as effective as dedicated ecm birds. A comparable example of a fighters jamming ability with a pod to a rivet joint or even a prowler is alot like comparing the screwdriver on a swiss army knife to a couple of ratcheting handled inerchangable bit screwdrivers including sockets from a nice toolchest. The pocket knife is useful for the majority of simple screws in the world and has some other uses, the fighter with a ecm pod is suitable for the majority of sam sites in the world, where as dedicated wild weasels and ecm aircraft are useful for unusual and well emplaced sites, high end or rare equiptment, just like your nice screwdriver set is useful or stuck and oddly placed screws as well as those with interesting heads.

Maxor, thank you for the insight I've enjoyed reading these posts, putting them in my permalink folder.

This thread is a fishing expedition, so I will be very general.

When someone figures out how to saturate a TWT tube that doesn't exist, that'll be a good trick.

AESA can code for polarity, which isn't affected by SNR ratios.

Dedicated birds like Growler aside, probably the best jammer in the battlespace is that AESA equipped fighter.

When we first fielded airborne AESA, we emulated conventional radar signals. We don't do that anymore, and AESA is not recognizable as radar. So first you have to detect, and that's not too easy.

And if you do try to jam, almost any modern AAM can switch automatically to HOJ mode.

The frequency range of an MMIC is governed by a physical characteristic of the module. So it's up to the designers, limited only by available space, how broad or narrow that range will be.

So we're left with ground based jamming stations, operating at gigantic radio station power levels, omnidirectionally blanketing the entire battlespace, killing all communications except that AESA, which can switch to polarity coding and filter out all that noise. That's a mighty juicy target.

AESA is not radar in the conventional sense. It's more like a computer network. Does your PC read every packet on the Internet? Don't think ham radio, think call blocking in a digital phone network.

Originally Posted by highsea

So we're left with ground based jamming stations, operating at gigantic radio station power levels, omnidirectionally blanketing the entire battlespace, killing all communications except that AESA, which can switch to polarity coding and filter out all that noise. That's a mighty juicy target.

That was my first reaction; yes, theoretically, an AESA radar CAN be jammed, but it would take a heck of a lot of power just to saturate the ES of radars, something no airborne platform could probably carry out. We're talking gigawatts of power here, only because it would be impossible to isolate and target the frequency the AESA is operating at during any given second (not to mention micro-second!). Not only that, but any system that saturates the spectrum like that would blind the user, too.

Originally Posted by Maxor

A standard fighter with a single jamming pod is not wild weasel aircraft it is there to keep Surface to air batteries honest. .

I'm not talking about a single fighter with a jamming pod, I'm talking about a dedicated offensive jammer like the Growler or the SU-34 with the latest offensive jamming equipment from Russia. I know the former is proven and the later isn't but it is the same concept.

Originally Posted by highsea

This thread is a fishing expedition, so I will be very general.

No, it is an attempt to learn by some of us non experts from a few people here who appear to know what they are talking about (though I note the opinions differ somewhat). It would be a boring conversation if we just accepted "no", without any explanation of why.

Originally Posted by Aussiegunner

I'm not talking about a single fighter with a jamming pod, I'm talking about a dedicated offensive jammer like the Growler or the SU-34 with the latest offensive jamming equipment from Russia. I know the former is proven and the later isn't but it is the same concept.

Please disregard this one Maxor, I see that you addressed this issue in a previous post.

Originally Posted by Aussiegunner

No, it is an attempt to learn by some of us non experts from a few people here who appear to know what they are talking about (though I note the opinions differ somewhat). It would be a boring conversation if we just accepted "no", without any explanation of why.

You misinterpret my comment.

Nothing wrong with the desire to learn, but fishing for sensitive material on classified technologies is not appropriate on public forums. That includes pretty much everything in the ECM/EW realm.

I was attempting to give members some food for thought without going into areas that are over the line. It's a grey area, and one we need to be cautious about discussing in this type of venue.

Originally Posted by Stitch

...Not only that, but any system that saturates the spectrum like that would blind the user, too.

It would be like someone in a dark room shining a flashlight- "here I am, right over here!".

And he's shining it in his own eyes at the same time, so he can't see sh*t.

Originally Posted by highsea

It would be like someone in a dark room shining a flashlight- "here I am, right over here!".

And he's shining it in his own eyes at the same time, so he can't see sh*t.

and at the risk of being deliberately vague, at an ewarfare battlespace event level, energy management is about power. onboard power is critical when you're looking at active management.

As a throw away, the last formal JSF briefing I attended referred to its AESA capability as a weapons system in its own right. In all the time I've been in this operational space, I've never prev heard it referred to at the small platform combat aircraft level as a weapons system. Its probably a good indication of how AESA has evolved at the capability level.

Highsea, the analogy about AESA being (in real terms) a packet "cop" is a useful descriptor - esp with respect to my prev para.

Originally Posted by gf0012-aust

...Highsea, the analogy about AESA being (in real terms) a packet "cop" is a useful descriptor - esp with respect to my prev para.

Yeah, who says an AESA module is under some sort of obligation to process every signal that hits the antenna?

Another side capability (as you already know) is broadbank datalink.

Then there's the passive stuff...

AESA is not just radar, it's a suite. Radar is but one part of AESA's functionality.

Originally Posted by highsea

Yeah, who says an AESA module is under some sort of obligation to process every signal that hits the antenna?

Another side capability (as you already know) is broadbank datalink.

Then there's the passive stuff...

Oh it has to proccess it, It may just be set aside and disregarded as either noise or jamming or something elses stray signal by the system. Alot is rejected with relatively little power or action as fitting no parameters of anything useful militarily. It does have to be processed however. That kinda brings up an interesting point of information overload for any given system and takes us back o why single seat and fighter based jammers have limited processing capability compared to a larger aircraft as well as the transmitting power limit.

Originally Posted by Maxor

Oh it has to proccess it, It may just be set aside and disregarded as either noise or jamming or something elses stray signal by the system. Alot is rejected with relatively little power or action as fitting no parameters of anything useful militarily. It does have to be processed however.

Does your computer process every packet on the Internet?

let me put it this way- it's under no obligation to consume CPU cycles on the radar processor or CIP with unwanted signals.