[Goose]

An interesting article covering this issue.  I presume we must have some people at least watching and learning from all of this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/19/techn...gnals.html

We do indeed have people "watching" this, both in terms of overall analysis and direct, continuous real-time observation. The way the US goes about countering this type of EW is different than the way Ukraine must. The US has extensive airborne (and other) SIGINT capability. Ukraine does not, and nobody is going to give it to them, even if they ask nicely :-). Therefore, the way Ukraine must counter these GPS jammers is of necessity different. The means they use will of course be "interesting" to the rest of the world. 

My concern is that so far we don't see Ukraine doing much at all to counter Russian EA against GPS. Ukraine has spent considerable effort in developing and deploying EA against Russian cruise missiles and drones. This is understandably a high priority for them. However, destroying/defeating Russian GPA EA is obviously critical to Ukraine's future employment of Precision Guided Weapons. This force multiplier is pretty critical to them, so the lack of action on their part is very puzzling to me.

Is it possible, that their solution won't be lasting, so better to deploy it when the first JADAM laded F16 takes off.

It is possible that Russia will develop countermeasures to the Ukrainian solution. More probably, the Russians will deploy "backup" jammers that will only be "activated" when the primary is destroyed. That will require manufacture of lots more jammers, something that probably isn't easy. Fortunately for Ukraine, it isn't practical for Russia to turn the jammers off and dynamically activate them when needed. There is really no way of knowing where Ukraine will attack or exactly when. Russia also has no infrastructure that can react quickly across unit boundaries, so dynamic response is out.

These jammers are also effective against HIMARS, Excaliber, and the European cruise missiles like Storm Shadow. Ukraine has plenty of reason to use any EA capability it has right now to keep the existing PGMs working. They may have "reasons" to hold back, but it is hard to imagine they are "good" reasons, given the above.

It is also very risky to develop and deploy a very large number of EA "platforms" (which will be required because the Russians have lots of jammers :-) without demonstrating their combat effectiveness. They may not work, and then you have wasted lots of time and money and have no time remaining to find and fix the issues.

[Goose]

An interesting article covering this issue.  I presume we must have some people at least watching and learning from all of this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/19/techn...gnals.html

We do indeed have people "watching" this, both in terms of overall analysis and direct, continuous real-time observation. The way the US goes about countering this type of EW is different than the way Ukraine must. The US has extensive airborne (and other) SIGINT capability. Ukraine does not, and nobody is going to give it to them, even if they ask nicely :-). Therefore, the way Ukraine must counter these GPS jammers is of necessity different. The means they use will of course be "interesting" to the rest of the world. 

My concern is that so far we don't see Ukraine doing much at all to counter Russian EA against GPS. Ukraine has spent considerable effort in developing and deploying EA against Russian cruise missiles and drones. This is understandably a high priority for them. However, destroying/defeating Russian GPA EA is obviously critical to Ukraine's future employment of Precision Guided Weapons. This force multiplier is pretty critical to them, so the lack of action on their part is very puzzling to me.

Is it possible, that their solution won't be lasting, so better to deploy it when the first JADAM laded F16 takes off.

It is possible that Russia will develop countermeasures to the Ukrainian solution. More probably, the Russians will deploy "backup" jammers that will only be "activated" when the primary is destroyed. That will require manufacture of lots more jammers, something that probably isn't easy. Fortunately for Ukraine, it isn't practical for Russia to turn the jammers off and dynamically activate them when needed. There is really no way of knowing where Ukraine will attack or exactly when. Russia also has no infrastructure that can react quickly across unit boundaries, so dynamic response is out.

These jammers are also effective against HIMARS, Excaliber, and the European cruise missiles like Storm Shadow. Ukraine has plenty of reason to use any EA capability it has right now to keep the existing PGMs working. They may have "reasons" to hold back, but it is hard to imagine they are "good" reasons, given the above.

It is also very risky to develop and deploy a very large number of EA "platforms" (which will be required because the Russians have lots of jammers :-) without demonstrating their combat effectiveness. They may not work, and then you have wasted lots of time and money and have no time remaining to find and fix the issues.