PLA AEW&C, SIGINT, EW and MPA thread

[Scratch]

I'm not really good in EW things.
Spectrum spread may help defeat EW measures, if you have the energy you can also jam a rather broad spectrum, or perhaps you jam only certain spectrums and leave the missile without datalink updates for only some intervalls in flight, wich may or may not be enough to prevent it from achieving an accurate lock on their own.

Against a VLO target, I also believe in the future IIR seekers may be more usefull. The diameter restrictions of AAMs only allows a rather small radar. And even though radar technology progresses, a ARH AAM has to be quiet close to target to achieve a lock on a VLO platform. Bringing it that close still requires a fighter borne radar for midcourse updates on longer range engagements.

Of course one also has to think about home on jam tactics by the other side. But then again there are also tactics to counter HOJ attacks.
As I said it goes back and forth and is a difficult topic.

 

[lilzz]

I'm not really good in EW things.
jam only certain spectrums and leave the missile without datalink updates for only some intervalls in flight, wich may or may not be enough to prevent it from achieving an accurate lock on their own.

As mentioned above, the missile features radiation seeker, anytime you try to jam, you expose yourself. You are sending strong EM wave to disrupt something, I think that's last minute desperate effort. radiation seeker will home in to its source.

 

[Scratch]

Again, I'm not really frim in EW things, but jaming is not really a last ditch defense. There are dedicated EW planes wich jam hostile radars etc to cover fellow fighters. If you home on jam, you are not sure how far the target is. If you have more EW planes, they can jam alternately, so the HoJ missile jumps from one target to another, thus wasting a lot of energy for traveling a greater distance.

 

[lilzz]

^ So you are implying there are escorts planes to the F-22s just for EW purpose, but that just defeating the purpose because the AWACS would spot the exact location of the escorts because they are non-stealthy. I think F-22s usually go attack alone /wo escorts otherwise it would just defeat the stealth purpose.

 

[RedMercury]

All modern fighters carry EW suites of some sort. A flight of fighters can cover each other by alternatively jamming. There are also towed decoys.

 

[lilzz]

then I guess the jammer die first, the missile come near its radiation source , turn on its own onboard radar, and zone it to its IR sig.

AWACS aware of the situation and fire another missile to cover the original one.

 

[crobato]

then I guess the jammer die first, the missile come near its radiation source , turn on its own onboard radar, and zone it to its IR sig.

AWACS aware of the situation and fire another missile to cover the original one.

Many AAMs and SAMs have a home on jam capability (HOJ). Meaning when they get jammed, they go into this mode and home in on the jamming signal instead. To counter that, a flight of EW aircraft must "blink" or alternatively jam, so the missile on HOJ gets confused following one and turning to the other until the missile runs out of inertia.

If a single EW aircraft stops jamming and the HOJ missile is on it, what's going to happen is that the seeker will turn on its radar again. That's why you need another aircraft to blink alternatively. Still its quite risky, because the EW aircraft would not have a reliable means of knowing when and where the HOJed missile is, and whether the missile took the bait or even whether the missile is successfully jammed since the missile can be jam resistant. The missile is totally passive on HOJ and would not alert a RWR.

 

[lilzz]

Do you think datalink using spreadspectrum then the jammer doesn't which freuqnecy to jam or hiding the data among noise, so the jammer doesn't there are data being trasnmitted can be effective ?

I also thinking the illuminated radar in X, S radar might not work againt F-22 stealth, what about using inertial guidance based longwave radar info and then active home +IR seeking at terminal phase. This way would be total immune to jamming.

Which way do you think it's better the first one(datalink /w protection) or second(no datalink)?

 

[crobato]

Spread spectrum and LPI (Low Probability of Intercept) are among the techniques used to render datalinks and communications ECM resistant.

But again, nothing is completely certain. The jammer for example, can choose to barrage whole areas of the spectrum which you can anticipate is likely to be used by the communications even with frequency agility.

So there is no certainty whether the jamming will be successful or not. It goes both ways.

Midphase guidance by long frequency can indeed be possible, with IR seeking on the final phase. More extreme examples of this can be seen in the ASAT tests by China and the US. But then again, future aircraft can have IR spoofing and countermeasures. The key to countering IIR is to know that IIR depends no pattern or outline recognition, and the means to beat it is to make it difficult for pattern or outline recognition to work. And then likewise future recognition algorithms will try to counter such spoofing attempts. And it goes on and on. So again, no guarantees, no certainty.

 

[lilzz]

well, I make sure of that at terminal phase by using both active homing (its own board radar) + IR seeking so this way make sure no IR trick is allowed.