Amos happy to make it up as he goes along

Amos, the CEO of the United States Marketing Corps F-35 cheerleaders, says no to the ECM support mission for the F-35B.

This was hyped forever by various F-35 faith-based communities. Even if the aircraft's faulty design has paper-thin to no usable weight margins.

Pipe-dream.

Amos fibs:

Amos said the AN/APG-81 Active Electronically Scanned Array radar installed on the F-35 already sets the fifth generation fighter apart as an electronic warfare platform.

“The airplane itself … with the AESA radar and sensors and information sharing capability is a pretty significant EW platform right now,” said Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos at a roundtable meeting with reporters in the Pentagon Aug. 23.

Good luck with that. Besides the fact that his F-35 as a "fifth-generation" meme still will not die, a forward arc-only, limited to in-band (X-band), limited power vs. thermal issues and limited over-all sustained power output AESA radar, Amos is out of his depth on this one.

For example, the Block II Super Hornets delivered to Australia show this as one thing hyped on the sales room floor that was only hope: that an on-board AESA fighter-radar could do realistic jamming (let alone the fantasy of being labeled credible electronic defense gear). AND, at least the Super Block II has a balanced and fused defensive suite; defensive jammer, towed decoy, etc. The F-35? When naked, it has some expendable decoys and (if the software works) enough situational awareness to see what will kill it.

Amos adds another fib at the end of this description of obsolete capability:

The Growler carries up to five ALQ-99 jamming pods as well as AIM-120 AMRAAM or AGM-88 HARM missiles to attack air defenses.

Of course, these ALQ-99s are three decades old and the Navy continues to build its Next Generation Jammer that will fool enemy radars with false returns. Amos said he didn’t see any reason the F-35 couldn’t carry these pods too.

Again, current Growler gear is obsolete against emerging threats, so it is interesting that one would bother putting on such gear to, again, the F-35 which has paper-thin to no usable weight margins in the design.

Also, the dumb idea of the F-35 being an EWO platform; limited aircrew. When they went from the EA-6 to Super-G, they went from 4 to 2 aircrew. This was mentioned as a problem in various reports. This causes workload problems. Maybe Amos can explain how one crew-person can manage all that workload, assuming the lash-up even works.

As time marches on, Amos, with his weak air power theory and his deceptive statements to elected officials, does more harm to the reputation of Marine Air than good.

He finishes though with the cost issue in a rare display of common sense. Like a lot of fantasy "notional" Block 4,5 and 6 efforts for the F-35, what is needed now is to stick to the knitting of making a warfighter-capable F-35 Block 3 exist.

This is far from guaranteed.

ECM

One of the smartest things stated by Loren Thompson in a long time:

“We’ve used up our technological margin,” says defense analyst and Lexington Institute CEO Loren Thompson. “China passed the United States in the manufacture of electronics in 2006. I think the message there is that the rest of the world now understands the electromagnetic spectrum as well as we do. They may not be spending as much on EW but they’re going to be pretty imaginative. You can no longer assume that the threat is going to be isolated in a handful of waveforms or frequencies. You need to be ready to cover the entire spectrum.”

The vulnerability of AESA radars

This piece from Aviation Week brings up some interesting vulnerabilities about AESA radar systems and their support appliances.

There are ways to attack an AESA radar on a dedicated one-to-one basis, says Lt. Gen. Herbert Carlisle, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for operations. However, that vulnerability can be mitigated by the fusion of multiple radars. If several aircraft with ­AESAs network themselves together, the radar being attacked can shut down and rely on information available on the network. Another option is to switch to infrared or electro-optical sensors.

Great idea. That is, if the network (which can be jammed or geo-located) is even running. And, you might not be too stealthy if you are an emitting network node.

As for infra-red, that is one of the reasons the Navy is fielding a hybrid center-line fuel tank with an infra-red search and track sensor on the front of it for the Super Hornet. The output from this sensor will be fused in the cockpit display.

The F-35 should have some infra-red capability as stock equipment. If it works. However, the F-35 has other survivability issues.

As for the vulnerabilities of radar systems in general, I don't know. This can be an interesting read which goes over some of the science behind radars in fighter aircraft.

More on the dud-jamming gear Defence wants to buy

As reported earlier, the plan by Australian Defence to put extra dedicated electronic jamming gear on 12 of its new Super Hornets is a bad idea.

Early in the last decade,  the U.S. Navy was trying to justify funding for a dedicated jamming version of the Super Hornet known as the "Growler". The U.S. Navy, in an effort to get the next generation jammer (NGJ) as the hardware of choice to put on the Super Hornet (Growler) had to state the obvious:  the existing years-old ALQ-99 jamming pods were for the bin. U.S. Navy said in plain language that the ALQ-99 pods were too legacy, couldn't keep up with the emerging threats and were becoming more expensive to maintain.

Guess what happened? When NGJ ran into funding problems, the U.S. Navy was forced to deploy their Growlers with a majority ALQ-99 pod configuration. They sure does look all nice painted up though boss.

Today, NGJ might be ready by 2020 according to a new report on airborne electronic attack (PDF) by the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO). Label this a must-read. The report covers a wide range of current and future electronic attack (or jamming) solutions for the U.S. DOD. And to be fair, given the serious post Cold War deskilling of this electronic warfare brain-trust, DOD has done the best they can.

In a rush to save money at the end of the Cold War, DOD and Congress were short-sighted enough to think that all future threats would be broken-down countries with old and poorly maintained Soviet hardware. If anything else came along, well, future "affordable" stealth solutions would fix that for sure. And oh, only the U.S. had the ability to field anything advanced.

Things didn't work out that way.

Of interest in the recent GAO report is more pile-on of the state of affairs with the ALQ-99 pods on the Growler. They are over-kill, inefficient  and expensive to maintain for COIN warfare. And again, as already known, they will not be able to keep up with emerging threats.

Ever.

What is more? Even when the NGJ gets fielded; if it is fielded at the end of the decade, like the ALQ-99,  fitted with the Growler, what you have is still an escort-jammer and not a stand-off-jammer (SOJ). True, hardcore SOJ capability for the B-52 was shot down a few years ago. Like other needed programs, money was cut-off and sent to support  Operations: USELESS DIRT 1 and 2. In one of the more severe examples of U.S. DOD short-sighted strategy, electronic warfare against advanced threats was not on any key-decision-maker's top-ten list of needs. Years after the end of the Cold War.

The distinction between escort-jamming and stand-off jamming is important when you try and fly a pudgy Super-drag-Growler escort-jammer into the teeth of surface-to-air missile systems that can reach out and touch someone 250 miles away in, a very short amount of time. Any effective power output the Growler hopes to emit won't reach far enough, and, enemy defenses in the shape of upgraded S-300 and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems will have enough sensor and command-control resources to put the Growler at risk of being out-matched and killed.

ALQ-99s will be foolhardy against these threats.To be nice, NGJ on Growler will fare only a little better. If the "I" in integrated air defense systems (IADS) includes enemy aircraft, well, the U.S. Navy is bringing an obsolete carrier air wing to the fight. The USAF; 120 some combat-coded F-22s that may or may not reach depending where the war is at and the F-35; a non-solution.

So back to Australia and the over-optimism of some. Wasting money Defence does not have for a fantasy capability that has no hope of becoming useful is a very bad idea.

Australian Defence needs real engineers that know these things and less vendors knocking on the door trying to sell us obsolete gear. Also, something must be done to stop a Defence/DMO cabal that, when money can't be spent on delayed faulty-project-of-concern high-dollar programs it gets redirected toward impulse buys so-as to make sure annual budget spending evens out.

The Growler upgrade for Australia's existing Super Hornets is one more bad idea for the RAAF.

Defence on the verge of throwing away money on dud jamming aircraft 'upgrade'

This is another reason you can't trust the current senior defence leadership with your tax dollars: they don't know what they are doing. Again.

It was a bad idea then when deciding to wire 12 of Australia's F-18Fs for the ability to be set up as an ECM jet and it is a bad idea now.

Well over half a billion dollars could be wasted on this project.

And, why is it a waste?

Because the Growler is obsolete against modern threats. What is funny is how some mention it was used in a cream-puff of an air defense "system" like Libya last year.

Here is some additional thoughts by the U.S. Navy concerning the gear Defence wants to put into those 12 aircraft.

But what about the "next-generation jammer?"

What about it? The program may show up. However in these tight budget times and the U.S. Navy getting bled white by outrageously expensive defense projects, I wouldn't count on it.

If Defence goes through with this sham, it will be another monument to their incompetence.