RUSSIA’S DAZZLING ARRAY OF ELECTRONIC WARFARE TOYS

11/19/2018

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Our partial translation of an article from the Russian msm follows, with a foreword by Vince Dhimos.

The Russian site Inosmi posted an into-Russian translation of an article from the Finnish site Ilta-Sanomat. The Finnish author, Jouko Juonala (who turns out to be the Editor-in-Chief), provided some important details about Russian electronic warfare, although he is badly misinformed about the quality of US vs Russian EW. He got it exactly backwards. In his introductory remarks he writes:

“Russian technologies and skills of Russian specialists are beginning to approach the western level.” [my emphasis]

Since most information available in the West on Russian EW indicates that the US lags seriously behind the Russians, I initially suspected that the Russian translator had misread the Finnish text at this passage, so I searched for the original article in Finnish and found it here. Using Google translate I was able to determine that this was in fact what Jouko Juonala really meant. I found an email for the site and told him US military experts generally agree that Russian EW is superior to Western EW. I also tweeted this to @JoukoJuonala.

Based on this erroneous statement by a Finn, whose country, while not yet a member, is a NATO partner, it seems likely that the US is misleading its NATO partners into thinking that NATO and the US have superior weapons. At any rate, they must be doing a masterful PR job to convince them that Russia can be defeated at all and thereby persuade them to participate in military drills at the Russian border – the height of folly. Apparently the US correctly supposes that its partners and allies would be less likely to cooperate with them and to buy US arms if they found out US weapons are not only more expensive but also less effective than the ones used by the people misrepresented to them as the “enemy.”

Be that as it may, let us look at some of the information on Russian EW arms provided by Mr. Juonala. The following translation (by NSS) from the Russian translation posted at Inosmi shows that Russia has a dazzling array of different types of EW systems that can explain the complaints of both the American commanders in Syria, such as Special Operations commander Gen. Raymond Thomas, who, as we have told you previously, calls this country “the most aggressive EW environment on the planet,” and the complaints of the poor Norwegians, Swedes, Laplanders and Latvians who lost their GPS service during the NATO drill Trident Juncture at the Russian border. But before you cry them a river, consider how the Americans would feel if the Russians or Chinese or both conducted such menacing drills in Canada just north of their border.

Oh, did I mention this? The Miami Herald reports that Russia is weighing putting a base in Cuba.

BEGIN TRANSLATION

Electronic warfare systems are multistage and numerous, they can be divided into different groups according to their radius of action and mission. Here are just a few examples.

Zhitel

In Russian motorized rifle brigades and tank brigades, at least on paper, there is a company that conducts electronic warfare, which includes the R-330Z Zhitel system, designed to interfere with satellite communications. The Zhitel is a mobile station with a range that covers not only GPS signals, but also signals from the European Galileo navigation system and the corresponding Chinese Beidou satellite system.

The mission of the Zhitel is to create interference in the operation of communication systems and information systems of aircraft and guided missiles, as well as in a satellite navigation system at a range of 200 kilometres. It can protect the command centres of the division and brigade level from strikes by enemy precision weapons.

OSCE observers have reported that the Zhitel system is also used to interfere with unmanned aerial vehicles in eastern Ukraine.

Borisoglebsk

This is a mobile system similar to the Zhitel that entered mass production in 2011. The equipment is quite varied: it can interfere with radio communications, satellite communications and GPS signals.

Leer

Russia has developed the Leer system, which is installed on light unmanned aerial vehicles or on an armoured personnel carrier. Its task is to recognize and suppress mobile networks in the GSM band. The complex can also imitate the operation of a cellular base station and send false messages to mobile phones. It is known that the Leer was used to conduct psychological operations in Syria.

Krasukha

This family of systems is designed to interfere with aircraft radars. They can interfere, for example, with the operation of the NATO Radio Detection and Guidance Complex (AWACS) and distort the radar signals of military aircraft. The latest versions can have an impact, for example, on unmanned aerial vehicles as well.

Aircraft

A new reconnaissance aircraft of the Russian Air Force, the Tupolev Tu-214, can recognize and analyse the transmission of a wide spectrum of radio signals. Its equipment can be used to create interference.

The Ilyushin Il-22PP, Porubshchik, is a plane with a turboprop engine, equipped with new generation electronics. The first Porubshchiki entered service in 2016. The task of the aircraft is to distort the signals of the enemy’s radar both on the ground and in the air, and to interfere with the navigation systems of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles).

END TRANSLATION

1 Comment

John McClain

12/17/2018 06:04:33 am

As a retired Marine, with four decades professional aviation electronics experience, and having entered the Corps with almost fifteen years experience, I was a primary asset to my shop, communications/navigations, we had some 700 systems we maintained for a dozen different aircraft, from CH-46's, CH-53 B,C,D models, F-4's, F-18's, A-4's, Harriers and C-130's. A few other aircraft as I got older and newer equipment arrived.
We, the U.S. had a navy Warrant Officer, his brother, also in the Navy, and their two sons, all worked together in the late sixties, and gave Russia our secure communications scrambler system, and our Interrogation friend or foe system, (IFF), our radar auto-ID system, our two primary means of controlling airspace, and we went almost thirty five years without secure com, and without a functional IFF, while the Soviets were able to take all their recordings of every transmission made in Vietnam, and the last of Korea, and painstakingly decrypt all com, and realize our tactical maneuvers, our ways of working as teams, we were, the whole U.S. Military, completely open to our adversaries, and we got back to "scrambling com" in the nineties, because our "next generation" equipment, designed, being tested, was all derivative from previous principles, so we had to start from scratch.
We had the most effective, aggressive EW in the world, through Vietnam, but opening two of our most advanced systems, allowed Russia to see our patterns of thinking, predict our ways, and move forward, based on their own culture, standards, and principles, which seem like small things, but are enormous, when dealing with deliberate stealth and hiding.
Since leaving Vietnam, we've fought some 100 plus minor wars with minor Nations, to control market forces as much as any other reason, and in doing so, we've used our "electronic counter-measures, ECM" on principle, assuming we were watched, apparently, no one considering the fact we were providing unlimited hours of recording, and opportunity to decrypt. Our EA-6B was our "theater ECM aircraft", and it carried a module, looked like an external fuel tank, full of ECM gear, and "anti-ECM gear" or "D-ECM", and was most effective throughout its whole life, but left our array obsolete, and hasn't been well replaced.
Again, being at war constantly means lots of military spending, but it costs in far more than money. We have a bloated, too wide, too short, too narrow, too stealthy, not stealthy enough, vertical lift, or not, F-35 which doesn't fulfill completely, any of the service's demands/needs, tries to fill half a dozen roles, and costs twice what it replaces, with far less capability.
Our disparate services each have tasks to do, demanding specific qualities, abilities, and characteristics. Unfortunately, Americans remain allured with "vertical lift", and it was decided all the needed aircraft would come on a common airframe. If it were seven different craft, all with similar duties and characteristics, it would be easy, perfect fit, and cost effective. Since each service has vastly different duties, means of accomplishment, and means of support, it has become "the worst of all choices", because the layout of the primary airframe must be tailored around the engine that can provide vertical lift by nozzle aiming, and multiple exhaust ports, and ducting.
Every bird we've prototyped since the beginning of WWII, has been first put forth with a flush canopy, high fuselage, and no "over the shoulder visibility", and before they have been certified, they all have canopies one can look over one's shoulder, its essential in "dog fights", and always has been. The original design is faster, more aerodynamic, but despite engineer's desires, pilots don't want to die because they can't see their adversary on their six.
We have dozens of "absolute necessities" that have to go in proto-types, but none of them are reasonable in war, yet we always have to go away from them to get where we need to be.
We were leading the world, when we looked to America, for innovation, new ideas, new ways, because they came out of individual minds, and often were unique perspectives. We got lazy, and began simply "improving our electronics", not changing principles, establishing new ways, the sole means of not being overtaken by adversaries, listening to everything, and recording.
We've looked at China, as our mass producer of junk, high tech junk, and we've seen Russia as disabled, backwards, and particularly, Russian focus on recouping their Rus culture, restoring Eastern Orthodox to its rightful place, and doing their utmost to return to Russian ways, as signs of regression, when they are truly re-establishing Russian Culture as a primary one, again, in among the world.
They've fought off our corporate espionage, our oligarchical theft, our efforts to surround them with enemies, and to impose on them, at ever opportunity, and we've used ou

Military affairs.

RUSSIA’S DAZZLING ARRAY OF ELECTRONIC WARFARE TOYS

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