Since World War II, dedicated electronic warfare aircraft have been equipped with electronic sensors and transmission systems to degrade the effectiveness of enemy radar, radio, and infrared systems by using jamming and deception methods. Air war history is full of wars, such as in Bekaa Valley, where the conflict was won by very judicious use of electronic attacks.
As the Growler recently scored its first air-to-air kill, the EurAsian Times provides an in-depth analysis of the US Navy’s FA-18G EW Aircraft and how it is and has been a game changer.
Major countries developed special aircraft for this purpose, operating in stand-off roles or as Electronic Warfare Escorts to strike aircraft packages. Because of large electric power generation requirements, initial aircraft were based on cargo or bomber aircraft designs. But to escort modern fighters, equivalent fighter aircraft were needed. Boeing EA-18G Growler was one very successful example.
Boing EA-18G Growler
The Growler is an American carrier-based electronic warfare aircraft, a specialized version of the combat-proven two-seat Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet. It provides tactical jamming and electronic protection to U.S. military forces and allies worldwide.
The EA-18G Growler is the U.S. Navy’s (USN) replacement for the EA-6B Prowler. The Growler shares more than 90% of its characteristics with the standard Super Hornet. Around 170 aircraft have been built to date.
The EA-18G replaced the Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowlers in service with the USN. The EA-18G began production in 2007 and entered operational service with the USN in late 2009.
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The EA-18G Growler is considered among the most advanced airborne electronic attack (AEA) platforms and is the only one still in production today. Industry and the USN continue to invest in advanced Growler capabilities to ensure it continues to protect all strike aircraft during high-threat missions for decades to come.
The Growler brings fighter aircraft speed and maneuverability to an electronic attack aircraft. It also provides critical electronic intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) data to other joint force aircraft.
The Growler’s ability to self-protect against adversarial aircraft includes using its two AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM), enhanced radar image resolution, targeting and tracking range through its APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar system, uninterrupted radio communications in a heavily jammed environment using its INCANS Interference Cancellation System, unequaled aircrew situational awareness and head-up control of aircraft targeting systems and sensors using its Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing Systema, and its ability to locate, record, playback and digitally jam enemy communications over a broad frequency range using its ALQ-227 Communications Countermeasures Set.
It provides advanced survivability and electronic protection for ground, air, and maritime combat forces with high reliability and lower operating costs. Two crew members are required to take on a much higher cockpit workload.
The aircraft has AN/ALQ-218 wideband receivers on the wingtips and ALQ-99 high and low-band tactical jamming pods. The two combined form a full spectrum electronic warfare suite that is able to provide detection and jamming against all known surface-to-air threats. Work is on to develop pods for emerging future threats. The aircraft could even carry two AGM-88 HARM missiles instead of AMRAAM.
The Growler is the initial platform for the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ), which uses Active electronically scanned array (AESA) technology to focus jamming power exactly where needed. The NGJ was to be implemented on the F-35.
Three Growlers networked together can generate targeting tracks for hostile radio-frequency sources in real-time. Using faster data links, the Growler could use its EW pods to locate signal sources accurately.
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In a group of three planes, when one detects a signal from a source such as a cell phone, the other two can also listen for the same signal. All three measure the amount of time it takes for transmissions to travel from the source to each aircraft to triangulate the location to “a very, very small area.”
The USN has demonstrated this concept using EA-18s equipped with Rockwell Collins’ tactical targeting network technology (TTNT) and ALQ-218 receivers to acquire emissions from a target vessel and target it from a stand-off range without using their own detectable radar emissions. The USN is also adding a FLIR pod.
Other Growler Operators
Other than the USN, in June 2014, Boeing was awarded a contract for 12 Growlers to be acquired by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) under a Foreign Military Sales agreement with the USN.
Australia is the first country to be offered this level of AEA technology by the United States. Australian EA-18Gs can also carry the AIM-9X Sidewinder missile. Boeing is also looking at exporting a Growler Lite configuration without the jamming pods for electronic awareness rather than an electronic attack.
Growlers In Operations
The EA-18G completed its operational evaluation in late July 2009. In October 2009, the first Growler squadron reached operational status.
The first Growler operational deployment was in February 2011. Around this time, the in-service radio name of the aircraft for operational purposes was changed to “Grizzly.” By May 2011, 48 Growlers had been delivered to the USN. With the termination of the EB-52H standoff jammer, the Growler became the sole remaining crewed tactical jammer.
The EA-18G was first used in combat during Operation Odyssey Dawn, enforcing the UN no-fly zone over Libya in 2011. Five EA-18Gs were redeployed from Iraq to support operations in Libya in 2011.
The Growler was deployed as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian, where one destroyed a Houthi Mil Mi-24 “Hind” on the ground with an Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM) AGM-88E missile.
Decisive Electronic Warfare In Conflicts
During World War II, the Allies and Axis Powers both extensively used EW, or what Winston Churchill referred to as the “Battle of the Beams.” As navigational radars were used to guide bombers to their targets and back to their base, the first application of EW in WWII was to interfere with the navigational radars. Chaff was also introduced during WWII to confuse and defeat tracking radar systems.
As battlefield communication and radar technology improved, so did electronic warfare, which played a major role in several military operations during the Vietnam War. Aircraft on bombing runs and air-to-air missions often relied on EW to survive the battle, although many were defeated by Vietnamese ECCM.
In 2007, an Israeli attack on a suspected Syrian nuclear site during Operation Orchard used electronic warfare systems to disrupt Syrian air defenses while Israeli jets crossed much of Syria, bombed their targets, and returned to Israel undeterred. The target was a suspected nuclear reactor under construction near the Euphrates River, modeled after a North Korean reactor and supposedly financed with Iranian assistance.
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Operation Mole Cricket 19 (Bekaa Valley)
Operation Mole Cricket 19 was a suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) campaign launched by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) against Syrian targets on June 9, 1982, at the outset of the 1982 Lebanon War.
The operation was the first time in history that a Western-equipped air force successfully destroyed a Soviet-built surface-to-air missile (SAM) network. It also became one of the biggest air battles since the Korean War. The result was a decisive Israeli victory, leading to the colloquial name the “Bekaa Valley Turkey Shoot.”
The Israeli Air Force began working on a SAM suppression operation at the end of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Rising tensions between Israel and Syria over Lebanon escalated in the early 1980s and culminated in Syria deploying SAM batteries in the Beqaa Valley.
On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, and on the third day of the war, with clashes ongoing between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Syrian Army, Israel decided to launch SAM-Suppression Operation Mole Cricket 19.
The battle lasted about two hours and involved innovative tactics and technology. By the end of the day, the IAF had destroyed 29 of 30 SAM batteries deployed in the Bekaa Valley and shot down 82–86 enemy aircraft, with minimal losses of its own.
EW In Ukraine Conflict
Since December 2010, the Russian Army has operationalized its first land-based multifunctional electronic warfare system known as Borisoglebsk 2. The Borisoglebsk-2 uses four different types of jamming stations on a single system.
The system is mounted on nine MT-LB armored vehicles and is intended to suppress mobile satellite communications and satellite-based navigation signals. It is known for much better technical characteristics, such as wider frequency bandwidth for conducting radar collection and jamming, faster scanning times of the frequency spectrum, higher precision when identifying the location and source of radar emissions, and increased capacity for suppression.
During the first two days of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian EW disrupted Ukraine’s air defense radars and communications, severely disrupting Ukrainian ground-based air defense systems. Rapid Russian advances at the start of the war prevented EW troops from properly supporting the advancing troops, but by late March and April 2022, extensive jamming infrastructure had been deployed. EW complexes were set up in Donbas in concentrations of up to 10 complexes per 21 km of frontage.
Electronic suppression of GPS and radio signals caused heavy losses of Ukrainian UAVs, depriving them of intelligence and precise artillery fire spotting. Small quadcopters had an average life expectancy of around three flights, and larger fixed-wing UAVs like the Bayraktar TB2 had an average life expectancy of about six flights.
By the summer of 2022, only about one-third of Ukrainian UAV missions could be said to have been successful, as EW had contributed to Ukraine losing 90 percent of the thousands of drones it had at the beginning of the invasion.
Russian EW’s capacity to disrupt GPS signals is credited with reducing the success of Ukrainian use of HIMARS and JDAM bombs. The failure of GPS guidance forces these weapons, particularly JDAMS, to use an inertial navigation system, which considerably reduces accuracy.
Ukraine was losing some 10,000 drones a month due to Russian electronic warfare, according to a 19 May 2023 report by the Royal United Services Institute. This was an average of 300 drones a day.
Russia has established EW posts about every 10 kilometers of the front, being some 6 kilometers behind the forward edge of battle. In October 2023, The Economist reported that electronic warfare was in widespread use on the front lines to impair small battlefield UAV activity, with Russia installing video feedback and control jammers on high-value equipment like tanks and artillery.
By 11 March 2024, Ukraine reported it had destroyed a Russian Palantin EW system in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, which “suppressed satellite radio navigation along the entire line of contact and in most parts of Ukraine, replacing the satellite radio navigation field (spoofing).”
An estimated three Palantin systems have been hit (June 2022, February 2023, and March 2024). In addition to the Palantin, in Zaporizhzhia, a Layer EW system was reportedly destroyed.
Electronic Warfare Aircraft
In 1943, British Avro Lancaster aircraft were equipped with chaff to blind enemy air defense radars. Liberators and Fortresses also carried various jammers, such as Carpet, Airborne Cigar, Mandrel, Jostle, and Piperack.
Among the more recent EW aircraft were Grumman EF-111A, Boeing EA-18G Growler, Douglas EA-3 Skywarrior, Douglas EB-66 Destroyer, Douglas EF-10B Skyknight, Northrop Grumman EA-6B, and Lockheed EC-130 H Compass Call, of the USA. Denel TP1 Oryx EW of South Africa, Chengdu J-10D, Shenyang J-15D, and Shenyang J-16D of China, Embraer R-99 (Brazil), IAI 202B Arava (Israel), Ilyushin Il-22PP (Soviet Union/Russia), Kawasaki EC-1 and Kawasaki RC-2 (Japan), Tornado ECR (Germany / Italy), RC-135W Rivet Joint (UK), among others.
Indian EW Aircraft
The Indian Air Force (IAF) started building electronic warfare (EW) capability only after the 1971 war. Till then, both India and Pakistan were yet to acquire low-level radar coverage and surface-to-air missile defenses.
In 1978, a dedicated EW squadron, the No. 35 Squadron (Rapiers), was formed, with a mix of Canberra and MiG-21 aircraft fitted with standoff and escort pods, respectively, to provide a suppressive shield to the embedded strike force.
Strike tactics were evolved based on ‘burn through’ ranges for the terminal attacks. The unit’s Canberra flight was withdrawn in 1997 and re-equipped with EW-equipped MiG-21Ms for EW-related training for the IAF’s own air defense units.
IAF does not have any dedicated EW aircraft, but all IAF aircraft, including transport and helicopters, have self-protection electronic systems. Some fighters have offensive jamming means.
Since India has the world’s fourth largest air force, and the other three operate dedicated EW aircraft, there has been a debate about the IAF acquiring dedicated electronic attack aircraft.
However, the IAF’s current first priority is to get its fighter squadron numbers to the authorized strength. IAF also needs more AEW&C and FRA, and therefore, the EW aircraft priority is a little low.
- Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retired) is an Indian Air Force veteran fighter test pilot and is currently the Director-General of the Center for Air Power Studies in New Delhi. He has been decorated with both gallantry and distinguished service medals while serving in the IAF for 40 years. He tweets @Chopsyturvey
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