Air Weapons: January 25, 2002

Archives

In 2001, a bunch of U.S. smart bombs, guided by satellite GPS signals, all missed the target by the same distance, and in the same direction. U.S. weapons experts feel that it was a programming error on the part of the bomb technicians. But there's also the possibility that the Iraqis were using GPS jammers. The GPS signal is a weak one, and easily jammed. For several years, American smart bomb manufacturers have been working on making their smart bomb GPS guidance systems "jam proof", but weapons with this feature have not been put in service yet. Several nations advertise GPS jammers for sale, including Russia. And the basic technology for a GPS jammer is simple enough for Iraq to build it's own jammer. It's interesting to note that U.S. GPS smart bombs have a less accurate (but unjamable) backup guidance system. Did the Iraqis jam our GPS smart bombs? This "problem" with these bombs only happened once. But perhaps the Iraqis were just testing their jammers to see if they worked. A really clever GPS jammer would not trigger the backup guidance system. If the Iraqis have built (or bought) such a system, they are going to save it for a major attack by the U.S. If the Iraqis don't have such a system, someone does, or will. And American pilots will eventually have to deal with it.


 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contribute. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   contribute   Close