I'd say we are looking at between the 24 SH's we have ordered and up to 50, with the decision depending on the cost, the capability of early blocks and delivery schedule of the F-35. A full squadron of Growlers would be good, we'd need it to provide support to a 100 aircraft fleet  (its still worthwhile jamming even with stealth aircraft). I also think we should make use of the money saved by purchasing SH's, which will be cheaper than F-35's, by buying 3 or 4 extra tankers to make up for the F-35's inferior range and by getting JASSM integrated so that they can focus on stand-off attack on the first day of war, freeing up the F-35's for the more challenging work.  

Electronic Warfare makes stealth aircraft even more effective. If looking for a needle in a haystack is hard. Finding a specific needle in a haystack full of needles is even harder.

-DA

No need to package the jammers with the stealth, have them stand off or come in on a different vector letting the stealth slip through during the confusion. 

 

Even better, have the jammers fly regular aggressive sorties, often without any shooters along, just to wind up and fatigue the defenders.  Then every now and then have a couple of SH's with stand off weapons accompany the Growlers, hang some ARMS on the Growlers and have the F-35's waiting in the wings to ruin the defenders day.

Putting jammers on LO aircraft can be perfectly reasonable and even be quite advantageous over using a non-LO platform.  The primary advantage of LO in a fighter like the F-22 and F-35 is rarely going to be that it limits the enemy's ability to know the LO aircraft are in his airspace.  The primary advantage of LO in a fighter like the F-22 and F-35 is typically going to be that it limits the enemy's ability to affect our LO aircraft in his airspace.  Similarly, the best sort of jamming support to our aircraft, in fact even to our non-LO aircraft, is often (or at least in combination with other jamming techiques) going to come from jammers that can operate nearer their targets.  Putting the jammers on LO platforms makes them less vulnerable to enemy defenses, regardless of whether the enemy knows they are up there in roughly that direction or even in roughly that volume of sky.  Obviously, they are still vulnerable to some extent, but typically less so than non-LO platforms.  This means they should often be able to operate closer to their targets and therefore often be more effective than a non-LO platform.

 

 

 

IMO; I would think if you were flying around just emitting
signals for jamming that would just be a potential calling card.

Which is why this is just one of many different EW techniques. Barrage Jamming has some useful applications, but much more sophisticated methods exist including some very descrete. Also, EW involves much more than simply flying around emitting. Very specific TTP's have to be combined with the jamming signals to maximize the effectiveness. As DJ said, with an LO platform, you can get much closer to your target before jamming. In the case of barrage jamming such as you suggested. Your jammer will have to spread it's energy, using a variety of methods, on multiple frequencies. Obviously this reduces the power available on any one freq. Since an LO aircraft can get closer to the threat before being detected, the effectiveness of this type of jamming is greately increased(read up on isotropic radiators) and can be particularly useful against frequency hoping radars in some cases.

 

-DA

Apart from agreeing (based on my admittedly lay knowledge of EW) with what has been said about the utility of jammers + stealth, I would add that the way you used them would probably depend on the type of operaton you were undertaking. For instance, before GW1 the Iraqi's knew that the Coalition was going to attack, so the fact that they were subject to blanket jamming for several days before the strikes began didn't give anything away and still allowed for tactical surprise. In fact, blanket jamming could be a good escalation during times of tension, if a country doesn't want to make an actual strike yet. The antagonist would know that their radars weren't working and would know what was to follow if they didn't pull their heads in.

 

 However, I would imagine that if a country was conducting a strike involveing complete surprise (like the Israeli strikes on Saddam's reactor in '81), I'd imagine that it may be wise to leave the jammers turned off until a threat (such as a fire control radar) emerged. It would also be in this situation that an F-35 based jammer would be fantastic, because unlike a less stealthy airframe like the Growler you could fly them along with the strike package without compromising the overall stealth of the package. The Growler is still good mind you, but I'd imagine that the need to have them operating from a different location to the F-35's will be more limiting.

This 2006 article say's that all F-18F's after a certain point were to be able to be adapted into EF-18G's. Was this plan carried out and will it apply to F-18F's?

link

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I meant out F-18F's

DarthAmerica

Putting isotropic radiators on the ?Air combat rumor board?
for feature studies.

Need to sharpen up on all my ACM terms too.

I?ll reengage after spinning up on the subject.

Thanks, CARRY ON , over and out.

In laymans terms what I was saying is that the power of an RF emitter(radar, radio, jammer ect) is greatly degraded by range in a NON-LINEAR way. If you are jamming two radars, one at x distance and the other at 2x distance, the amount of jamming power that reaches the further radar is not going to be reduced by just half. It will be reduced much much more. The reverse is also true. Thats why the close you are, the more effective your jamming will be from a power point of view. Here is a page I found that has some of the basics...

 

...now I'm not claiming any expertise with radars although I do have a decent understanding of some of the basics. I also have a technical background though and A LOT of applied experience with EW.

 

Non of the above means that there isnt a role for stand off jamming either. It's just that LO platforms offer some unique opportunities due to their ability to penetrate into hostile airspace. Take the MALD for instance. An F-35 could penetrate into denied airspace and deploy several MALD in close proximity to a threat radar. The MALD could be carrying an EW related payload. This is just one possible example. The bottom line is that there is definately an application for LO/EW combinations and the capability is complimentary.

 

-DA

1 0 0 x F-35s
2 4 x F/a-18Fs (with some being converted to Growler specification)
5 x Kc-30B MRTT tankers
6 x 737-700 MESA AWACS
4 x C-17 Glob III
1 2 x C130J-30
1 2 x C130H

Or will some or all be retired?

Considering the C-130H arrived in 1978, I'd say that they will probably go within the coming decade.

 

I doubt we will ever get 100 F-35 and I would be surprised if there were any more ex-Rhodesian pilots still young enough to help fill out our numbers, were we to operate 120 SH and JSF. 

 

 

...now I'm not claiming any expertise with radars although I do have a decent understanding of some of the basics. I also have a technical background though and A LOT of applied experience with EW.

 

The details can be a slippery slope for me. So lets just say that the appropriate people are definately earning their pay and probably never guessed they would be doing it the way they are!

-DA