Here's a pleasant thought: the core of the US military's airborne electronic attack weapons are useless against Russian S-400 integrated air defense systems currently for sale on the export market.
In unusually blunt language for an unclassified source, a US Navy document soliciting sources for a next generation jammer (NGJ) dismisses the current system as out-classed.
"The aging ALQ-99 [tactical jamming system] lacks the capability to match today's complex integrated air defense, communication, data link and non-traditional radio frequency (RF) threats," says the document, dated 15 September.
That assessment goes one giant step farther than the statement I got in February last year. I had asked NGJ program manager Capt Steven Kochman to explain how NGJ was suddenly making progress after years of inaction. Kochman replied that a classified briefing to then-deputy secretary of defense Gordon England served to reverse the program's fortunes. The contents of the briefing are not public knowledge, but Kochman only allowed that the power of new surface to air radars stretch the limits of the ALQ-99's transmit range. Kochman didn't say that the ALQ-99 is already out-matched by the radars that can alert surface to air missiles, such as the SA-22, to the presence of incoming warplanes.
(Photo: US Navy)
Recent Comments