Electronic warfare
The purpose of electromagnetic warfare is to deny the opponent the advantage of—and ensure friendly unimpeded access to—the EM spectrum.
Electromagnetic warfare can be applied from air, sea, land, or space by crewed and uncrewed systems, and can target communication, radar, or other military and civilian assets.
In the case of anti-radiation weapons, this often includes missiles or bombs that can home in on a specific signal (radio or radar) and follow that path directly to impact, thus destroying the system broadcasting.
In November 2021, Israel Aerospace Industries announced a new electronic warfare system named Scorpius that can disrupt radar and communications from ships, UAVs, and missiles simultaneously and at varying distances.
These Electronic Support Measures (ESM) aim to enable immediate threat recognition focuses on serving military service needs even in the most tactical, rugged, and extreme environments.
Electronic warfare support is conducted by assets under the operational control of a commander to provide tactical information, specifically threat prioritization, recognition, location, targeting, and avoidance.
Russian Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky refused the advice and denied the Ural permission to electronically jam the enemy, which in those circumstances might have proved invaluable.
The intelligence the Japanese gained ultimately led to the decisive Battle of Tsushima, where the Russian Navy lost all its battleships and most of its cruisers and destroyers.
As battlefield communication and radar technology improved, so did electronic warfare, which played a major role in several military operations during the Vietnam War.
The Borisoglebsk-2 system is mounted on nine MT-LB armored vehicles and is intended to suppress mobile satellite communications and satellite-based navigation signals.
This led to Ukrainian SAMs regaining much of their effectiveness, which began inflicting significant losses on Russian aircraft by the start of March 2022.
Electronic suppression of GPS and radio signals caused heavy losses of Ukrainian UAVs, depriving them of intelligence and precise artillery fire spotting.
By summer 2022, only some one-third of Ukrainian UAV missions could be said to have been successful, as EW had contributed to Ukraine losing 90% of the thousands of drones it had at the beginning of the invasion.
[22] Russian EW capacity to disrupt GPS signals is credited with the reduction in the success of Ukrainian usage of HIMARS and JDAM bombs.
[23] 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.
[24] In October 2023, The Economist reported that electronic warfare was in widespread use on front lines to impair small battlefield UAV activity, with Russia installing video feedback and control jammers on high-value equipment like tanks and artillery.
CEW is affecting all electronic warfare subdivisions, and can improve situation-assessment (SA) and ESM, through automatic detection and classification of new and unknown signals, signatures, and even RCS.
As well as the ability to adapt in real time to changes in the eletromagnetic spectrum, by using artificial intelligence algorithms to quickly generate optimal EA, or EP solutions.
[34] [33] CEW is part of the Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy (ESSS), published in October 2020, according to Lieutenant Commander Brian P. Gannon, U.S. Navy.
