US Navy’s Next Generation Jammers

The US Navy’s Next Generation Jammer, guarantees another, more proficient warfare systems and  high-power jamming through high-end military grade electronics, as it is recently investigated in the article by Dr. Gareth Evans from www.army-technology.com.

‘Agile, adaptive and integrated electronic warfare’ is the way the Pentagon is depicting its new systems to guarantee the US superiority over the all electromagnetic ranges – a part of military technology which has been increasing since the begging of the wake of developing Russian technological advancement. Moscow’s utilization of electronic warfare (EW) in Ukraine and other countries, combined with the use of cutting edge Russian air defenses – possible one of the best on the planet – has returned jamming in the interest point for the US Navy and its armada of EA-18G Growlers.

Used as the main tactical jamming fighter in the world, the Growler is a specific variant of the F/A18-F Super Hornet, and since  operational usage started  in September 2009, it has been furnished with the AN/ALQ-99 airborne electronic warfare system. The AN/ALQ-99 itself, in any case, can assert significantly to more older devices, having been engineered in the late 1960s, and first used in 1971 together with the EA-6 Prowler, the EW variation of the A-6 Intruder, was ready to see its usage in Vietnam.

Today, in any case, the AN/ALQ-99 remains as a maturing system, still established in simple analogue technology, progressively hard to maintain and has issues of poor reliability, leaving the Navy with simple decision to make newer system that will “will provide enhanced airborne electronic attack capabilities to disrupt and degrade enemy air defense and ground communication systems. ”After dealing with some very strong competition in 2013, Raytheon is developing the NGJ systems, that is going to be delivered in three increments.

Increment 1 will be used to deliver mid-band jamming in order to counter the radars used by surface-air defense systems, it should become operational in 2020/1 and will replace the existing mid-band AN/ALQ-99 on the Growlers. The low band pods that are located under the fuselage of the fighters, were upgraded throughout the years and will be used until 2022, when low-band jamming and surveillance radars will be replaced by the NGJ in Increment 2. Increment 3 will provide the US Navy with new capacities for high-band jamming used in air-to-air engagements with enemy fighters.

There have likewise been a few reports that the system has the potential capacity to launch a cyber attack, with use of injecting the rouge data packets into enemy networks and systems. Similar attack has reportedly happened in the 2007 Israeli “Operation Orchard” on a nuclear plant in the eastern Syria. The attack was able to shut down Syrian Russian-made systems.