“Expanding the full deployment of MFEW and where it’s going to end up long term, those are questions we’re having within within the Army,” an Army official told Breaking Defense.
By Andrew EversdenThe MFEW-AL program, designed to mount a jammer on MQ-1C Grey Eagles, was one of several EW programs recently discussed by a senior Army program officer.
By Andrew Eversden“We have a lot of people programs and we tried to protect those. Secondly, we tried to protect readiness. Third, we tried to protect modernization,” acting secretary John Whitley says.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.The Army has big ambitions for the Terrestrial Layer System, meant to detect, decrypt, and disrupt enemy communications. We spoke to the companies that actually have to build it.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.The Stryker-mounted TLS and drone-borne MFEW are the first two nodes in a networked arsenal of sensors and jammers to combat high-tech foes.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Decades after disbanding its Cold War electronic warfare corps, the Army is getting back in the EW game with new cyberspace and machine-learning technologies.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Sun Tzu said all warfare is based on deception. Today, that means electronic deception.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.ARLINGTON: Outgunned in the airwaves by Russian jammers, the US Army has a new plan for electronic warfare. The Army hopes to rebuild the long-neglected EW branch more quickly — in part, paradoxically, by partially submerging it in other branches, namely military intelligence and cyber. There’s both an equipment aspect and an organizational one. First…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.PENTAGON: The brand new Army Rapid Capabilities Office is studying proposals to spend between $50 and $100 million on urgently needed electronic warfare gear, Breaking Defense has learned. The options include sensors to detect radar and radio signals, and jammers to block them, mounted on ground vehicles, soldiers’ backpacks, and drones. Where will the money come…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.There is a great disconnect in the Department of Defense. Leaders at the highest levels realize we are falling behind — or have already fallen behind — Russia and China in electronic warfare, the invisible battle of detecting and disrupting the radar and radio transmissions on which a modern military depends. Even in the traditionally lower-tech…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.PENTAGON: The US Army is struggling to fund the increasingly crucial capabilities it fields for electronic warfare, which it largely abandoned after the Soviet Union fell. The Army has over 32,000 short-range defensive jammers to stop roadside bombs, but on current plans, it won’t have an offensive jammer until 2023. “Can that be accelerated? Yes,” said…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Today, somewhere inside the Pentagon, senior Army officers will likely recommend development of new radio-jamming equipment for the post-Afghan War world. After a decade desperately playing defense against radio-detonated IEDs — and, before that, a decade of neglect in the 1990s — Army electronic warfare is taking the offensive again. With their eyes on…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.