Electronic Warfare

[IronManBeta]

My understanding is that the Soviets were big fans of across-the-board saturated jamming. You get a pile of radio transmitters in the 1,500 to 3,000 watt range and tie up as much of the radio spectrum for as long as you can. They called this "radioelectronic combat".

For untrained troops this can be pretty upsetting, but apparently trained troops can cope with it to a degree (!). The worst of many degradations is that artillery support gets pretty messed up and the loss of any on-call arty is a serious matter. Also, newbie radio operators can get so frustrated that they start transmitting in clear and when the jamming stops (not always easy to tell when, BTW) they give away all kinds of info to the opposing signals intelligence guys.

The NATO doctrine was to be much more selective and try to target the jamming. I was trying to visualize how many brief little signals would be flitting around a modern battlefield altogether and my mind boggled fairly quickly. There are potentially an enormous variety of signals, many of which you would rather evesdrop on (if possible) than jam.

Also, if you leave your jammers running continuously a missile will eventually come looking for them. If you are sure that the whole war will only last a few days, then go for it, but otherwise you might want to try and conserve a few for when you might really need them.

On balance the dilemma is: are you better off jamming to deny the enemy (and who knows, some of your own troops?) some of his communications, or are you further ahead by letting him broadcast and gathering whatever signint (evesdropping and codebreaking) and elint (ie target location and direction finding) that might come your way?

There was a book (an interactive one by Alton - great stuff) where the enemy was in listening mode while moving forward to contact and then in 'silent jamming' mode while the attack went in. Silent jamming is when all radio traffic appears to cease. Several minutes or more can go by before anyone realizes what is going on. The very fact of jamming told the defenders that the moment of action had come. Another dilemma....

I'd love to hear from anyone who has actually done this stuff! What were the regular soldiers on each side taught to do in the late 80s?

Cheers all, Rob.

[Blackhorse]

Originally posted by RobertCrandall

I'd love to hear from anyone who has actually done this stuff! What were the regular soldiers on each side taught to do in the late 80s?

Cheers all, Rob.

In the American army at the platoon and company level we were taught to try to first "work through" any jamming. The thought being that 1. intermittent jamming was less disruptive than trying to switch to an alternate frequency (some people get the message and switch, some don't). 2. Continuous jamming was not likely to last long as it was an invitation to be taken out by artillery / missiles, etc.

If jamming persisted, we switched to alternate frequencies (with the disruption that that entailed). If all else failed, we resorted to couriers and hand signals.

The hardest thing to identify / work around was "white noise" jamming. It was easy to assume that your radio was not working, instead of being jammed.

As the American army introduced secure radio communications systems down to the platoon level in the mid-late 80's, the Soviets would not have had much success in "eavesdropping" -- most of their EW efforts would have been, of necessity, jamming.

[byron13]

I think Blackhorse (gee, I wonder what unit HE was assigned to?) has a pretty good grip on it. Platoons could also, in theory anyway, link up by wire if they had time. This should have been impervious to jamming. This takes a little time to accomplish and, after a couple of engagements, I can see where you'd be short on wire because it was left behind at the last battle position that you departed in great haste while under fire, the wire got shredded by shrapnel, your tanks are too widely separated, etc. Practically speaking, you probably couldn't wire a whole company together in a battle position.

The hand and flag signals would work at the platoon level, but that's it. Most soldiers did not train in flag signals, so they would be worthless on the first day. On the other hand, (i) flag signals can be memorized in a matter of hours and (ii) following the platoon leader and shooting what he shoots at works quite well, thank you. But that only works at platoon level. Company and higher would, as Blackhorse writes, require on courier.

Switching to alternate frequencies could really screw things up. Again, not a problem at platoon level so much, but at higher levels, it could be a real problem. First of all, you've got to assume that the frequency over which the command to change to an alternate is being given is being actively jammed. People may not hear the command because of the jamming. Beyond that, someone just won't get the word because it's a rule that someone has to miss getting the word. They don't get it because the headquarters tracks are tearing down and have reduced communications capability during that time, they're driving through a tunnel or a dead space, engaging Hinds or otherwise engaging the enemy, have the wrong alternate frequency, or the driver who was supposed to monitor the radio is asleep. It never fails.

One of the other posters mentioned that working through jamming is easier when you have a high powered radio and are close to the receiver because radio signals dissipate on an exponential basis. To jam a tank trying to talk to another tank 100 meters away takes a lot of power when you're jamming from 10 klicks away. But jamming brigade comms would be much easier because of dispersion.

As you say, the biggest effect of jamming at the company level would be an inability to call for fire or to control your platoons. The arty net is on a different frequency than each of the companies so that if the arty net is being jammed, the company's internal frequency probably is not. And vice versa. If the company frequency was being jammed, the commander could always jump down to each platoon's internal frequency for the day to communicate. All of these freqs should have been preset in the commander's radio, so it would be no big deal to change freqs. Call for fire would be a problem, though. At battalion, the problem would be communicating with the companies in order to (i) receive spot reports on the enemy so battalion "sees" the battlefield, and (ii) transmit orders to the companies. As with the company commander, battalion could jump down to company freqs (or even platoon) to gain contact.

I would think the bad guys would listen until an assault kicked off, at which point they would jam. Or they would jam to foil an assault by the enemy.

[Mac_MatrixForum]

My understanding is that the Soviets were big fans of across-the-board saturated jamming. ... They called this "radioelectronic combat".

Is that so? That would effectively make them deaf themselves. Jamming is nothing but fighting to have the most power at the receiver and the power diminishes to the range squared. That means their own radios are nearest and would be hurt most from saturated jamming vs. targeted.

Also, compare tank radios in the hundreds of watts range to portable radios with couple watts to a couple kilowatt jammers. The jammer must be close to the front line in an armored carrier (to prevent the first artillery shells from taking it out), on a chopper, in artillery shells or in portable jammers dropped by commandos/withdrawing troops so the jammer is near enough to have any chance of being effective. The power favours the tanks and blocking their comms would be highly unlikely IMO. The case is different when the tanks try to contact someone further away and they could have trouble receiving comms.

Newbie radio users have so much trouble without EW that comms are always a problem . Either they are lazy, tired, under ABC threat/attack, being shot at, ignorant, untrained, ... or the equipment fails.

You generally don't eavesdrop comms. Now if somebody would be so stupid to talk in a radio channel, yeah somebody would hear it but aren't your comms always either encrypted, digital (requiring similar receivers), short text messages or totally useless for the enemy ('fire, 'go go go'). You wouldn't have scores of Russian interpreters decoding all messages, would you ? What cannot be denied is that analyzing what kind of messages there are (as in the signal differences), what radios send them, from where, frequencies, timing, etc. you get all the information you need from electronic intelligence.

I don't think anyone expects the EW equipment to stay intact long into the war... to be used in the decisive actions in the beginning of the war. It's not going to drag on for years now, is it? But then again there has been no real test for these things. No two modern armies with more or less equal capabilities have ever fought.

Modern day fast scanners make detecting signals ridiculously easy. Well it isn't so hard even with the older equipment for a few motivated comrades after a bit of training. I would hazard a guess that it's much easier to get useful electronic intelligence than make sure radio use is by the book . At least that would be my personal experience . And yeah, switching frequencies always drops some people out of the chain.... because the person who was supposed to do it slept, did not know it, does not know how to do it, does not know the frequencies, ...

I have no idea how dependant either side would have been on radio comms... a defensive force like ours digs to the ground and uses cables extensively. It's obviously harder for a mostly mechanized force. To get the supply matters agreed you would need at most a few messages, you think? And nobody jams non-stop for hours... you jam when you have something meaningful to jam, always relating to some of your own operations.

And finally regarding the training. I guess there isn't much EW or signaling training given to troops? Learning these matters by trial and error during a real crisis always costs lives. I just hope there would be well enough time before the declaration of war to train the folks but I fear there are a lot more pressing training concerns...

[byron13]

Ah, yes. Mac is the resident EW expert. I believe he was involved with EW - probably with the military in Finland. He sent me an interesting e-mail that I would like to forward to you, Robert, if Mac gives me permission.

Two comments on Mac's post. First, he is right that NATO - or at least the U.S. forces there - rely much more on radio than the Finns apparently do. Building hard communications is a great idea, but they did not do it in Germany. Not sure if that's because battle plans change on a regular basis, the sites were subject to sabotage, or having hard communications confirms for the Soviets the disposition of NATO forces, or some other reason. The 2 ACR's may have had something more formal; Blackhorse could say. But the main maneuver units did not. Without predicting whether the war would actually start without notice or after a long build up and hardening of battle positions, we trained for and assumed that the war would be no-notice and come as you are. Thus, first contact may be a meeting engagement on the Autobahn or at one's GDP position that General Schmedlap may alter on the fly due to intel. It was entirely a radio affair from platoon on up. Radio was needed to send intel up the chain and to send orders down the chain. Anyone without comms would be fighting in a vacuum and would not know whether to advance, remain in place, or run like hell. You would not have a clear picture of your front, flanks, or rear. So, yes, the U.S. forces were susceptible to jamming.

The other point relates to Mac's point about digital radios and encryption. Didn't exist to a large extent in the mid-80s. Tanks in the mid-80s were still using obsolescent radios from probably the 60s. It was a purely analog affair. As for encyrption, some command frequencies had them. In a tank or infantry company, the company commander and XO (and first sergeant?) had encryption for talking with higher. Everyone else in the company communicated in the open. Most radios in the headquarters used for command purposes at battalion and higher would have encryption, but there were still a lot of radios at that level that would not have it. I have no idea what is available now or when they switched to something more sophisticated. It would be worth investigating whether the big changes came with refitting with Bradleys and M1A1s. I could see where the Cav might have had more encryption during this period - maybe down to platoon level - and, depending on when he served, might be able to give you an idea of when some technological advancements made it to the field.

[Blackhorse]

Byron is right about wiring up -- I had forgotten about that.

And no, the "covering force" had no hard lines of communication.

Re: secure communications. The 11th ACR got secure communications down to the platoon leader / platoon sergeant level in 1982 or early 1983 *before* we got M1s (late '83) or Bradleys ('85). But it was certainly all in the same time frame.

[Mac_MatrixForum]

probably with the military in Finland

Correct. The national (compulsory) service . The equipment we use is not the most modern (for example no frequency hopping radios yet) and is a mix of western and eastern equipment (generally the best price-performance -ratio possible). Anyway, I don't think differences in the qualities of radio equipment make a notable difference in the game mechanics at this scale.

I would like to forward to you, Robert, if Mac gives me permission.

Yes, please, that was in my intentions too.

I served in the infantry so I'm not too familiar with our mechanized brethen in the armored brigade without some additional research. Obviously they use less cables. I'll just point out that we have the separation of a core network and then the sort of private networks of the battalions and artillery. Core network is handled by both cable and radio links (such as microwave), latter also being the first choice of mobile forces. That does not say there is no cable laid... inside each site or to and from temporary positions. Also laid down everywhere before war.

As I come from the signal troops that means I'm well familiar with core network functions and less with what the frontline battalions do with them . I'm aware they do connect to our network, to each other and to artillery support. Usually by cable to the nearest site in the core network. I guess they mostly use signs and couriers when engaged (and everybody knows it's better to distribute the orders without the use of radio as much as possible, by person if possible so you even get to observe what your men are doing).

In the game, as the hex size is mere 500 m, a by-the-book comms site is well over a hex in size due to dispersion of individual stations. Also the connections between the clients and the site will be in the order of a few cables which means up to a couple kilometers. I'm not sure how that translates to an armored brigade but surely the core is not totally different, they just connect to the core by other means (read: radio). Would the US mech battalions have their own signal troops that connect to the core working safely behind the front? How would your typical platoon commander stay in touch with his company commander? Solely by radio (or those signs/flags)? How would this commander further connect to his higher ups?

In the game terms I guess the relatively small scale would make it possible to model the individual signaling sites (platoons). Nevertheless, perhaps it would be wise to just start with some kind of status for each unit that describes its comms (out-of-contact, in-contact, being jammed). Then later should you want to model the sites too, you could calculate that status from the state of the nearest sites and their own status. EW troops would be quite dispersed and effectively insignificant, but it's possible to model them just for fun. I guess the best representation is though that they should be available to the player as rather abstract assets to use when he chooses and also as additional automaticintelligence. For example perhaps he would get markers to where there is suspected enemy artillery batteries and could call for EW for certain high priority engagements. Same kind of intelligence applies to all troops that would be using radios at the time. Jammer assets would get diminished due to casualties when used. Well, that's a start for talking about how they could be modelled in the game .

[byron13]

Here are Mac's responses to some questions I posed to him. Robert, I believe that some of what Finland does is different from the U.S., so I caution you to draw to many conclusions. However, some of the technological stuff like artillery delivered jammers is fascinating.

I wrote down things I know and the list got awfully long
Well I'll answer your questions now, perhaps at some point further
discussion at the board is also appropriate.

1. How quickly could the Soviets zero an HQ in for special treatment?

I have no idea. Depends when the Soviets know it's an HQ and then whether they
are going to do something about it. I don't know about your different radio
models but it's safe to say that if your HQs use different radios than others
they would immediatelly be known. A curious detail is that our HQs don't use
radios, at all Well I can't speak for the grunts in the front line and
their COs but radio usage stops very quickly and is limited only to
engagements I believe. Most of our forces dig to ground (as we technically
have only defence forces and no army) and use twisted pair cables (or
nowadays fibre too). The infantry battalions in a typical brigade
connect to each other, to supporting artillery and the core network (managed
by a surveillance team I was part of). That also provides for backups as lots
of cable gets broken during barrages as our veterans can tell from WW2.

2. What level headquarters would they target? Division? Brigade? Would they
smother a battalion if it was in a key position? Would they always target
combat headquarters or would they also jam service support?

I would be surprised if your higher ups actually use radios in a live
situation. Well, then again I just heard on Wednesday that Al Qaeda listened
to your radios succesfully in Afghanistan during operation Anaconda and I've
heard you are more reliant on the radios in general, don't know how much
truth in that.

EW is always used to support some battlefield activity so I would think they
jam some specific radio frequencies when they attack and then may expand to
cover new frequencies you come up with or just block everything (there are
obviously limitations but then again every frequency change, scheduled or
not, leaves some people behind). It will always be planned thoroughly though.

3. How quickly could they react if the target switched to an alternate
frequency?

Depends a bit on the structure but first you always listen to see if your
jamming is effective so you also check for changes in used frequencies at the
same time (and at least log everything). If they have planned to follow your
frequencies with the jamming I would expect the delay to be the comms delay
between the listening post and jammer and perhaps some thinking in the HQ.
Jammers are practically deaf when jamming, kind of like you don't hear much if
you shout.

4. How effective do you think the Soviets were at targeting, say, a HQ located
by EW? Were they coordinated enough to get off a good artillery strike based
on that information? Air strikes?

It's possible but nobody shoots at every radio, I mean there are hundreds in
a brigade. I'm pretty certain they would also intelligence the site with
regular men on the ground or airborne/satellite recce. Then what they actually
do could be a variant of many things. Rocket artillery would fit that kind of
area attack well though. Have to remember the locating isn't perfect, the
terrain affects VHF frequencies much.

5. I was always taught to keep transmissions short. So we'd break up a long
message into several shorter transmissions. Does that do any good?

Nowadays? No use. The moment you press the send button you will be known to
them. That's my experience. Breaking the messages would have worked a couple
decades ago if done as fast as a few seconds and on different frequencies but
if they have anything automatic there you are nailed. Frequency scanners are
impressive nowadays.

6. Never having had it happen to me, how effective is jamming? Will is
completely shutdown a particular frequency or is it merely annoying?

I already talked about the battle of powers in the receiver in the short
message. The situation is quite good for tanks because they have powerful
transmitters and short ranges to mates and rather long ranges to jammers so
complete shutdown is unlikely except in front line. Then again they might
shoot artillery shells with jammers. You also had the tactic of slow
withdrawal from Europe where you would leave portable jammers behind with set
delay before activation.

I would think it's best for them to target the core network and the link
stations there. After all they can't really move etc. I don't know how
accurate that prediction is though.

7. Did the Soviets have, in the late eighties, enough EW to make it a regular
threat, or would it have been fairly rare? How often could various level HQs
expect to be jammed?

Sorry, I have little information of those matters. It'd be interesting to know
though.

8. Were we set up to target jammers for artillery strikes. That is, if the
Soviets set up a jammer on a hilltop, would we locate and target that unit for
destruction?

There are different kinds of jammers.

Artillery deployable hammers are fired upon you. Those nasties work for an
hour or so and are near you so quite effective. Also they might be booby
trapped Shoot on sight Same applies to portable jammers.

Jammer choppers or aircract... leave for the air support or use that
LAW/12.7 mm/.50.

Jammer vehicles are a different matter... they are of course detected the
moment they start jamming so they expect artillery strike to their location
and therefore come in armored vehicles (I'd think BMP quality) and move within
minutes as they work on small shifts (or until destroyed, I think EW
equipment is not expected to survive many hours into the war).

.... btw. common for all jamming vehicles are weird antenna arrays with
different length antennas (for different frequencies).

[Sabre21]

Hi all

I am going to try and respond to some of these questions. But first, just so you know, even in the early eighties all the US Army's vehicles that had radios (VHF-FM) operated on secure channels (KY58's).

If the KY58 was non functional..the vehicle or aircraft was considered "Red X'ed" or non-operational itself. A high priority was given to ensure radios were always capable of operating secure...and I can not ever recal using one in the clear. Now our VHF-AM and UHF radios did not have secure capability and that was a problem for aircraft. Units below brigade typically didn't have this capability other than aircraft.

I have a book around here somewheres published by the Army on Soviet EW operations...I'll look for it this weekend. There were different types of EW. Interference was where you might just here static or even music on the channel but you could usually overcome this by repositioning or turning up the radio power. True jamming included "Spot" and "Barrage". The spot was focused on a single channel where as barrage covered a wide spectrum. We countered this by re-positioning, turning up power, or going to an alternate freq.

As for the specific questions:

1. How quickly could the Soviets zero an HQ in for special treatment?

The magic number we were trained to was 7 seconds. Any transmission longer than that was susceptible to triangulation.

2. What level headquarters would they target? Division? Brigade? Would they
smother a battalion if it was in a key position? Would they always target
combat headquarters or would they also jam service support?

Usually Corps and Div HQ's were the main focus...but using remote transmitters helped confuse exactly where these guys were. We also trained to pick up and move quite often.

3. How quickly could they react if the target switched to an alternate
frequency?

This was difficult to say...depending on the allocated resources..I have seen it occur in under a minute.

4. How effective do you think the Soviets were at targeting, say, a HQ located
by EW? Were they coordinated enough to get off a good artillery strike based
on that information? Air strikes?

The soviets had lots of rocket artillery dedicated to this. Air strikes....not likely unless it was a very very important target...like maybe a confirmed nuke unit.

Oh..btw...thinking about it..the Pershing units were the number 1 priority target for the soviets followed by Corps HQ's.

5. I was always taught to keep transmissions short. So we'd break up a long
message into several shorter transmissions. Does that do any good?

In the eighties..yes...under 7 seconds was the number. Today though..I doubt that even a few miliseconds would go by un-noticed.


6. Never having had it happen to me, how effective is jamming? Will is
completely shutdown a particular frequency or is it merely annoying?

Yes..it can shut down frequencies back in them days...but mostly annoying as hell...I cussed more than once at the radios:) With the advent of freq hopping (Sincgars and Havequick)...jamming is virtually non-existant any more. We first started getting those in 90-91.

7. Did the Soviets have, in the late eighties, enough EW to make it a regular
threat, or would it have been fairly rare? How often could various level HQs
expect to be jammed?

The soviets loved this stuff. They had a regiment at division level dedicated to it. I can get the organization of the EW units if you like...again..another task for this weekend..ack!

8. Were we set up to target jammers for artillery strikes. That is, if the
Soviets set up a jammer on a hilltop, would we locate and target that unit for
destruction?

The first answer was yes. We had several air force dedicated to counter radar..usually ada but they could have easily of sent a Harm missile onto a jammer.

I am not to familiar with the arty fired ones...but heli borne jammers were quite numerous on both sides. Even in the divisional cav back then we had a blackhawk equipped just for that. The soviets were even developing GPS jammers mounted on MI-8 hips, they had about a dozen in inventory when their empire collapsed.

Well..thats about it.

Sabre21

[Sabre21]

Ok..I found my EW books and will try and give brief excerpts...sorry for the long posts:)

The Soviets called it Radioelectronic Combat.

They were organized with a Radio Reconnassance regiment, a Radio Jamming regiment, an ADA Jamming regiment, an EW Regiment, and 1 or 2 Radiotechnical reconnaissance regiments at the Front level.

At the Army level they had 1 or 2 Radiotechnical Recon Battalions each with a Radio Intercept company, Radio DF company, and 3 Radar Intercept and DF companies. The Army also had an EW battalion.

At Division, there was a Radar Recon Battery within the Regimental Arty regt, a radio/radar recon company within the Recon Bn, and an ADA EW/tgt acquisition battery within the ADA Regt.

Target Priorites were:

1) Arty, Rocket, or Air Force units that possess nuclear weapons.

2) Command Posts

3) Field Arty, Tactical Air Force, and ADA

4) Reserve Force

5) Logistic sites

If I find more interesting data..I'll pass it on

Sabre21

Arty radar could be intercepted up to 25kn, VHF radios to about 40km, and HF radios up to 80km using ground intercept units. If air intercept is used...these ranges increase.

A low power FM signal could be intercepted out to 10km and high power out to 40km.

RDF accuracies was +/- 3.5 degrees. (If you consider the distance, 3.5 degrees is not very good. A One degree cone is 17.8 meters wide at 100 meters. So at 10km...3.5 degrees equates to 6230 meters wide at the end of the cone. Thats a lot of terrain.)

Indirect fire using rocket arty is the primary means for attacking an intercepted target. Ground attack with heliborne or airborne forces is the next preferred method followed by air attack.

Here is a standard intercept timeline:

1) A FM transmission occurs

2) 10 seconds - Sovient Comint operator identifies transmitter and flashes alert to RDF net and to Comint Analysts.

3) 25 seconds - Comint analysts requests bearings to transmitter from other units on RDF net.

4) 55 seconds - Comint receives additional bearings and reports data to RDF Net.

5) 85 seconds - RDF Net reports transmitter location to plotting and analysis section.

6) 115 seconds - Plotting and Analysis section refines location and determines course of action.

7) 2-3 minutes total time - Fire mission started on transmitter location.

[byron13]

Originally posted by Sabre21
But first, just so you know, even in the early eighties all the US Army's vehicles that had radios (VHF-FM) operated on secure channels (KY58's).

If the KY58 was non functional..the vehicle or aircraft was considered "Red X'ed" or non-operational itself.

Maybe in the Cav, but not in the "lesser" units. As I described somewhere else, only the company commander, the XO, and first sergeant had secure radios through the end of '86 - at least in the M60A3 units. Possibly the comms were upgraded when transitioning into M1A1s, but I would have thought that they would take the existing comms and stuff them into the new tanks. At this point, I have forgotten all of the nomenclature, but those three leaders were the only ones with radios that had the box off to the side that you would download the days' "code" into. None of the platoon leaders or the other vehicles were rigged for secure communication.

[Sabre21]

Hi Byron

It's kinda crazy how different units were equipped. I was in 3rd ID and we had secure gear coming out our ears:)...even in 83. Our farps, tocs, aircraft, vehicles..all of them. I don't ever recal talking in the plain with any of the ground units...but then we did have all M1's and Bradleys then...so that might have been why.

Sabre21

[byron13]

Actually, that's an interesting point. I know 3d ID was the first of the divisions to get the M1 and the Bradleys. I was in 1st AD which, as Blackhorse gleefully points out, was "only" facing the Czechs. My brigade didn't transition into M1s until late '86/early '87, and there were no Bradleys to be seen. It may very well be that 3d ID got priority on everything, including secure comms, because of its expected role in the battle. Based on this, I would guess that 3d AD was high on the list and 8th ID low.

Gee, I never felt like a poor stepchild before now . . .