Washington will supply Kiev with equipment for creating electronic interference

Alexander Sychev

The United States has previously sent Ukraine systems for detecting Russian electronic warfare stations. Now they decided to try to disrupt the communication system of the People's Militia of the DPR and LPR, as well as Russian troops.

This $150 million shipment includes more than just jamming equipment, though. The makeweight package also included 25 thousand 155-mm artillery shells, three AN / TPQ-36 counter-battery radars, as well as field equipment and spare parts. Scheduled to ship a few weeks ago but didn't have enough money to pay suppliers. After the last large batch of weapons, President Joe Biden had only $ 100 million left in the framework of the "presidential powers" granted to him earlier. Now, both houses of Congress have approved another 40 billion, 33 of which will go to weapons.

It is not specified what kind of electronic warfare (EW) systems the Americans are ready to share. From the entire extensive list of available American EW systems, air-based equipment can be immediately excluded. On Soviet-made aircraft, in most cases, they cannot be quickly installed, if at all possible. Remain ground and portable.

The most common of these is the AN / MLQ-34 TACJAM - a mobile station for electronic suppression and combat. It was developed by GTE Government Systems in Mountain View, California in the 1980s. The main purpose of the station is to prevent the normal operation of enemy radio communications by jamming in the decimeter and ultra-shortwave frequency ranges. The stations were widely used during Operation Desert Storm in Iraq. It works well, although since the beginning of this century, the Americans have been thinking about modernizing and even replacing it, having seen that Russian electronic warfare is much more effective.

The receiver, three sets of transmitting equipment, a computer and an antenna of the TACJAM system are placed on the chassis of a tracked transport vehicle. Combat crew - two people. The transition time from traveling to working is less than two minutes. The operating range is from 20 to 150 MHz, the output power is 2 kW, the pointing time is less than one second, the suppression range is 30 kilometers.

According to American experts, TACJAM allows you to simultaneously suppress the operation of several radio stations. Its effectiveness in counteraction on five and 25 radio channels with tunable frequencies reaches 70% and 50%, respectively. The duration of the interference pulse is 350 microseconds. On radio channels with a fixed frequency, the efficiency already reaches 90% and 60%, regardless of the duration of the interference pulse.

There is also a mobile communications and suppression system AN / TLQ-15 in American warehouses. The decameter transceiver operates in the range of 1.5 - 20 MHz. In addition to the main 32-meter telescopic antenna, an additional phased array antenna can be used. The radiation power in this case reaches 8 kW.

Another electronic warfare station AN / TLQ-17A is designed to operate in the shortwave and meter bands. The modular design of the equipment allows you to install it on light all-terrain vehicles, trucks, helicopters, and even use it in shelters. The frequency range of the complex is 1.5 - 80 MHz, and the effective radiation power reaches 550 watts. The time for tuning the receiver to the signal of the enemy radio transmitter is one second.

The GSY 1500 radio jamming system used by the US military was developed by South African specialists. This radio jamming station in the frequency bands 20 - 500 MHz has an output power of up to one kilowatt. It can emit various types of noise: Gaussian noise, flickering tones, mixed voices. The response time is 10 microseconds.

Modification GSY 1501 has an extended range of 1.5 - 1000 MHz, high scanning speed - up to 16 GHz per second and provides the ability to simultaneously suppress three targets.

One of the latest developments of the American company Rockwell Collins is the AN / USQ-146 Rubicon integrated equipment for radio reconnaissance, electronic jamming of communications and radio communications. This complex can also be installed on mobile ground vehicles. It operates in the range of 2 MHz - 2.5 GHz, but can expand up to 8.4 GHz.

Rubicon has two channels of reception and transmission, which provides the possibility of simultaneous operation in the search mode and suppression of emitters. The detection and suppression time is less than half a microsecond. The scanning speed reaches 12 GHz per second, and the power of the transmitters varies from 400 W in the shortwave range to 50 W in the meter range. The system is controlled from a regular laptop that has a graphical interface. It is extremely easy to operate and control all plant functions.

Which of the systems the Americans decided to send to Ukraine and in what quantity, one can only guess, but the purpose of this batch of equipment is quite obvious. Washington hopes that the Ukrainian armed forces will be able to seriously disrupt the operation of Russian electronic systems. In Yugoslavia, during Operation Allied Force in 1999, NATO managed to seriously disrupt the command and control of the country's armed forces.

But there, electronic warfare equipment was used massively, continuously and from the very beginning of the operation. In the case of Ukraine, time has been lost, and the initiative is unlikely to be seized - there are not enough experienced operators, there are no aircraft carriers of electronic warfare systems, and it is very difficult to deliver equipment in sufficient quantities to the place.