US Weapon Failures in Ukraine

How often have you heard someone say, sure, previous weapons of this *fill in the blank” type weren’t successful but this new generation will be because it has new and improved *fill in the blank* technology?  Plus, the manufacturer claims *fill in the blank*.  And, how often has ComNavOps flatly stated that all systems will significantly underperform in actual combat regardless of the new and improved, miracle technology they’re built on?  Most of you have your own favorite, pet weapon/sensor system that you’re convinced will be a world beater … but you’re wrong.
 
Well now, courtesy of Ukraine and our giveaway weapons transfers, we have some actual combat performance to look at for various weapons.  The Daily Caller website has a fascinating article about several US weapons that have been provided to Ukraine and have been found to significantly underperform compared to claims.  Here they are with quotes from the article: [1]
 
 
Abrams Tanks 

Ukraine has withdrawn some of the U.S. M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks from the front lines after Russian drones destroyed five of the heavy Western tanks it fought for months to obtain …
 
Droves of Russian surveillance and hunter-killer drones have been able to detect and pursue the tanks more quickly than expected.

 
Excalibur Artillery Shells 

Excalibur precision artillery rounds initially had a 70% efficiency rate hitting targets when first used in Ukraine. However, after 6 weeks, efficiency declined to only 6% as the Russians adapted their electronic warfare systems to counter it.

 
Guided Multiple-Launch Rocket System (GMLRS)
 
Russian electronic warfare has successfully redirected the Guided Multiple-Launch Rocket System (GMLRS), another long-range precision munition off its planned course, according to reports.
 
 
Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb 

It didn’t work for multiple reasons, including [electromagnetic interference] environment, including just really the dirt and doing it on ground …

Switchblade 300 Drone 

The first weapon that showed itself vulnerable to Russian electronic warfare was the Switchblade 300 …

 
According to the article, the common thread in most of these is that Russian electronic warfare (EW), which includes GPS spoofers, has proven effective at disrupting the weapons guidance by redirecting them away from their intended targets.
 
To be fair, the military has belatedly recognized, to some degree, that earlier GPS guided weapons are, indeed, vulnerable to EW and have been incorporating multiple guidance methods in more recent weapons.  Ominously though, this suggests that the majority of our current weapon stocks, being older, are of questionable effectiveness in the face of peer enemy EW and other countermeasures.
 
This demands that we begin instantly testing all our weapons under realistic EW conditions to see which work and which don’t (probably all of them!).  The military, however, steadfastly refuses to conduct rigorous, realistic testing which is why the Ukraine findings are coming as a surprise to the military.
 
Equally disturbing should be the realization that each of these weapons was pronounced a miracle for the ages and passed all tests with flying colors … … … and yet they’ve failed in combat.  This demonstrates the uselessness and simplicity of our so-called testing.
 
Now, this doesn’t mean that these weapons can’t be fixed and improved.  Most probably can … now that we know what’s wrong with them.  However, what about the rest of our weapons that haven’t been tested in combat or under realistic conditions?  What’s wrong with them?  It’s guaranteed that they have problems but we just don’t know what, yet.  I guess China will let us know when we use them and they fail.  Of course, that will too late but, at least, we’ll finally know.
 
 
 
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[1]Daily Caller website, “The US Sent Billions In Military Aid To Ukraine. Many Weapons Are Massively Underperforming”, Micaela Burrow, 3-May-2024,
https://dailycaller.com/2024/05/03/ukraine-aid-weapons-russia-tactics/

Satellite Space

If you’re like me, you’re aware that GPS satellites exist as do various surveillance satellites but you probably have no idea where they’re located (orbital height above sea level) or what this means in terms of war in space and satellite survivability.
 
Most people assume that all orbiting objects exist at more or less the same altitude but this is not the case.  There are various bands of orbits at various heights out to around the geosynchronous orbit at 36,000 km (22,500 mi).  Further than that is the so-called graveyard orbit where satellites are parked at the end of their operating lives if they are not de-orbited.
 
The two main orbital bands of interest for us are: 

• Low Earth Orbit (LEO) (<2000 km / 1,200 mi)
• NavStar GPS Orbit (20,180 km / 12,540 mi)

As a point of comparison, the Earth is around 4000 miles in radius (center of the Earth to the surface of the oceans)
 
Space has become a crowded place. 

US Space Command, which currently is responsible for monitoring the heavens, is tracking some 41,000 pieces of space junk bigger than 10 centimeters … [1]

… NASA, tracks over 25,000 objects larger than 10 cm in LEO, the estimated number between 1 and 10 cm in diameter is 500,000. The amount of particles bigger than 1 mm exceeds 100 million.[3]

It’s becoming even more crowded by the debris fields of anti-satellite (ASAT) tests.  Russian and Chinese ASAT test debris accounted for 20% of orbital collision warnings in 2022.[1]
 
A National Interest website article suggests that China has the capability to achieve anti-satellite kills at orbits out to Geosynchronous altitudes (35,786 km / 22,236 mi).[4]
 
One of the implications of the crowding of orbits is that when war with China comes and anti-satellite weapons are used by both sides, the number of objects (debris) in orbit will increase by orders of magnitude likely resulting in a cascade of collisions (at orbital speeds, any collision is probably totally destructive) with surviving satellites resulting in ever more debris and ever more collisions.  In other words, at some point, a chain reaction will occur which will destroy all satellites in a given orbit.
 
Legitimate uses are also contributing to the crowding. 

… the 700 to 900 kilometer band of LEO, a region that is increasingly crowded due to advent of mega-constellations such as SpaceX’s Starlink communications satellites. That orbital altitude also is being used by the Space Development Agency for its planned Transport Layer of 300 to 500 high-speed, high-volume communications birds.[1]

LEO confers interesting capabilities and limitations. 

Unlike geosynchronous satellite, satellites in LEO have a small field of view and so can observe and communicate with only a fraction of the Earth at a time. This means that a network (or "constellation") of satellites is required to provide continuous coverage. Satellites in lower regions of LEO also suffer from fast orbital decay and require either periodic re-boosting to maintain a stable orbit or launching replacement satellites when old ones re-enter.[3]

As a reference and point of interest, the 20-Feb-2008 shootdown of satellite USA-193 by a SM-3 Standard missile launched by USS Lake Erie occurred at an altitude of around 250 km (155 miles).
 
Space is a lot more complex, in terms of military use and combat, than most of us realize and the implications of combat in space are poorly understood by almost all of us.
 

 
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[1]Breaking Defense, “Debris from ASAT tests creating ‘bad neighborhood’ in low Earth orbit: Analyst”, Theresa Hitchens, 16-Jun-2023,
https://breakingdefense.com/2023/06/debris-from-asat-tests-creating-bad-neighborhood-in-low-earth-orbit-analyst/
 
[2]Wikipedia, “Global Positioning System”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System
 
[3]Wikipedia, “Low Earth Orbit”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit
 
[4]National Interest website, “How China Could Win a War Against America: Kill The Satellites”, Zachary Keck, 3-Oct-2019,
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-china-could-win-war-against-america-kill-satellites-85176

GPS Update

The US military is highly dependent on GPS positioning signals.  Weapons, vehicles, ships, aircraft, and individual troops all depend on GPS to the point where most are helpless without a GPS signal.  Many failures and accidents have been documented as being attributable to the loss of GPS.
 
It has long been recognized that the loss of GPS can render many weapons useless.  One response by the military has been to attempt to develop and deploy more resistant GPS satellites and systems. 

The Department of Defense (DOD) has worked for more than 2 decades to modernize GPS with a more jam-resistant, military-specific signal known as M-code. Space Force, part of the Department of the Air Force, is responsible for GPS modernization.[1]

M-code is a stronger, encrypted, military-specific GPS signal designed to meet military PNT [Positioning, Navigation, Timing] information needs. M-code will help military users overcome attempts to block the GPS signal, known as jamming, by using a more powerful signal with a broader radio frequency range. It will also protect against false GPS signals, known as spoofing, by encrypting the signal.[1]

The military appears to have a requirement for 27 GPS satellites. 

Space Force met its approved requirement for 24 M-code-capable satellites on orbit, but determined that it needs at least three more to meet certain user requirements for accuracy. Building and maintaining this larger constellation presents a challenge. GAO’s analysis indicates it is not likely that 27 satellites will be available on a consistent basis over the next decade. Unless the Air Force assesses its operational need for satellites to establish a firm requirement for a 27-satellite constellation, other DOD efforts could take priority, leaving the warfighter with GPS user equipment performing below the required capability levels.[1]

The first satellite able to transmit the M-code signal entered orbit in 2005 and 25 of the 31 satellites in the GPS constellation are M-code capable.[1]

One of the [many] challenges is procuring and equipping the military with untold thousands of M-code capable receivers. 

Eventually, the total number of GPS receivers purchased by the DOD could number up to 1 million.[1]

One of the challenges with ‘hardening’ the GPS system is that it has multiple nodes/links that can be disrupted:  ground control (cyber attacks), software (cyber attacks), satellites (disruption/destruction), ground receivers (cyber attack, spoofing, jamming, physical destruction), and the signal itself (jamming, spoofing).  Each node is vulnerable to disruption by a variety of means.
 
As with so many (all?) military systems today, software development has proven to be a (the?) major stumbling block (ask the F-35 program how software development has gone!).  Regarding ground control station software development, 

The contractor, Raytheon, faced unanticipated challenges during the software qualification testing of OCX [ed. operational control system] in 2022.  …  Raytheon discovered more deficiencies than anticipated during subsequent software qualification testing. These deficiencies included errors uploading navigation data to satellites in a simulated environment. The ability to upload this data is an essential function of the ground control system. As of September 2022, approximately 50 percent of software passed testing, lower than the program’s goal of 80 percent.[1]

 
Concerns
 
Satellite Destruction - Twenty seven GPS M-code satellites is not a lot and may represent a vulnerability to physical destruction given that China has demonstrated an anti-satellite capability. 

China is progressing with the development of missiles and electronic weapons that could target satellites in low and high orbits, the Pentagon says in a new report released Sept. 1 [ed. 2020].

China already has operational ground-based missiles that can hit satellites in low-Earth orbit and “probably intends to pursue additional ASAT weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit,” says the Defense Department’s annual report to Congress on China’s military capabilities.[2]

Cyber Attacks – China (and other actors) are demonstrating an ability to penetrate military networks on a near daily basis.  There is no reason to believe that when war comes, cyber attacks won’t continue and, likely, increase in frequency and intensity.  Presumably, China has identified vulnerabilities in our networks and software that it is keeping ‘in reserve’ for wartime use.
 
Spoofing – False signal injection is an insidious attack as it may not even be recognized as such for extended periods since we’ve become so accustomed to accepting GPS readings as gospel and have lost the ability or desire to conduct alternate/manual location checks (does any sailor, today, know how to use a sextant?).
 
Jamming – The GPS frequencies are not exactly secret.  Jamming will likely be successful albeit localized in effect.
 
Legacy/Inertia – Even if the ‘hardened’ GPS system works perfectly (it won’t !), there remains an enormous inventory of legacy GPS equipment in the military that are susceptible to the various forms of disruption.  It will take decades to completely switch over to any new system and, of course, by then the ‘new’ system will have, in turn, been rendered obsolete.
 
 
Conclusion
 
While any effort to ‘harden’ our GPS system is worthwhile, the fundamental problem is that the GPS system has too many nodes of attack and relies on a signal.  Any system that relies on an external signal is highly vulnerable to disruption (hence, my distrust of networks).  As we develop future weapons, systems, and equipment we need to make every effort to eliminate the use of external signals.  In the case of GPS, this can be accomplished by returning to local/manual methods of location determination (maps/compass, sextant, dead reckoning, etc.), using alternate navigation methods such as inertial navigation, and developing new methods that don’t require external signals (quantum positioning, for example).
 
The US military has become addicted to GPS and must wean itself off.
 
 
 
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[1]Government Accountability Office, “GPS Modernization”, Jun 2023, GAO-23-106018
  
[2]Space News website, “Pentagon report: China amassing arsenal of anti-satellite weapons”, Sandra Erwin, 1-Sep-2020,
https://spacenews.com/pentagon-report-china-amassing-arsenal-of-anti-satellite-weapons/

GPS Vulnerability - Stupid Followed By Stupid

This blog has, for years, trumpeted the warning that we are critically overdependent on navigational technology, principally GPS, that will be unavailable or only sporadically available in a peer war.  Our navigational technology addiction has crippled and all but eliminated our fundamental navigational skills.  Our soldiers and sailors no longer know how to read a map, use a compass or sextant, or execute dead reckoning with a stopwatch. 

Once upon a time, we had mastered basic non-technological navigation skills.  The Marine Corps LAVs in Desert Storm navigated the featureless deserts with nothing but dead reckoning.  For years, pilots mastered the ability to achieve precise time-on-target with nothing more than a plotting board and a stopwatch.  Sailors were able to establish their position with a sextant.  All soldiers used to have to master map reading and overland navigation with a map, compass, and stride length.

Now, our Navy is lost without GPS and even has trouble navigating with radar fixes.  Ships are running aground in known waters.  The riverine boat crews that were captured by Iran were completely lost. 

We have an addict’s dependency on technology that is not going to be available in a peer war.  What’s our response?  How are we planning to address this vulnerability?  What will we do to eliminate our dependency on technology?

You guessed it!  We’re going to create new technology.  Why go back to mastering fundamentals when you can create expensive and unreliable new technology?

Seriously, I’m not making this up.  Our solution to our technology dependency is to create new technology.  From a Defense News website article,

“In the quest to provide positioning, navigation and timing to troops deprived of GPS, Army planners are developing an open-architecture system of plug-and-play sensors that could deliver such a capability.

… The potential PNT [positioning, navigation, timing] solution would use modular hardware and software on a tactical computer.

“It will be a sensor fusion filter that will allow us to hook up any sensor to the filter, and the filter will understand what the sensor is, what the data is and how to integrate that into a single PNT solution,” said Adam Schofield, the chief at the Emerging Technologies Branch of the Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center, or CERDEC.” (1)

So, rather than teach basic navigation, we’re going to develop a gazillion dollar technological solution that is, supposedly, omniscient, able to take any sensor, integrate it on the fly, and provide a totally flexible and instantly adaptable synthesized navigation solution.  I can’t see anything that could go wrong with that!

Best of all, it can fit and run on a standard laptop computer.  I can see it now – our soldiers leaping into battle, clutching their rifle in one hand and their laptop in the other.  Plus, we all know how reliable laptops inherently are.  I can’t see the dirt, mud, water, shock, vibration, and electromagnetic jamming on the battlefield having any negative effect on the laptop!

What’s more, we’re basing the whole thing on an open architecture scheme.  That’s great!  It offers complete flexibility and adaptability.  Of course, it also offers complete access to an enemy’s cyber attacks and hacking!

The Department of Defense must have a group whose job is to come up with idiotic ideas that the rest of us would just reject out of hand.

________________________________

(1)Defense News website, “Army wants constant PNT capability for troops without GPS”, Adam Stone, 17-Oct-2017,

https://www.defensenews.com/intel-geoint/2017/10/16/army-wants-constant-pnt-capability-for-troops-without-gps/

GPS Anti-Jamming

We’ve discussed the vulnerability of US military platforms and weapons to GPS denial (see, "GPS Jamming").  Now, here’s the flip side of the discussion – the GPS anti-jamming capability which may enable GPS signal utilization even in the face of GPS jamming.

Here’s an interesting summary of the GPS problem.

“On Earth, the GPS satellite signal is received about 30 decibels below the background noise level. This translates to a signal strength of about 1,000 times weaker than that of thermal noise normally inherent in electronic equipment. Conventional GPS digital signal processing allows receivers to pluck these signals out of the background noise. When interference raises the level of background noise, however, a receiver may be unable to track the GPS signal.

This problem is especially acute with low-end receivers using omnidirectional antennas. These antennas lack the ability to provide directional discrimination away from sources of interference and toward satellites. Interference sources can be narrowband—affecting only a small part of the overall GPS frequency spectrum—or they can be broadband, affecting the full GPS spectrum. The civilian GPS arena is particularly susceptible to narrowband interference, as it occupies only 2 megahertz of spectrum. Military GPS is spread across 20 megahertz.” (1)

Thus, the fairly concentrated and very low signal power of GPS allows for easy, low power jamming.  So much for the problem.

One solution to defeating GPS jamming is to enhance the receivers signal processing, allowing it to directionally align with GPS satellites and to process the signal to enhance it.  An example of this approach is Lockheed Martin’s GPS spatial temporal anti-jam receiver (G-STAR).

“G-STAR currently is effective against a wide range of GPS jamming environments. Its software-driven nature also permits easier upgrades as new threats emerge. The version that is equipping JASSM consumes only 52 watts of power. It weighs 25 pounds and measures 10 inches by 15 inches by 2 inches.” (1)

“G-STAR also will incorporate the so-called selective availability and anti spoofing module (SAASM), which the Defense Department has made mandatory-beginning in October 2002-for all military GPS receivers that receive the encrypted precision satellite signal.

The SAASM module is a microelectronic device with a large number of digital components that allows an authorized user to receive the precision encrypted GPS signal.” (2)

Here’s a little more detail on GPS anti-jamming for those of you who are interested in a slightly deeper dive.

“Most anti-jam devices currently in use are either "nulling" or "beamforming systems," explained Kelly [James J. Kelly, director of advanced engineering at Telephonics Command Systems]. These two technologies refer to exploit techniques that can be used to counter jamming signals. Some GPS receivers have an antenna array, with up to seven receiving elements arrayed in a geometric pattern. Upon detection of jamming interference, part of the antenna pattern can be turned down, so the noise from that particular direction does not interfere with the rest of the system. That is called nulling the signal.

"A null means that I will not look in the direction in space that the jammer is coming from," Kelly said. The electronics protect the receiver by eliminating the interference signal. One problem with this nulling technique, however, is that "as you eliminate jammers, you eliminate your ability to receive signals from the GPS satellites," he said. "You could have a nulling system that kills off the jammers, but you no longer have enough satellites available for you to navigate."

The beamformer, meanwhile, "doesn't care where the jammers are." The beamformer selects and receives signals from at least four satellites and provides four anti-jam solutions. "The beamformer algorithm is more aggressive and you get a better result," Kelly said. Recent simulations conducted by Telephonics, he said, showed that beamformers performed better than nullers.

But these systems cannot be used with older GPS receivers. Because a beamformer produces four outputs directed at four selected satellites, it cannot interface with a standard GPS receiver that only has one input. "You need a receiver that is customized to accommodate the beamformer interface," said Kelly.

New missiles typically feature a tight package composed of an anti-jam device, antenna and GPS receiver. This makes them more adaptable for beamforming anti-jammers, Kelly asserted.” (2)

That the military is working on GPS anti-jamming is good news.  It offers the possibility that we may be able to continue to use GPS even in the face of electronic countermeasures.  Of course, we also have to recognize that the entire GPS satellite system is vulnerable.  Russia and China both claim to have anti-satellite weapons and China has pretty well demonstrated their capability.  If an enemy can destroy our satellites then having an anti-jamming capability won’t mean anything.

It’s also not enough to simply develop an anti-jamming device that can theoretically work.  We need to subject whatever is developed to rigorous testing – far more rigorous than the testing we’ve subjected our other weapon systems to.  We need to throw the best jamming capability we possess against it and see if it actually works in a combat environment.  Ideally, we would clandestinely test it in the real world in places like Ukraine, against actual Russian ECM.

Finally, we can’t simply develop a device, congratulate ourselves, and think that our navigation is secure.  Our enemies are continually working to develop new methods of GPS denial and we may find out the hard way that our anti-jamming isn’t as effective as we thought.  This means that we have to keep working on alternate navigation methods.  Every ship, plane, and missile should have multiple navigation systems so that if one is denied we have an alternate available.  In other words, we have to plan for failure – something we have not done in recent decades.

Inexplicably, not everyone is searching for GPS alternative capabilities.  Notably, the Air Force has limited interest.  Terry Little, Air Force program manager for JASSM, has this to say,

“In the JASSM program, we are not interested in an alternative guidance technology to GPS.” (2)

Well, that’s about as plain a statement as you could want.  Hopefully, that philosophy is not indicative of the military as a whole.

I’m encouraged that the military is recognizing the vulnerability of GPS and is working to protect the capability.  Given the ease of jamming and the physical vulnerability of the GPS satellite system to anti-satellite destruction, we need to continue working on alternate guidance systems. 

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(1)Signal AFCEA website, “Jam-Proof Signals To Guide Navigation”, Robert Ackerman, November 2001,

http://www.afcea.org/content/?q=jam-proof-signals-guide-navigation

(2)National Defense website, “Threat to Satellite Signals Fuels Demand for Anti-Jam Products”, Sandra I. Erwin, June 2000,

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2000/June/Pages/Threat4358.aspx

Russian Attacks On UAVs

Here’s some confirmation of one of the themes that I continually harp on.  The Russians are disrupting UAVs via electronic countermeasures.  C4ISR Net website reports,

“In one of the more startling displays of Russia’s capabilities, they have disrupted the unmanned aerial vehicles tasked by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine to chart the conflict.”

”These UAS [UAVs] were disrupted via surface-to-air missiles and military-grade electronic jamming, …”

“Live fire and GPS jamming were the two main factors for the loss of the drones.” (1)

What have we harped on?  -that UAVs are not survivable and subject to jamming.  Here is Russia showing us exactly that action and outcome.

True, these are not US UAVs and there are undoubtedly those who will blindly and naively claim, with no supporting evidence, that US UAVs are superior and will be immune to disruption but the evidence is clear that UAVs are just target practice and those that are not casually destroyed will be rendered ineffective due to electronic countermeasures.

We need to devote some serious effort to hardening the UAV communications (including GPS).  We also need to give some serious thought to rethinking our doctrinal and tactical use of UAVs relative to the threats they’ll face.

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(1)C4ISR Net website, “Threat From Russian UAV Jamming Real, Officials Say”, Mark Pomerleau, 20-Dec-2016,

http://www.c4isrnet.com/articles/threat-from-russian-uav-jamming-real-officials-say

GPS Jamming

We’ve discussed the military’s overdependence on GPS guidance (see, "GPS - The Navy's Addiction") and briefly noted the adverse effects if the GPS signal could be jammed.  US guided weapons are heavily dependent on GPS as their primary guidance mode.  While other modes are available, they are far less accurate.  This is disturbing because accuracy, or precision guidance, was the cornerstone of the Second Offset Strategy, and the loss of that capability would be devastating.  We’ve justified our reduced numbers of ships and aircraft in large measure by the claim that our weapons are so much more accurate than they were that we no longer need as many.  This is foolish to the nth degree but is, nevertheless, the basis of the rationale for reduced numbers.  If our weapons could be rendered significantly less accurate and we have lesser numbers compared to our enemies, we would be in serious military trouble!

Can a GPS signal be jammed?  Apparently, it’s quite easy.  GPS signals operate at very low power and over a very narrow frequency range – the ideal combination for jamming or disruption.

“GPS signals, transmitted at low power from distant satellites, are uniquely susceptible to jamming.” (1)

“A 1-kilowatt jammer can block a military GPS receiver from as far away as 80 kilometers (50 miles). A Russian company recently marketed a 4-[kilo]watt jammer that can deny a standard GPS signal within up to 200 kilometers (125 miles).” (1)

North Korea has reportedly jammed GPS signals over South Korea on over 100 occasions.  The jamming reportedly affected aircraft, ships, cell phones, and cars.

“North Korea reportedly purchased truck-mounted GPS jammers from Russia with a range of thirty to sixty miles, and in 2011 was reportedly at work on even longer-range jammers.” (2)

Some weapons offer alternative navigation modes such as Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM), Digital Scene Matching Area Correlation (DSMAC), and Inertial Navigation (INS), however, these have significant drawbacks and limitations.  Two of those options require the weapon route to have been pre-mapped which is not always possible.  INS is inherently inaccurate.

Supposedly, military GPS signals are more resistant to jamming and disruption but I’ve been unable to find any authoritative information on that.

As we ponder GPS issues, here is an example from personal experience.  Not too long ago, I had the pleasure and privilege of touring a Cyclone class PC that was docked at a large US city.  I noticed that the ship’s GPS navigation system showed the vessel to be about 30 miles inland, in the middle of a park.  Screwed into the bulkhead next to the ship’s system was a commercial GPS navigation display from a well known outdoor camping gear store.  I asked the crew about it and was told that they had used their own money to purchase the commercial unit because the ship’s system was never right.  They simply used the commercial unit which was always dead on.

I don’t know how widespread accuracy and reliability issues are with military GPS units but I’ve got to believe this was not an isolated incident.  If we have significant numbers of ships using commercial units then we’ve made ourselves extremely vulnerable to GPS jamming and disruption.  This also suggests that we need to relearn how to navigate without GPS.

______________________________________

(1)MIT Technology Review website, “How Cruise Missiles Would Beat GPS Jammers in Libya”, Christopher Mims, 20-Mar-2011,

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/423363/how-cruise-missiles-would-beat-gps-jammers-in-libya/

(2)Popular Mechanics website, “North Korea Is Jamming GPS Signals”,  Kyle Mizokami, Apr 5, 2016,

http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a20289/north-korea-jamming-gps-signals/

Russian GPS Jammer

We’ve talked a great deal about the US military’s blind obsession with electronics and networks and their susceptibility to disruption.  Despite this, the US continues to increase their dependence on electronics.  We’ve noted, in passing, the Russian’s heavy use of electronic warfare in Ukraine although details are sparse.  The US Army is certainly worried and is frantically initiating multiple electronic warfare measures and training – a belated good, for them.  Now, we see this article from a Russian website about deployment of a GPS jamming device called POLE-21.

“An integrated jamming system to screen strategic facilities from cruise missiles, smart bombs and drones using GPS, …” (1)

Any Russian pronouncement has to be taken with extreme caution but this development seems both plausible and inevitable.

The issue is not the absolute accuracy of the report but rather the fact that this is one more warning to the US military to begin weaning themselves off their electronic and GPS dependence.  Nearly every ranged weapon in the US inventory uses GPS.  An enemy who can effectively neutralize GPS signals either through jamming, disruption, false signal injection, or satellite destruction will have neutralized a huge portion of our weapon inventory.  Some of our weapons, especially the newer ones, can also utilize inertial navigation, terrain mapping, and other forms of guidance, however, the accuracy falls off significantly.

We need to begin developing other forms of guidance while simultaneously hardening the guidance systems we have.  The world is preparing for high end war and we’re preparing to fight idiots in the back of pickup trucks.  We need to wake up.

Related note:  Birds can navigate thousands of miles during migrations and wind up in the exact same spot year after year.  Salmon return to the exact spot they were born to spawn.  Nature abounds with examples of precision navigation that rival our best electronics.  There are other possible methods of guidance.  We would do well to investigate them!

 

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(1)Sputnik website, “Silent Protector: Russia Develops Hi-Tech Jammer to Block Enemy Electronics”, 25-Aug-2016,
http://sputniknews.com/russia/20160825/1044633778/russia-jammer-electronics.html

Space Based Vulnerability

I’m seeing multiple signs of nervousness by the Department of Defense regarding its dependence (addiction is a better word) on space based assets and capabilities.  I’m not going to bother citing examples because they’re just bits and pieces from all over the Internet.  What I see is platforms and weapons are being spec’ed, now, to function without the assistance of space based communications, GPS, and whatnot or, at the very least, including space assets as just one input among several.  For example, Defense Industry Daily website just posted an announcement about a recent Air Force white paper calling for a “disaggregation” of space capabilities onto multiple platforms for enhanced survivability.

What I take from all these bits is that the military is finally waking up to the vulnerability they’ve created by designing in a heavy, almost exclusive, dependence on space based assets for communications, relays, GPS, surveillance, etc.  We’ve lost our ability to read maps, navigate on land or sea without GPS, direct missiles, locate targets, talk to UAVs, etc. without space based assets.  Of course, potential enemies know this and are directing efforts towards neutralizing our space assets.  In a high level conflict, our space assets are going to be greatly diminished in performance if not destroyed outright.  We need to be able to function without them.

It’s good to see that the military has finally recognized the vulnerability, if somewhat late, and begun taking steps to mitigate it.  Presumably, we’ll begin seeing an expanded range of resources to supplement and replace our space assets such as improved inertial navigation systems, radio beacon positioning, star mapping, mobile communications relay platforms, alternate surveillance systems, indirect targeting and triangulation, and so forth. 

Too long in coming but better late than never!

Long Range Antiship Missile (LRASM) Update

We previously discussed the Navy's developmental Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) during a brief discussion of future anti-ship missiles.  This month's Proceedings (1) has a short update article about the progress of the LRASM.  The LRASM is intended to be a subsonic, long range, autonomously targeting missile.  According to the article, the missile's target recognition sensor suite has been tested and "exceeded all objectives".  Of course, I think that exact quote has been used to describe every weapons program ever tested despite the fact that most turn out to be failures, ultimately!

Regardless, the most interesting tidbit from the article is a statement that the missile will use an electro-optical (EO) sensor for terminal target identification and precision targeting.  Why is this interesting?  If EO is the only terminal targeting sensor, this suggests a recognition on the part of the designers that radar/IR jamming and decoys are too effective to be worth "dueling" with.  In other words, why continue to put ever bigger, more powerful anti-jamming counter-measures electronics into missiles when a much less susceptible EO sensor will work (assuming it works!).  A note of caution, as you read this - the article doesn't explicitly state that there won't be a terminal radar and/or IR seeker - however, it only describes the EO sensor.

In the bigger picture, this suggests a recognition by the Navy that jamming in all forms is a serious and growing threat.  The Navy has already acknowledged that the GPS system is susceptible and the features of the LRASM acknowledge that mid-course guidance communications and remote targeting will be unreliable in a jamming environment - hence, the autonomous nature of the LRASM.  Of course, this relates to our previous discussion of BVR (Beyond Visual Range) issues.  Will the Navy be willing to use an autonomous targeting anti-ship missile in a crowded environment and trust that it won't incorrectly target a friendly/neutral/civilian ship?

On a closely related note, the recognition of the effectiveness of jamming has huge implications for UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) development efforts.  How will UAVs operate if their remote command links are electronically interrupted?  The future of the Navy, we're lead to believe, is UAVs of various types and yet the foundation of UAVs is command communications which are susceptible to jamming.  That issue is going to have to be addressed before the Navy moves too far along the UAV path.  But, I digress ...

I'm pleased to see the Navy moving on with development of a more capable anti-ship missile and recognizing the real difficulties the weapon will face.  I'll be watching this one closely.


(1) Naval Institute Proceedings, "Antiship Missile Moves Toward Flight Test", Edward Walsh, October 2012, p.86

GPS - The Navy's Addiction



GPS - Achilles' Heel?



One of the simultaneous strengths and weaknesses of modern missiles, UAVs, and weapon systems and platforms in general is the use of GPS (Global Positioning System).  The common GPS that is part of our cell phones and automobile navigation systems among other commercial devices is also at the heart of the targeting systems of military weapons.  GPS, both commercial and military, is provided by satellite systems.  Unfortunately, those satellites are vulnerable to destruction and jamming.  For example, it is generally assumed that GPS satellites will be taken out early in a war with China.  If that were to happen, it would render the Navy’s missiles useless or, at least, severely degraded with only Inertial Navigation Systems (INS), which are far less accurate, to fall back on.



On a related note, the Navy now relies so heavily on GPS for ship movement and location that most ships would be lost without it.  In fact, the USS Port Royal grounding was due, in part, to loss of GPS and the resulting lack of awareness of their location.

Here’s a portion of a recent article from Katie Drummond that highlights the issue. (1)

“In an effort to stave off the looming threat of GPS attacks, the Pentagon's asking for ideas to replace the system ... or at least give it some slicker, more reliable back-up.

The navigational system used by the military for just about everything from guiding drones to dropping bombs is increasingly under threat of attack. Now, the Pentagon’s desperate to replace it. Or, at least, reinforce it enough to stave off a looming storm of strikes.

That’s the thrust of a new venture from Darpa, the military’s premier research arm and the brains behind GPS’ initial development in the 1950s. On Tuesday, the agency announced the second phase of their program, “All Source Positioning and Navigation (ASPN),” that’s trying to “enable low-cost, robust and seamless navigation solutions … with or without GPS.”

The program, which Darpa quietly kicked off last year with two awards for theoretical research, is one part of a larger military effort that’s trying to steer the Pentagon away from its GPS dependency.

Why? First off, there’s the growing risk of GPS signals being jammed by adversarial forces. Enemies on the ground can also “spoof” a GPS system — essentially tricking it into showing an incorrect location. And these are far from hypothetical risks: Mere weeks ago, a fatal drone crash in South Korea was attributed to GPS signal jamming from north of the border. Last year, Iranians (perhaps dubiously) claimed they jammed the GPS signals navigating an American spy drone, then spoofed the system to land in Iran’s clutches.

And those GPS-thwarting capabilities continue to grow — at a pace that’s exceeded the military’s ability to keep pace — largely because of a booming commercial market for GPS-jamming technology. Such electronic warfare “was once the province of a few peer-adversaries,” Darpa deputy director Ken Gabriel told the House Armed Services Committee’s panel on emerging threats earlier this year. “It is now possible to purchase commercial off-the-shelf components for more than 90 percent of the electronics needed in an [electronic warfare] system.”

The risks now inherent in GPS are well-known, but it doesn’t look like Darpa’s ready to give up on the system altogether. Instead, they’re after a navigational system that can swiftly move between different combos of devices, using a “plug-and-play” approach. Right now, the agency notes, the military’s navigation systems primarily rely on a pairing of two devices: GPS, which uses satellite data, and what’s known as an Inertial Navigation System (INS), which relies on “dead reckoning” (using estimates of speed and direction, without external references) to provide locational intel.

It’s a tactic that’s accompanied by several problems. For one, INS — because it uses internal, ongoing estimates — is notoriously error-prone without a GPS system to back it up, so it can’t be relied upon exclusively. And INS systems often obtain their starting position and velocity from a GPS device. Which means if the GPS is under attack, the INS risks leading military personnel (or the drone or weapon they’re navigating) astray.

These navigational systems are also extremely inflexible. Typically, Darpa notes, they’re programmed to accommodate, maybe, one additional sensor (say, a magnetometer) and unable to plug into any others. As a result, personnel can’t respond to “new threats or mission challenges” in real time. Not to mention that, even as consumer navigation tech becomes more sophisticated (Apple Maps, anyone?) the military can’t take advantage of the most cutting-edge products.

Of course, there are already plenty of GPS alternatives available. Radio beacons, which transmit signals from static locations to receiving devices, allow the calculation of location based on proximity to various beacons. Ground feature navigation extracts the positions of tracked objects and then uses them as points of reference to gauge a vessel’s locale. And stellar navigation systems use the coordinates of celestial bodies to assist in a vehicle’s navigation.

Darpa’s dream navigational system would go beyond those kinds of discreet systems — by incorporating pretty much all of them. The ASPN system, according to Darpa’s announcement, should be able to accomodate any available sensor, and be versatile enough to incorporate new sensors “as they become available in the marketplace.” The key benefit to such adaptability would be the mitigation of GPS-dependency. Personnel would instead have myriad sensors at their disposal, and be able to toggle between them as necessary. In other words, a suite of backup tools to work, in conjunction, as a safety net in case of GPS failure. Among the ton of gadgets that Darpa wants the system to utilize: 3-D imagers, LiDAR, temperature sensors … and good old compasses.”



The Wave of the Future?



As an example of the military’s recognition of the inherent weakness in depending on GPS, DARPA awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin to develop a next generation anti-ship missile, the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) which will be able to target without using GPS.



The Navy needs to wean itself off its dependence on GPS or risk finding itself with lost ships and non-functional weapons at the start of the next war.  Anyone got a sextant?

(1) “When GPS Goes Down, Pentagon Still Wants a Way to Fight”, Katie Drummond, June 13, 2012