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View Full Version : American Prophet to fight in Middle East


Atlas
27th November 2004, 10:10 AM
This thread has to do with a "new" electronics warfare system that's about to be deployed. I didn't know whether to put this in Sci & Tech or Politics (Iraq war.) I liked the weapon's emblem. http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/images/prophet-pm-tsm-symbol.jpg

The name of this weapons system, "Prophet", is at least ironic for use in the Middle East if not totally un-PC.
It's the latest in future tech, "signals intelligence", electronic warfare. New unmanned systems, I think that means arial, will be deployed in Iraq very soon. It sounds like terrific Buck Rogers stuff by the people who brought you smart bombs. Some of it will be very nice but I don't see how effective other aspects might be.

Just before the Iraq war, Russia sent GPS jammers to Saddam. Put these babies on your favorite hideyholes and GPS guided smart bombs will miss - that's the theory anyway. The Prophet system will be able to identify those devices (and many other kinds of devices) and allow battlefield commanders to take them out. They'll also be able to pick up cell phones and that seems like overkill (no pun intended).

The idea is to silence the enemy's use of communication by picking up their signals and blasting them, thereby destroying their command and control coordination. We've been doing some of that. This equipment kicks it up a notch.

I googled "Prophet EW sigint" and found material back to 2000. Land units with antennas 15 feet off the roof of military trucks. Now they've got units inside arial drones. I think they are hurrying it onto the battlefield to gain experience for the next war. What parts work, what parts confuse, that kind of thing. I noticed Australia and France are working on their own version of the land units, Sweden has their own version of an arial system.

If it does work it will reduce the need for more troops - which would be nice. It seems to work with the military's private internet. I wonder if the enemy captured a unit if they could get any use out of it.

Anyway here's the story (http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=942) I read.

neutrino_cannon
27th November 2004, 01:27 PM
Hmm... the ever evolving face of electronics warfare...

It reminds me of the HARM AGM, which aside from being a great acronym, describes what it does very well. The HARM listens for the radar guidance signals from surface to air missile sites, and homes in on them. If the site stops broadcasting, the SAMs lose guidance and miss their targets. If they don't, they get blowed to bits, and the SAMs lose guidance anyhow.

Appearantly a lot of the SAMs fired at US aircraft during the war were completely unguided for that reason.

geni
27th November 2004, 01:40 PM
Put in an order for 1 million mobile phone transmitters. End of problem.

Uh_Clem
27th November 2004, 03:40 PM
Russia sent GPS jammers to Saddam. Put these babies on your favorite hideyholes and GPS guided smart bombs will miss

Just curious, but would that strategy work for very long? And how hard is it to tune HARMs to seek out GPS jammers?

Atlas
27th November 2004, 04:09 PM
Originally posted by Uh_Clem
Just curious, but would that strategy work for very long? And how hard is it to tune HARMs to seek out GPS jammers? First, jammer was my word. I can't remember how they were actually described but I remember being kinda ticked that Russia would be passing along night vision goggles and GPS jammers after it was clear that America was not going to be deterred by the France, Russia, China triumvirate in the Security Council.

The problem I saw was that these heavy bombs continued to fall. Schools, Hospitals and other institutions like that could've taken the hit which would have been a PR victory for the enemy and al Jazeera.

After a few GPS failures we were going to laser guidance. We had backup technology, that is. But those damm rooskys are always trying to test there own lower tech countermeasure stuff when we're trying to show off our expensive technical wizardry. And they still make me mad. I will be laughing if they lose Ukraine.

Anyway, this will allow the battle commander to know whether a building is being "protected" by jamming equipment and call for differ ordnance against it.

I wonder if HARM is tunable like you suggest.

It think Geni expresses my own concerns about low tech countermeasures overwhelming the system intelligence capability.

Uh_Clem
27th November 2004, 06:46 PM
Oops, I shoulda' rtfa, I missed your link. Now genis comment makes much more sense.

I googled around and now know more about HARMs than I care to but I still can't tell if they can be tweaked for GPS frequencies. It appears that they can be configured for different types of radar systems but that apparently is done by a person doing the targeting.

So, having read the article, I now wonder how the insurgents are communicating. Are they using radios, cell phones, land lines, or maybe even runners? Perhaps even yahoo?

LostAngeles
27th November 2004, 11:51 PM
Ah, so Halliburton is part of our winning strategy...

...Oh come on, like none of you thought of that on seeing the thread title?