If it works and if it is ready. The current AN/APG-77 isn't able to do so and it's still a long road to go until EA is part of this radar. Not even the AN/APG-79 have this capability in its current form (that one which is operationally fielded with SHs). BTW I'm probably not up tp date here, are the significant problems which caused delays of operational use of the AN/APG-79 already solved?
This article is over 6 months old now, but it shows the level of EA capability that the USN is getting or soon will be from it's APG-79 radars...
Navy breaks silence on Super Hornet’s radar, sensors
Silence about the key capabilities of the second-generation
Super Hornet’s advanced radar and integrated sensor package
is being broken by U.S. Navy and aerospace industry officials
just as President Bush’s budget faces scrutiny by Congress.
The design will give the Block II Boeing-built Navy aircraft a
fifth generation capability similar to that of the F-22 Raptor and
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, says Capt. Donald Gaddis, F/A-18E/F
Super Hornet program manager.
The Navy’s “Advanced Super Hornet” will tie together an
electronic attack system with a powerful new radar that would
allow the aircraft to find, deceive and, perhaps, disable sophisticated,
radar-guided air-to-air, surface-to-air and cruise missiles.
Moreover, it could do so at ranges greater than that of U.S. nextgeneration
air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons.
Many Navy and industry planners hope that the merits of the
F/A-18E/Fs advanced systems, which can detect, identify and
attack new classes of very small targets, will help it survive any
congressional urge to trim upgrades that are crucial to the program.
Moreover, the Super Hornet, equipped with a fifth-generation
radar and integrated sensor suite, is expected to be a tough
competitor for international fighter sales. The advanced package
has already resulted in a likely sale of 24 aircraft to Australia and is
being pitched for large fighter buys planned by Japan and India.
The newest version of the Super Hornet, equipped with an
advanced, Raytheon-built APG-79 Active Electronically
Scanned Array (AESA) radar, can spot small targets – even
stealthy cruise missiles – at ranges great enough to allow an
effective defense. Navy officials are loath to talk with any detail
about the metrics of electronic attacks and admit only to
“extremely significant tactical ranges” for EA effects against airto-
air and surface-to-air radars, Gaddis says. However, other
Pentagon and aerospace industry officials say that while air-toair
missiles are struggling to reach the 60-100-mile range mark,
some sophisticated electronic attack effects can reach well
beyond that.
“That’s at least 100 miles,” says a long-time Pentagon radar
specialist. “There are different forms of electronic attack and
they include putting false targets or altered ranges, speeds and
positions of real targets into the enemy’s radars. Those are
effects that require less power than jamming and therefore are
effective at longer ranges.”
The U.S. Navy’s first AESA-equipped squadron has been
developing combat procedures as the unit works up to its first
deployment. VFA-213, flying all two-seat F/A-18F models, already
has been through training cycles at NAS Fallon, Calif.’s “Strike U.”
The Navy’s concept of operations is to use combinations
of EA-18 Growler electronic attack and the advanced Block 2
F/A-18E/F strike aircraft to offer self-protection, almost instantaneous
location and identification of targets and a variety of
forms of electronic and conventional missile attack. That combination
will be part of the advanced air wing in the Carrier
Strike Group of 2024.
Similar approach
The U.S. Air Force is considering a similar approach - subtle
effects vs. brute power - in its next attempt at fielding a longrange,
standoff jammer to protect its stealth aircraft fleet. It’s
expected that advanced electronic warfare operations including
communications and network invasion and exploitation
may eventually be part of the Air Force’s and Navy’s capability.
However, that is some years off and subject to budget realities.
Critical for development of the “next generation” or Block II
Super Hornet and the ability to keep it militarily relevant as a
“first day of the war” warplane beyond 2024 are a number of
items in the President’s Budget now before the U.S. Congress,
Gaddis says.
Three years of warfighting analysis by the Navy has produced
a system of upgrades called “The Flight Plan,” he says.
Segments include upgrading the aircraft with a distributed targeting
processor, sensor integration and improving communications
links for network-centric operations.
“For example, our ALR-67(v)3 radar warning receiver is going
to be delivered with a digitally cued receiver,” Gaddis says. “We’ll
be able to pick up some different waveforms that we’ve not
been able to capture before.” Industry specialists say that means
finding combinations of frequencies and pulse structures that
allow identification of specific radar and aircraft threats.
“More importantly, we’re going to marry the digitally cued
receiver to single ship geolocation algorithms [for precision location]
and specific emitter ID algorithms with the AESA radar,”
says Gaddis. Also the radar warning receiver and ALQ-214 jammers
will be integrated to produce “high-gain electronic attack
and high-gain electronic surveillance measures,” he says. “We
would use them as a survivability upgrade against advanced airto-
air and a certain spectrum of the surface-to-air threat.”
“We’re going to create a high-speed data bus so that [electronic
attack] techniques generated by the ALQ-214 will be
sent through the AESA radar with much more power and
effect,” Gaddis says. “Rather than wait for a threat to develop
some electronic countermeasure, we plan to attack him [at
long range] through the radar.”
- David A. Fulghum (
[email protected])
Cheers
AD
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