Stealth Vs.

Electronic Attack
By: Dave Majumdar
Published: April 21, 2014 6:19 AM Updated: April 21, 2014 8:25 AM

An F-35C Lightning II aircraft on Aug. 14, 2013 at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.
US Navy Photo
The U.S. Navy will need to use a combination of stealth and electronic warfare
capabilities to defeat advanced anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) threats in the
future, chief of naval operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said on April 16 at the
U.S. Naval Institute annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
[Stealth] is needed for what we have in the future for at least ten years out there
and there is nothing magic about that decade, Greenert said. But I think we
need to look beyond that. So to me, I think its a combination of having aircraft
that have stealth but also aircraft that can suppress other forms of radio
frequency electromagnetic emissions so that we can get in.
Electronic attack by itself will probably not be enough to enable U.S. forces to
penetrate enemy air defenses, according to Greenert and multiple U.S. military
and industry sources.
I doubt in the future we can just suppress everything, go rolling in until we do
what we need to do and get out, Greenert said. But we have the means for

way out in the futurewith the Next Generation Jammer and what itll bring, to
be able to get in when we need to and get out.
Greenerts comments largely mirrors a Boeing presentation last week at the
Navy Leagues Sea, Air and Space exposition where Mike Gibbons, the
companys vice president for the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G programs, had stated
that stealth aircraft must be supported by airborne electronic attack capabilities.
The point is anybody that goes in cant be good against any one frequency
band because you will be seen by others, thats the key, Gibbons said. The
Growler is the only aircraft that has that full spectrum sensor and jamming
capability to take care of that for strikers.
The Boeing presentation also reiterated the companys oft-stated position that
low observable technologies are a perishable assetparticularly as potential
enemies develop advanced low frequency radars and signal processors become
ever more capable.

Boeing Presentation

Stealth is delayed detection and that delay is getting shorter. SAM (Surfaceto-Air Missile) radars are shifting their frequencies into lower frequency bands
where U.S. stealth is less effective, said Mark Gammon, Boeings F/A-18E/F
and EA-18G program manager for advanced capabilities, in an emailed
statement. Early warning radars are in the VHF spectrum where stealth has
limited if any capability. These radars are networked into the SAM radars
giving the SAM radars cued search. The threat is developing out of spectrum
sensors like IRST [infrared search and track] systems on their fighters. Stealth
has no capability to delay an IRST detection and track.
While some military officials consulted by USNI News wholeheartedly
concurred with Boeings assessment, others dismissed the companys claims out
of hand. Many others offered a more nuanced view.
Boeing is in full-court press against the [Lockheed Martin] F-35 in this
briefing. As such, when they describe the advantages of the Growlerwhich are
accuratethey ignore the tradeoff for that advantage, said one U.S. Air Force
official. The truth is that the Growler and LO [low observable] platforms
complement each other extremely well.
Lockheed Martin officials, however, maintain that the F-35 is able to operate
inside highly contested airspace without any support assets.
By government contract specification, the airplane is required to be able to go
into high threat anti-access environments, autonomously perform its mission
and survive, said Eric Van Camp, Lockheeds domestic F-35 business
development director. The results of flight test indicate conclusively that the
airplane will meet that contract specification.

An EA-18G Growler from the Shadowhawks of Electronic Attack Squadron

(VAQ) 141 prepares to make an arrested landing on the flight deck of the U.S.
Navys forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN-73) in
2013 US Navy Photo
While it is an indisputable fact that a tactical fighter-sized stealth aircraft must
be optimized to defeat higher-frequency bands such the C, X and Ku bands as a
simple matter of physics, in a real world operational setting, there are often
other factors involved that make detecting and tracking a stealth aircraft more
difficult.
Industry, Air Force and Navy officials agreed that there is a step change in an
LO aircrafts signature once the frequency wavelength exceeds a certain
threshold and causes a resonant effect.
Typically, that resonance occurs when a feature on an aircraftsuch as a tail-fin
is less than eight times the size of a particular frequency wavelength.

Effectively, small stealth aircraft that do not have the size or weight allowances
for two feet or more of radar absorbent material coatings on every surface are
forced to make trades as to which frequency bands they are optimized for.
You cant be everywhere at once on a fighter-sized aircraft, said another Air
Force source.
What that means is that a radar operating at a lower frequency band such as
parts of the S or L bandlike civilian air traffic control (ATC) radars might
be able to detect and possibly even track certain stealth aircraft to an extent.
However, a larger stealth aircraft like the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, which
lacks many of the features that cause a resonance effect, is much more effective
against low-frequency radars than, for example, an F-35.
But those lower-frequency radars do not provide what Pentagon officials call a
weapons quality track needed to guide a missile onto a target.
Even if you can see an LO strike aircraft with ATC radar, you cant kill it
without a fire control system, an Air Force official said.
Meanwhile, Russia, China and others are developing advanced UHF and VHF
band early warning radars that use even longer wavelengths in an effort to cue
their other sensors and give their fighters some idea of where an adversary
stealth aircraft might be coming from.
But the problem with VHF and UHF band radars, as one U.S. Navy official told
USNI News, is that with long wavelengths come large radar resolution cells.
That means that contacts are not tracked with the required level of fidelity to
guide a weapon onto a target.
Does the mission require a cloaking device or is it Ok if the threat sees it but
cant do anything about it? the Navy official asked rhetorically.
Further, officials from the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps agreed that while
aircraft like the F-35 or F-22 are not solely relying on low observables for
survivabilitystealth is an absolute requirement to survive in an A2/AD
environment even with airborne electronic attack support.

As one Air Force official explained, stealth and electronic attack always have a
synergistic relationship because detection is about the signal to noise ratio. Low
observables reduce the signal, while electronic attack increases the noise. Any
big picture plan, looking forward, to deal with emerging A2/AD threats will
address both sides of that equation, he said.
Air Force and Marine Corps officials took exception to Boeing pointing out that
the F-35 only has X-band electronic attack coverage from the front. Aft
coverage may or may not be provided onboard any given fighter, but is provided
by the package overall which will likely include EA-18s, one Air Force
official pointed out.
However, Air Force and Marine Corps officials said that the Growler may not
be particularly useful against emerging threats and noted that there are
electronic warfare upgrades planned for the F-35 in addition to its baseline
capability.
The Growler itself, while a very credible aircraft, has limited suitability in an
advanced
A2/AD
area,
one
Air
Force
official
said.
While it is the state of the art for now, I dont know if it will be the appropriate
jamming platform for the pictured environment.
Nonetheless, a number of Air Force officials expressed support for the Pentagon
potentially increasing the size of its Growler buy. The Growler is a great asset,
we probably need more, and it is an important part of a strike package into an
advanced IADS [integrated air defense system], one official said. It is not as
stand-alone as Boeing will claim.
However, those same officials pointed out that the Growler is not fully
interoperable with joint forces.
If there is a major enduring shortfall to the Growler, its the degree and fidelity
between it and other joint suppression platforms. The reasons for which could
be as benign as joint interoperability [being seen] as an afterthought, one Air
Force official said.
But its to Boeings advantage to propagate a limited interoperability platform,
especially one that doesnt communicate very well with competitors platforms
in the SEAD/DEAD [suppression of enemy air defenses/destruction of enemy
air defenses] mission. But it doesnt make sense from a warfighter position.

An industry source agreed that the Growler still faces interoperability problems
when operating with Air Force assets, but that is true of many platform across
the board. There are interoperability issues across a lot of the platforms, the
industry source said. For example, Lockheed F-22s are only able to connect
with other Raptors using the Intra-Flight Data-Link (IFDL), while the F-35 uses
a Joint Strike Fighter-only Multifunction Advanced Data-Link (MADL). This
is one of the bigger issues the Air Sea Battle Office is attempting to resolve,
the industry source said.
Gammon defended the EA-18Gs ability to operate with other Pentagon assets.
Growlers have Link 16 which is compatible with [the] F/A-18 Super Hornet
and F-35, E-2D, F-15, F-16, and most of the bombers, he said. The good news
is the Growlers can stand-off from the threat, build the EM [electromagnetic]
picture, and pass weapons quality tracks to the other fighters via Link-16 (and
soon TTNT [Tactical Targeting Network Technology]).
The industry source noted that while the F-35 will be fitted with the Link-16
datalink, it would not be able to use that omni-directional link inside a high
threat environment because it could compromise the aircrafts position.
Aircraft such as the F-35 that might not want to transmit on their Link-16 can
always receive Link-16 tracks from Growlers and employ weapons on those
tracks, the industry source said.
Air Force officials conceded that the Pentagon probably needs more EA-18Gs.
In truth, we never bought enough Growlers in the first place, one Air Force
official
said.
Theyre worth their weight in gold, and contribute immensely to the ES
[electromagnetic spectrum] situational awareness and EA [electronic attack]
communities. But the LIMFAC [limiting factor] is, and always will be, the
carrier deck park and cycle times.

Boeing Presentation.
A Navy official said that the carrier deck cycle would be a limiting factor only if
the Growler was being used to launch missiles such as the AGM-88E Advanced
Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM) or the High-speed Anti-Radiation
Missile (HARM). The official noted that with aerial refueling it is not unheard
of for Navy fighters to remain airborne for more than six hours at a time. If the
Growler was kinetic, launching all its HARM and then needing to reload Yes,
the deck cycle time would come into play here, the official said. But, its
more realistic to provide standoff jamming than launch HARMs unless in a selfprotect role. The official also pointed out that the need to land, refuel, swap
crews, and perform maintenance at some regulated interval is a requirement for
any aircraft.
Boeing also suggested in its presentation that the Growler could be used in the
counter-air and strike roles. Gammon elaborated on how Boeing envisions the
EA-18G might perform some of those missionsdistancing the companys
position somewhat from the diagrams shown in the presentation. In the

counter-air mission, the Growlers will use their ESM [electronic support
measures] system to help the fighters detect, and just as important, ID the threat.
They can do this from a stand-off position from the fighters and still contribute
to the overall SA [situational awareness] and ID, Gammon said.
Gammon also clarified the companys position with regard to using the EA-18G
in the air-to-ground strike role. In the strike mission, the Growler is supporting
by building that enemy EM order of battle, find, fix, track, and ID those threat
emitters and then quarterback the EM fight and determine which of those threat
systems we are going to jam, attack, avoid. The Growler can employ weapons
such as the AARGM at those emitters as well as handing off that track to a
strike fighter to engage.
Navy officials had said that while the service might consider using the Growler
as a battle manager, it is extremely unlikely the service would ever consider
using the EA-18G in a direct strike role or the air superiority role where the jet
would be the primary shooter.
An industry source conceded that while the Growler would likely never be used
as an air superiority fighter or strike aircraft, it could play an important role in
those missions. I do agree that Growlers will not be bringing JDAMs [Joint
Direct Attack Munition] to a target, the source said. They will support the
strike fighters as they fight their way into the target area.
Though there is broad support for purchasing additional Growlers, it is not a
stand-alone solution for dealing with advanced A2/AD threats.
Stealth has its flaws, as the brief points out; however, if a new pod on a fourth
gen platform was a workable answer against the modern and future IADS, Im
about 100 percent certain that USAF [U.S. Air Force] would be trying to buy a
pile
of
them
as
well,
an
Air
Force
official
said.
But the juice aint worth the squeeze, as they say.