Why those GPS jammers didn't work in Iraq

[Vympel]

The GPS jammers were acknowledged to be from the Russian Aviaconversia company:

The Russian Aviaconversia company is a small, private development and production company, founded in early 1990s and based in Moscow. Recently, it has specialized in the production of simple, portable GPS jammers. The company produces the jammers from commercially available parts, and the equipment is not listed as defense related by Russia, since it is not built according to Russian military standards. The Russian armed forces do not use any Aviaconversia products.

There's your explanation.

The system produced by Aviaconversia has a power of 4W and is claimed by the company to be able to create deceptive jamming out to a range of 150-200 km. It works at frequencies of 1,577 MHz (civilian channel) and 1,230 MHz (military channel). Each unit weighs 8-10 kg. Aviaconversia Director Oleg Antonov told the Russian television program "Vedomosti" that GPS jammers numbering in the "tens" had been delivered to "countries in the region," referring to the Middle East. While he wouldn't rule out their subsequent resale to other countries, he stressed that the numbers involved were insufficient to pose a threat to the US military. Greg Martz, a spokesperson for Interstate Electronics Corp. (Anaheim, CA), a maker of anti-jam GPS equipment for the US military, told JED that the GPS-jamming systems in question are too small and have too low an effective radiated power for them to be effective against US GPS-guided weapons, calling them "really irrelevant." Martz said, "My guess is maybe they could disrupt a small radio on the ground, but incoming ordnance? No."

This is from the Journal of Electronic Defense. I thought this would belong in Politics because of US accusations against Syria and Russia for supplying Iraq with prohibited equipment.

[Sea Skimmer]

I wounder what the Iraqis thought when the JDAM blew up one of the jammers?


Jamming satellite singles is extremely difficult at best, I seriously doubt anyone has a working GPS jammer that can do it without throwing out so much power it can be detected 200 miles away. That’s really the problem with the whole thing, your putting out a very distinctive single so even if it works you need heavy protection to keep it from being blown away. That raises the question, why bother? Why not just use those same guns and missiles to protect the real target in the first place, which can still be hit by GPS weapons using INS only, not to mention the wide range of man in the loop systems showing up.

[Vympel]

I wounder what the Iraqis thought when the JDAM blew up one of the jammers?

Probably shaking their fist at the 'Radio Shackski' where these kitbash toys were built, while Aviaconversia laughed their assess off at actually selling some of these kitbashes

Jamming satellite singles is extremely difficult at best, I seriously doubt anyone has a working GPS jammer that can do it without throwing out so much power it can be detected 200 miles away. That’s really the problem with the whole thing, your putting out a very distinctive single so even if it works you need heavy protection to keep it from being blown away. That raises the question, why bother? Why not just use those same guns and missiles to protect the real target in the first place, which can still be hit by GPS weapons using INS only, not to mention the wide range of man in the loop systems showing up.

A properly working one with sufficient power would have the advantage of reducing your opponent's capabilities to attack you- every GPS guided munition in the arsenal becomes much less accurate, to the point where it's not effective for taking the target out (considering that it is a precison strike weapon)- inertial guidance alone would raise the CEP by quite a big margin, I guess. Attacking aircraft would have to use laser-guided PGMs (assuming US forces- who aren't very big on electro-optical guided PGMs, which the Russians seem to like).

[Sea Skimmer]

A properly working one with sufficient power would have the advantage of reducing your opponent's capabilities to attack you- every GPS guided munitions in the arsenal becomes much less accurate, to the point where it's not effective for taking the target out (considering that it is a precision strike weapon)- inertial guidance alone would raise the CEP by quite a big margin, I guess.

The INS only CEP of JDAM is 30 meters, that works just fine against alot of targets and it gets smaller if GPS is not jammed for the whole flight. But its unlikely to ever be an issue. If the enemy has GPS jammers then you just blow them with the first missions. Building a seeker to lock onto the GPS jammer would be easy and could be fired by the SEAD aircraft. Or an AGM-142 could be used to blow it before the main strike is over the target. All that means the enemy needs to put some heavy defenses on the jammer to let it last longer then five minutes, which was my point.

[/quote]
Attacking aircraft would have to use laser-guided PGMs (assuming US forces- who aren't very big on electro-optical guided PGMs, which the Russians seem to like).[/quote]

The US fields a lot of infrared imaging weapons, Maverick, SLAM, I believe that’s what tactical Tomahawk uses. The USN and USAF don’t like TV very much because simple camo can defeat the automatic lock, and the man in the loop option where you fly it into the target requires a very high standard of training. There also very expensive, an AGM-130 costs something like 275,000 USD. With infrared imaging a guy can lock it on and not need to worry about it being broken. Course the next generation of US weapons will be using infrared and ladar, often with ATR...

[NecronLord]

which the Russians seem to like).

Maybe they know something we don't (envisions global GPS jammer sattelites.)

[Sea Skimmer]

Maybe they know something we don't (envisions global GPS jammer sattelites.)

*Modified ABL blasts them from the sky*

That’s not going to happen. GPS however will be improving, there have already been software improvements to defeat jamming and the next block of satellites will incorporate hard wear changes in addition to overall better performance and higher accuracy.

[Pu-239]

Maybe they know something we don't (envisions global GPS jammer sattelites.)

*Modified ABL blasts them from the sky*

That’s not going to happen. GPS however will be improving, there have already been software improvements to defeat jamming and the next block of satellites will incorporate hard wear changes in addition to overall better performance and higher accuracy.

What about others blowing our satellites out of the sky?

How close is say, China to building ASATS? And do we have the capability to quickly launch another one or do we have backups?

[phongn]

GPS launching is way behind schedule, so it'd be a problem, unfortunately.

China may be able to field an ASAT, but why knock down GPS? That's a deliberate act of war.

[Vympel]

GPS launching is way behind schedule, so it'd be a problem, unfortunately.

China may be able to field an ASAT, but why knock down GPS? That's a deliberate act of war.

When the war starts, it'd be a good idea. You'd be rendering a large part of the US arsenal quite useless. If you can get enough to knock down the network.

And to join American NAVSTAR and Russian GLONASS GPS, we now have the European Galileo GPS.

[Sea Skimmer]

When the war starts, it'd be a good idea. You'd be rendering a large part of the US arsenal quite useless. If you can get enough to knock down the network.

Actually the only weapon which might be useless is Tomahawk due to its long flight. You seem to have missed where I pointed out that every GPS weapon and system is simply providing updates to already highly accurate INS systems that can be kept updated via radar.

[Vympel]

Actually the only weapon which might be useless is Tomahawk due to its long flight. You seem to have missed where I pointed out that every GPS weapon and system is simply providing updates to already highly accurate INS systems that can be kept updated via radar.

In order to fire JDAM, you need to have GPS coordinates. If you can't get GPS coordinates, the use of the weapon is what?

[phongn]

And to join American NAVSTAR and Russian GLONASS GPS, we now have the European Galileo GPS.

I'm curious about this: which is the better system? Galileo, NAVSTAR or GLONASS?

[Vympel]

I'm curious about this: which is the better system? Galileo, NAVSTAR or GLONASS?

GLONASS stats:

The operational system contains 21 satellites in 3 orbital planes, with 3 on-orbit spares. Glonass provides 100meters accuracy with its C/A (deliberately degraded) signals and 10-20meter accuracy with its P (military) signals.

NAVSTAR stats:

The Standard Positioning Service (SPS) is a positioning and timing service which will be available to all GPS users on a continuous, worldwide basis with no direct charge. SPS will be provided on the GPS L1 frequency which contains a coarse acquisition (C/A) code and a navigation data message. SPS provides a predictable positioning accuracy of 100 meters (95 percent) horizontally and 156 meters (95 percent) verticallyand time transfer accuracy to UTC within 340 nanoseconds (95 percent).

The Precise Positioning Service (PPS) is a highly accurate military positioning, velocity and timing service which will be available on a continuous, worldwide basis to users authorized by the U.S. P(Y) code capable military user equipment provides a predictable positioning accuracy of at least 22 meters (95 percent) horizontally and 27.7 meters verticallyand time transfer accuracy to UTC within 200 nanoseconds (95 percent). PPS will be the data transmitted on the GPS L1 and L2 frequencies. PPS was designed primarily for U.S. military use.

Galileo ... hmm wild card.

But it looks like the GLONASS military signal may be more accurate. Which should be good for when the Russians get off their ass and put their GPS-guided bombs into production.

I would say that NAVSTAR is probably the most effective right now- because while Russia has enough birds up to ensure GLONASS works, it doesn't have enough birds up to make it absolutely optimal. Or so I read on strategypage. This is 1-2 year old information, so I could be wrong and the GLONASS fleet could be up to full strength.

[phongn]

AFAIK, SPS and PPS are quite a bit more accurate than that. Certainly, every report I've seen with SPS puts their accuracy well in the sub-100m range and PPS in the 10m or less range.

[Vympel]

AFAIK, SPS and PPS are quite a bit more accurate than that. Certainly, every report I've seen with SPS puts their accuracy well in the sub-100m range and PPS in the 10m or less range.

In that case, maybe they're dealing in absolute lower limits- it was the USN site I got it off, I think ...

[phongn]

AFAIK, SPS and PPS are quite a bit more accurate than that. Certainly, every report I've seen with SPS puts their accuracy well in the sub-100m range and PPS in the 10m or less range.

In that case, maybe they're dealing in absolute lower limits- it was the USN site I got it off, I think ...

Maybe absolute lower limits for gen-1 GPS? It has improved quite a bit since IOC.

[Vympel]

Maybe absolute lower limits for gen-1 GPS? It has improved quite a bit since IOC.

Perhpas, but the site was quite current- they had launch data up to March 31 2003. Talking about the new sats- Block IIR IIRC.

[Sea Skimmer]

Those values might be the worst case scenario; they do at "at least". A GPS receiver will work with three satellites, but gets more accurate if it can lock onto more, the max that’s possibul is eight. With eight I know the accuracy is within a 10x10x10 meter cube. And with three receiver linked together you can get accuracy within 1.3 meters.

[phongn]

Those values might be the worst case scenario; they do at "at least". A GPS receiver will work with three satellites, but gets more accurate if it can lock onto more, the max that’s possibul is eight. With eight I know the accuracy is within a 10x10x10 meter cube. And with three receiver linked together you can get accuracy within 1.3 meters.

DGPS, right?

[Sea Skimmer]

DGPS, right?

Yup