Posted on 08/24/2019 5:21:50 PM PDT by ASA Vet
Electronic warfare, known as the battle in the electromagnetic spectrum, relies on data and signals to survey, fight and defend and the complex mission executed by the Army’s electronic warfare Soldiers – which includes detecting and responding to enemy jamming attempts and other electronic interference – is intensifying.
Currently, the Army is developing an Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool, or EWPMT, to manage and control electronic warfare assets in support of unified land operations.
According to Army News Service, through the EWPMT, the Army can now visually synergize its EW attack, targeting, and surveillance capabilities to enable the maneuverability of forces. The tool also improves spectrum management operations and assists with the intelligence-gathering process.
Operators can streamline the process between the EWPMT and fires support, in addition to being able to configure their system to generate automated responses to a variety of signals or alerts, officials said.
Once a EWPMT system is triggered, the program will initiate its automated workflow, often distributing information throughout a tactical operations center. Depending on the engagement, operators can initiate a fire mission and provide tactical graphics for support.
“Operational units can now visualize the electromagnetic spectrum,” said Lt. Col. Jason Marshall, product manager for Electronic Warfare Integration.
“EWPMT is the commander’s primary tool to integrate multi-domain operations into their military decision-making process,” he added.
While still under development — EWPMT increment one, capability drop three — is leveraging user feedback to allow EWPMT to support the electronic warfare officer’s techniques, tactics, and procedures, Marshall said. A pool of electronic warfare Soldiers and electromagnetic spectrum managers, or 25Es, from across the Army are involved in the program.
Instead of waiting for EW to become an official part of the targeting process, program officials are trying to get ahead of the curve to fulfill a future requirement, said Capt. Daniel J. Nicolosi, EWPMT assistant product manager.
Currently, EW operators “have nothing,” added Chief Warrant Officer 2 Will Flanagan, senior electronic warfare targeting officer, who is assigned to the operations group at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California.
As an operator, Flanagan is highly involved in the EWPMT’s ongoing developmental process.
“With the EWPMT in front of me, I can show the commander where we’re at, and what we can do,” he said. “This will give us that spot on the TOC floor. This is the first tool to allow us to do our jobs.”
Future iterations of the EWPMT program, officials said, will focus on pacing the threat’s capabilities within a disconnected, intermittent, and latent environment. In turn, the program will help refine the Army’s ability to conduct cyberspace electromagnetic activities in support of multi-domain operations and enable the Army to fight and win on a complex battlefield.
For the EWPMT to be effective, it relies on fielded communications sensors and other EW transmission devices.
The Versatile Radio Observation and Direction, or VROD, Modular Adaptive Transmission system, known as VMAX, have already been fielded to meet mission requirements.
“VMAX is a lightweight man-portable electronics support and offensive electronic attack system. It is used to find, monitor, locate, and jam RF emitters in real time during tactical operations,” said Ken Gilliard, team lead of the Rapid System Applications Team, which falls under the Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Center, or C5ISR.
“Its purpose is to create that advantage in the electromagnetic spectrum to provide Soldiers a window to maneuver on the battlefield,” he added.
When VMAX is operating in a support capability, operators can monitor the electromagnetic environment and determine what frequencies an adversary is operating on. Further, Soldiers can use multiple VMAX systems to geo-locate a signal, he said.
Similarly, if VMAX is supporting offensive EW capabilities, it can be used to jam or interfere with the signal within specific frequencies.
VMAX is a self-contained, battery-powered device, which weighs approximately 25-30 pounds, Gilliard said. Soldiers can tether VMAX to a vehicle, a building, or some air platforms. The device can be remotely operated and configured with a wide range of antennas to fulfill mission requirements.
The Army currently owns more than 200 VMAX nodes and 100 VROD nodes, he added. Majority of these devices are already deployed around the globe, many of them supporting operations in Europe and the Middle East.
MI Ping
But what does it do? Was this written to intentionally obfuscate that?
Based on this psychobabble, it must be getting close to budget preparation time...
The Army must have paid the contractor a lot of money for that word salad.
My assistant, a young man of 28, is going off to Ft. Benning boot camp on September 9 to do exactly what this article speaks of. His name is Robbie. Congrats to him!
It does many obscure and mind-boggling things. For instance, if one were exposed to some of its radio frequency emissions for only a few seconds; one result would be that all his grandchildren will be born naked! Awesome!
Likely. What else does it seems like every new tech development by the military is advertised, and thus give enemies like Russia and China an excuse to spend more on development for their military? Imagine a A-bomb development with this "look what we've got" advertising.
High power jammer on the modern battlefield = bullet magnet
Well, it visually synergizes its EW attack;
improves spectrum management operations;
streamlines the process between the EWPMT and fires support;
generates automated responses to a variety of signals or alerts;
integrates multi-domain operations;
and future ones will focus on pacing the threat’s capabilities within a disconnected, intermittent, and latent environment.
Do i make myself clear?
“...Based on this psychobabble, it must be getting close to budget preparation time...” [SuperLuminal, post 5]
“The Army must have paid the contractor a lot of money for that word salad.” [mikey_hates_everything, post 6]
“My assistant, a young man of 28, is going off to Ft. Benning boot camp on September 9 to do exactly what this article speaks of....” [Cen-Tejas, post 7]
The article sounds like word salad because scarcely anyone on this forum is familiar with the basics.
The use of the electromagnetic spectrum for attack, defense, disruption, surveillance, and intelligence collection predates 1900. But the US military establishment has struggled for decades, to develop a coordinated, coherent approach to using the spectrum, denying its use to adversaries, and assuring its use by friendly forces.
Mere management of the electromagnetic spectrum to enhance friendly use and unsnarl interference between Allied users is a monumental and ever-growing problem. Everyone wants a piece of it and hates to accommodate any other user.
Reasons for this seem sinister, but are relentlessly mundane: security restrictions, bureaucratic rivalries, professional chauvinism and parochiality, contractual muddle, high personnel turnover, backward-looking senior leaders, inability of appointed & elected officials to grasp fundamentals. Et cetera.
If the Army-ese can be accurately deciphered, they hope to develop a better user interface that can present a simpler, easier-to-interpret “picture” of the electronic battlefield. Ease of use can speed up decisions; a few seconds either way in fomenting real-world understanding can spell the difference between victory and defeat.
Cen-Tejas’ assistant won’t be doing this in basic training. This stuff will come later, at tech school. He will need all the luck he can scrape together, with this task ahead of him.
Skynet?
I kept looking for a “look what we got” in that jumble of words. I think this must be a misdirection and misinformation article because there’s nothing there.
Your proposal is a winner! $100 million coming your way. Straight from Nigeria.
"Soviet Nuclear Weapons Homing Beacon Operator."
Actually, a very cool and attractive mobile system. It would seem to be very attractive to such things as old fashioned artillery, a variety of missiles, including nuclear.
I get the technical stuff regarding RF and EW, especially when it comes to having to jam all detected RF but still allowing your own RF comms, including networking, to get through among other requirements. What I try to avoid is the Army/DoD/Program Manager-ese that sound like the GD and NG commercials on WTOP. It’s annoying to us and tends to be very expensive when vendors pitch technical products using that DoD jargon.
Missile magnet is more likely.
Still not holding a candle to Russian tech in this area.
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