In early 2024, Russian engineers modified the Russian flying force KAB glide-bombs with more channels for their satellite radios.
This made them harder to defeat by electronic ways, as a jammer would have to interfere with each Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna channel to send out the bomb off course.Ukraines Night Watch electronic warfare team sprung into action.When the enemy started utilizing KAB directed bombs with Cometa8 eight-channel CRPA, we executed eight-fold jamming coverage, stated Night Watchs leader, whosenom de guerreis Alchemist.It was the most recent bout in an ongoing duel between Russian munitions-makers and Ukrainian electronic-warfare designers.
The Russians establish a new bomb, missile or drone; the Ukrainians develop a brand-new jammer to stop it; the Russians respond with another brand-new munition; the Ukrainians rush to field yet another jammer.Neither side can rest, lest the enemy get a long lasting benefit.
On and so forth as Russias wider war on Ukraine grinds towards its 4th year.
In the 3rd year, the Russians very nearly gained an enduring firepower edgewith KABs that blew right through location jamming coming from just one direction.Night Watchs eight-channel Lima jammer, set up around power substations in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts along with around the cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, worked as intended.
In the areas Lima covered, no KABs struck within 250 backyards of a target, Alchemist claimed, mentioning Ukrainian government sources.But the KABs, which generally weigh 1,100 or 2,200 pounds and variety as far as 25 miles on pop-out wings, continued to maul front-line positions.
As many as 100 KABs struck every day.The glide-bombs were a wonder weapon for the Russians, the Ukrainian Deep State analysis groupnoted.
And Ukrainian forces had practically no countermeasures.The issue, for the front-line troops, is that they cant surround themselves at depth with jammers that transmit in all directions, as the Russians manage the terrain opposite them.Jammers work best when they can produce a large zone of radio disturbance releasing from several instructions.
They work much less well when targeting a rocket, bomb or drone from just one side as the munition barrels towards its target.
The rocket, bomb or drone may preserve its comms from the unjammed hemisphere long enough to no in.In other words, the omnidirectional jamming fields that safeguarded cities and power stations deep behind Ukrainian lines in 2015 werent as effectivealongthose very same lines.
Night Watch was identified to alter that.Upon the appearance of the Cometa8-equipped KABs, our group studied them completely, Alchemist said.
We reverseengineered the technical protocolthen created a brand-new device, Lima Focus, to jam from a single side.If omnidirectional jamming is a flood, single-side directional jamming is more similar to a stream of water shooting from a hose.Single-Direction JammerExactly how the Lima Focus directional jammer works is a carefully held trick.
Its a safe bet it includes a very various antenna plan compared to an omnidirectional Lima jammerand possibly more power, too.
In any occasion, field tests were exceptional, Alchemist said.Night Watch, which has actually been acquiring popularity forits bootstrap technique to jammer-developmentandits productive relationship with a highly effective Chinese spy, pitched the single-side Lima Focus to the Ukrainian defense ministrys electronic warfare department.But complete certification from the E.W.
department would require 3 months of testingand there was no time at all to wait as the KABs rained down.
The basic personnel in Kyiv cut right through the bureaucracy.
It order Lima Focus into combat.
Same-day deployment, Alchemist recalled.Within a week of the Lima Focuss implementation near Hremyach in Kharkiv Oblast, the Russian flying force ceased KAB strikes in the area, Alchemist claimed.
We extended release to Vovchanskwith identical outcomes.
Ukrainian intelligence overheard Russian pilots grumbling over the radio that satellite navigation signals were stopping working 60 miles from the front.The Zaporizhzhia local council was the first to formally buy Lima Focus units from Night Watch.
After implementation, KAB strikes on the city halted, Alchemist stated.
The E.W.
department formally accredited the jammer, making it much easier for government companies to obtain it.The Russians were seeing, howeverand learning.
Just recently undertaking their fourth significant upgrade to the KAB navigation kits, theyve begun including 4 more radio channels.To suppress that, 12fold emitter protection is needed, Alchemist described.
Without it, the present E.W.
fields lose effectivenesscausing increasing hit frequency.Photo: A Russian KAB glide-bomb Wikimedia CommonsSource: Trench Art