We posted on our sister site at Military.com a story today about the use of EA-6B Prowlers to counter the improvised explosive device threat in Iraq.
This is significant because it marks the first time the story has made it out into the open press. Those of us who have embedded in both Iraq and Afghanistan over the years knew about this powerful counter-IED technology, but we refrained from reporting on it at the request of commanders who didnt want the secret mission out in the open.
It was the spring of 2004, when I was in Bagram, Afghanistan, that I first saw the Prowlers in action. I remember asking the Army PAO there whether I could do a story about the fact that EA-6Bs were deployed there the first time Id seen such aircraft in The Stan.
The PAO looked me straight in the eye and said, what Prowlers?
I countered: Those four sitting right there next to the 160th birds (referring to the imposing, black-painted spec ops MH-47s lined up along the tarmac).
There are no Prowlers here, he said, making me think of the famous Obi Wan line these are not the droids youre looking for
There are no Prowlers here, is said robotically.
For nearly two years I and other reporters I know who knew wanted to tell this story. At one point, a colleague of mine reported on the issue based on statements from a Prowler driver at a conference of Old Crows. He was quickly slapped down by his command, and the Navy pleaded with our publication to pull the story.
Later, in Iraq, it was known as banging trons. Prowlers would orbit during night patrols, using their powerful electronic jamming gear to run through the spectrum in hopes of detonating IEDs while bomb layers were planting them. This was known to happen on more than a few occasions.
Wising up, but probably unaware of what was causing the mysterious detonations, the bad guys switched to command detonated IEDs or pressure plate set-ups. The best way to counter these, interestingly enough, were snipers watch, wait and pick them off while theyre planting them in the road.
Still, the most popular triggering device at least back in 06 was the larger signaled chordless phone system that existed before Iraq had a widespread cellular network. Most houses had a powerful antenna on the roof with a Senao base station that could transmit phone signals to great distances. It makes sense that Prowlers can intercept or imitate these too.
Its good to see a normally secretive community get its day in the sun. I wonder if the commander quoted in the story really knew this issue would hit the mainstream. This tactic is an important tool to the boots on the ground operators, and surely with the introduction of EA-18G Growler incorporating an impressive suit of wiz-bang jamming and active electronic warfare gear the mission will continue to good effect.
Pedestrian, you said: “BTW, Chirstian, how many lives do you think you have and will kill by disclosing this? Don’t tell me radio controlled IEDs are totally gone unless you got the data“
But if the insurgents stop planting RC/cell triggered bombs because they’re worried they’ll go off in their hands, isn’t that a GOOD thing?
Hmmm, might be going after IEDs that use an electrical detonator. You apply enough RF radiation to a detonator circuit and you will have a detonation. Amazing is that apparently they can’t use this technique to ignite RPG rounds. Now that would be funny.
First of all, who says “how many lives have you killed”? That’s just hilarious.
Second of all, assuming that some insurgent is reading DT, all he knows now is that planes at night might be able to detonate IEDs prematurely. Go to Youtube and do a search for “MNF Iraq attacks AA gun”. I’m betting those guys knew that they were up against the potential of an aerial strike, but it didn’t help them in the end, did it?
This has actually been in the open press for quite some time. Aviation Week, Flight International, Defense News and Jane’s have each written about it, and the navy has openly discussed it at conferences since 2005. But it is pretty impressive.
It’s a good example of asymmetric warfare: how the $100m aircraft is cancelled out by a $10 PIR sensor from Radio Shack.
Amazing is that apparently they can’t use this technique to ignite RPG rounds. Now that would be funny.
RPGs are pretty low-tech. I’m not sure they have an electrical detonator — it might just be a straightforward mechanical/chemical explosive contact detonator. So, however much RF you throw at it, you won’t set it off, because there’s no circuit there to generate a current in.
And the Prowlers aren’t even inducing a current in a closed circuit, if I understand this rightly; they’re mimicking the RF signal that the detonator sends. Setting off a closed circuit detonator this way would take a lot more power. More than a Prowler could deliver from several thousand feet up.
Pity.
Why is it that all our military secrets get out to the press, now the bad guys can use this info vs our good guys.
Hey what we need is a device on the front of each HumV, truck or military ground vehicle that can locate and detonate the IED’s. Its very possible that we already have such a device. But we need to keep it secret.
can’t we keep anything secret. nope I guess not. anything to sell papers.
Ajay:
IIRC, most RPG rounds have got a piezoelectric fuse element: a crystal that generates an electric pulse on impact/crush. Don’t know the voltage/current involved, but if there’s a transformer circuit in there you’d have to smack the electrical detonator pretty hard with EMP, at least compared to a Prowler tickling a cell phone or garage door detonator set.
It might not be impossible; IIRC, you can rig an active electronically scanned array to identify and track an inbound target, then sweep back and forth over it at high frequency, making for a pretty good energy spike. IIRC, we’re working on something like that for protecting aircraft from AAM.
Sticking an AESA set that sophisticated on a Humvee’s going to be a pretty trick. Even if you can make one small enough to work, insulating your own gear from interference and EMP would probably be a bitch and a half. That’s STAR TREK stuff; you’d have to hire Vulcans.
But I’m no electrical engineer. Maybe it’s easier than I think.
Here’s another stray thought: this method of compromising explosives also goes by the name HERO: hazards of electromagnetic radiation to ordnance. Some frequencies allegedly not only spike detonator circuits; if close and/or intense enough, they will actually cause explosives to burn.
That might be a neat trick: sweep a convoy route with an AESA, using just enough EMP at the right freaks to generate an IR signature from any large chemical load sitting in the beam.
But then again, you might just warm up your own ordnance, or set it on fire.
All this is well beyond my expertise. Just a few comments FWIW, if anything.
So Ed,
You think they should keep something a secret when if is no longer useful?
While I agree that, far too frequently,
the media reports things which they should not and which are detrimental to us. When they do, it is certainly wrong for them to do so.
On the other hand, there is no use in keeping things secret when the release of the information has no negative effect.
(Or should me not let anyone know we had “code talkers”?)
Me, I am glad to know we at least had an effective method for setting them off for years before the bad guys countered it.
Airborne!
Why not a tube from a Micro Wave oven on long pole
for the RF. A person with explosive vest,Would a Radar Gun made from an ACFT radar system send said vest wearer to the happy hunting grounds?
They probably shouldn’t have kept this a secret. I bet a lot of those bomb-layers thought they went off by accident. If they knew it was “enemy magic” (they also think the nightvision goggles let soldiers see through women’s clothes), it might spook the hell out of them. What a deterent.
I was actually wondering if we had been using either the Prowler or the Growler in the Iraq or Afghanistan theater to counter the IED threat since they could run the full gammut of signals. The thing I would be actually interested in is if we modified any of the jammer pods to fit the escort helo’s like the Apache. If my memory serves me correct, the pods need constant forward motion to keep the blade on the front of them generating power. The issue would be when the helo hovered, how would it get power to the pods. I figure that they simply put a fan on the top of the pod also, to catch the downdraft from the blades. But who am I to come up with these ideas, but a lowly signal soldier who loves military aircraft.
Man, I swear we cant keep a secret even if it means saving lives.
Freakin reporters looking to make $5 will sell the lives and souls out to a wire service for 10 seconds of notoriety.
It doesnt matter if the news is ‘old’ or if the proceedure has been in use for 20 years. As long as the enemy doesnt know about it then it can be effective.
Like a person commented in another post, the ragheads still think that NVG’s give us xray vision so we can ogle their hairy women. Yechhtt.
The public really has NO need to know and does NOT benefit from knowing that Prowlers can zap IED’s with RF.
When its effective it can save lives, not every camel humper knows squat about RF counter measures and would not take any action to counter the Prowler radiation field.
Therefore, we can get them before they can plant the charge and kill our brothers. Which is a good thing, unless you are a liberal and get great joy from killing your own to further your lunacy.
Those who will not defend their freedoms will lose them.
1. A lot of you are assuming this story’s for real: that Prowlers are really banging trons, and not just doing ELINT. Consider the possibility that this could be disinformation, or psyops — make the bad guys afraid of something they can’t see or hear in the night.
2. Then consider the possibility that it’s only partly true, and partly false; the true part is bait for the false part. Same result.
3. Then consider the fact that this is a timed release. Somebody in the chain of command decided that a) the cat was out of the bag, and/or b) there was more benefit to be gained from disclosure than by secrecy. Maybe that’s PR, not psyops; more on that below.
Maybe you don’t trust the chain of command. I don’t.
4. As far as need to know, the troops and taxpayers NTK that we’re doing something about IEDs. The body count is climbing; we NTK what works, and what doesn’t, so we can allocate effort and funds accordingly. Believe it or not, procurement and research is part of the observe, orient, decide, act (OODA) cycle. As a taxpayer, I need to know that our money is well spent, so I can vote the bastards out if it isn’t. Elections are part of the OODA loop too.
5. Let’s not get too worked up about the treasonous press. There’s plenty of secrecy out there that works; the press isn’t leaking everything. The F-117 and B-2 stayed stealth for years; nobody knew about Tacit Blue until it showed up in AVIATION WEEK. There’s a lot of stuff in the black world that stays that way. Some of the stuff that’s coming out of declassified Cold War archives will stand your hair on end. The press, if they knew about it, sat on it for decades.
On the IED front, the Warlock jammers have been reported widely, but there isn’t dick out there about how they actually work. Let’s not start lynching journalists, just yet.
6. Personally, I’m less concerned about what this story says about TTP, than I am about it being a fundraiser. IIRC, this kind of mission profile has been cited as another excuse to buy F-22s. No matter that a small, cheap, unit-organic drone might do it better.