The Navy Vol_73_No_3 Jul 2011 - Navy League of Australia

NAVAL ELECTRONIC WARFARE
By Dr Roger Thornhill
Mastery of Naval Electronic Warfare (EW) can be a force multiplier providing an asymmetric advantage
over almost all adversaries. For small outlays in investment it can provide big returns in the battlespace
when it is needed. However, it is usually underappreciated, underfunded and under resourced, such as in
the RAN. Dr Roger Thornhill explains the basics of Naval EW and the impact it can have.
Within the field of naval weapons and sensors, which become
increasingly complex with their use of the developing technology -
particularly in electronics and software - there is a clear and generally
appreciated role for most of the principal elements. Guns, missiles
and torpedoes are for attack and inflicting damage; radar and sonar
are for detection; communications are for command and control;
navigational aids help to determine position. But the role of EW is
perhaps less well understood, though the term EW is familiar and the
importance of EW in naval operations has now grown. What it actually
is, and how it is carried out, has in the past been shrouded in secrecy
and it is really only in recent years that some aspects of EW have
become a subject for discussion.
In essence, EW is a practice of technical opportunism and expediency,
exploiting weakness in an enemy’s use of electronics for his weapons
and sensors, and cleverly taking advantage of features of enemy
equipment design and/or his use of electronic equipment. EW has
come about entirely through the ever increasing use of electronics
in naval operations and it has proved to be very powerful in gaining
tactical advantages.
It is however, unlike other naval weapons and sensors in that it is
basically a reactive rather than a direct activity. It reacts to what the
enemy does in the electro-magnetic spectrum with the equipment
he is known to have and how he uses it. Pre-conflict intelligence is
thus very important. Consequently, the nature of EW is quite different
from the use of other weapons and sensors. EW has evolved into
an element of naval operations, which is important and has now a
structure and established practice of its own. It can also command
some expenditure, which many navies chose not to spend big on.
Instead looking at the more ‘sexy’ end of the weapons spectrum,
particularly when budgets are tight.
Crewmen load a Mk-36 SROBC chaff launcher with a countermeasures rocket. The rocket carriers the EW payload high and slightly away from the ship to either jam, confuse or seduce a
radar seeker. (USN)
04 THE NAVY VOL. 73 NO. 3