Aviation Week & Space Technology
January 17, 2000
Pg. 435

Starved For Support Jamming, USAF Eyes New Platforms

By David A. Fulghum and Robert Wall, Washington

A shortage of EA-6B Prowler radar-jamming aircraft and fears they weren't effective at long ranges led the U.S. Air Force to plan the modification of a B-52H for an electronic warfare mission during the Kosovo conflict. While the project was cut short by the cease-fire, a long-term plan to modify B-52s, B-1Bs or another aircraft for electronic warfare has survived.

The Air Force had plans in place to modify the B-52H with EW gear to augment the Navy and Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler force, said Col. Dean Yount, who oversees Air Force EW programs. To maximize its usefulness, the B-52 would have retained its ability to drop bombs and fire long-range cruise missiles.

Like the EA-6B, the EB-52 -- as the modified bomber would be called -- would have carried the jamming transmitters in pods under its wings. The Air Force envisioned using ALQ-99 jamming pods, the same equipment carried by EA-6Bs. Each pod can jam two radar frequencies. The upgraded B-52 would have carried more jammers than the typical EA-6B payload, which is usually two or four pods.

The Kosovo air campaign ended before the first hardware changes were made, said Maj. Douglas Fuller, a USAF B-52 program official at the Pentagon. However, the hope that the large-payload B-52 could be used to address the Defense Dept.'s shortage in electronic warfare aircraft hasn't faded. The end of the Kosovo conflict means the Air Force can ponder the available options in greater detail, Yount said.

Regardless, internal Air Force support for the EB-52 appears to be growing. While the Kosovo modification focused on augmenting EA-6Bs, Yount contends that the size and payload capability of the B-52 could allow it to do even more electronic jamming chores. For example, the Air Force also has a shortage of EC-130H Compass Call aircraft that jam critical communications between aircraft, air defense sites, and aircraft and ground controllers. The B-52 might be able to conduct both jamming tasks.

For the moment, however, virtually all of the Pentagon's standoff, EW modernization plans have been subsumed by an analysis of alternatives being conducted by a Pentagon team headed by the U.S. Navy. The Air Force is in the process of developing its ideas for a B-52 jammer to offer in the broad-based Navy study on how to replace the EA-6B by about 2013. The Air Force wants to expand the study to look at near- and long-term EW needs in general. A senior Air Force official recently said the service has to find a way to meet its EW needs before the fielding of an EA-6B replacement. Even the Pentagon's acquisition chief, Jacques Gansler, is encouraging each service to buy more jamming capability.

Although the Air Force has not defined a final configuration for an EB-52, several elements of how it would look and operate have emerged. The baseline electronic package would be the Improved Capability-3 (ICAP-3) system that the Navy is developing as an upgrade to its EA-6Bs. One official said a B-52 with ICAP-3 could be fielded within only a year or two after the Navy fields the upgraded EA-6B. The new equipment will feature a much enhanced receiver system, the LR700, so that the jammer can focus its energy on specific frequencies, rather than having to jam across a broad spectrum, which dilutes its effectiveness.

Another advantage of the B-52 is its long loiter capability. While Prowlers usually can remain over the battlefield for only a few hours, the B-52 could stay on station about 12 hr., Air Force officials said.

HOWEVER, UNLIKE the EA-6B that accompanies strike packages, the B-52 would stand off at ranges of more than 150 mi. That would require the bomber to produce a lot of jamming energy to blind enemy radars. One of the reasons for the F-117 shootdown over Kosovo was that the supporting EA-6Bs were too far from the stealth fighter and the radars trying to track it to be effective. Navy Prowler aircrews tried unsuccessfully to impress this problem on war planners after experiments in protecting F-117s and B-2s were conducted on the restricted Nevada test ranges before the Kosovo conflict.

Furthermore, if the B-52 jams from those long distances, it risks suppressing communications and radars from friendly forces closer to the battlefield, one industry skeptic said of the idea. ''Fundamentally, it is probably a flawed concept,'' he added. Air Force planners admit there are those and other details that will require a lot of work. For example, the signals from a B-52 and those from an EA-6B jamming in the same area could cancel each other out, so there has to be a mechanism to ensure jamming signals are in sync.

So far, the Air Force hasn't adapted its B-52 upgrade plans to account for the emerging jamming mission. For example, USAF wants to upgrade the bomber's antiquated radar warning receiver (RWR) equipment to enhance self-protection. That hardware would be a critical piece in a standoff jamming architecture. Fuller said the RWR replacement program is moving forward independent of what happens to the jamming mission.

Others believe the Air Force's B-52 jamming excursion may only be a ruse. ''What they are really interested in is the B-1,'' one aerospace official said. But the Air Force doesn't want to acknowledge that, he noted, because assigning B-1s to the electronic warfare mission would force it to reopen its strategic bomber roadmap. Furthermore, it might require moving B-1s from the Reserves to active forces, a politically controversial move. A senior Air Force official confirmed that many within the service's planning community think an EB-1 makes more sense that an EB-52.

But the B-1 would be the better platform, the official argued. Unlike the B-52, the B-1 could penetrate along with strike packages. Furthermore, if the Air Force added the LR700 receiver system to the B-1, it would address problems with the bomber's ALQ-161 self-protection gear. The Air Force also wants to upgrade the B-1's radar with an active, electronically scanned radar antenna array to improve the aircraft's performance in bombing missions. Such an array could be used for spot-jamming, which would give the service another way to rationalize the upgrade.

Unlike the B-52, the B-1B would carry the jamming equipment on pallets in its bomb bays. Many of the EA-6B jamming pods -- particularly those designed for the most critical high-frequency (long-range antiaircraft missiles) and low-frequency (stealth detection) radars -- are designed for use in a palletized configuration.

''The B-1 can penetrate much farther into enemy defenses,'' the Air Force official said. That means it ''has a far smaller requirement for radiated power than the B-52, which would have to stand off so far that it would take the power of two nuclear reactors to produce the needed jamming range.''

THE AIR FORCE acknowledges that the B-1B is an option just like other large platforms such as transport aircraft. But one advantage of the B-52 is that the old bomber isn't as highly integrated as more modern aircraft and, therefore, upgrading it is usually cheaper.

But supporters of the bomber/jammer idea don't view it as the only path the Air Force should take. Unmanned systems will be needed too. ''Double-digit surface-to-air missiles [Russia's 80-mi.-range SA-10 and SA-12 and the proposed 250-mi.-range S-400] may make it impossible to [solve EW problems] with manned systems,'' Yount said. A promising option would be to augment manned aircraft with unmanned vehicles such as a jamming version of the ADM-160A Miniature Air-Launched Decoy, he noted. MALD is, in fact, being designed for use from B-52s.