Back to news

July 11, 2018 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

The Marine Corps wants to protect its Hornets from GPS jammers

By:

The Corps is looking to install antennas in its F/A-18 C/D Hornets to help the aircraft defeat GPS jammers.

In a request for information posted in early June by Naval Air Systems Command, or NAVAIR, the Corps wants to install the anti-jam antennas known as the Air Navigation Warfare Program, or NAVWAR, in 120 of the legacy Hornets.

The anti-jamming antenna “provides Global Positioning System (GPS) protection for Naval Air platforms by allowing for continued access to GPS through the use of Anti-Jam (AJ) Antenna Systems designed to counter GPS Electronic Warfare threats from intentional and unintentional interference,” Michael Land, a spokesman for NAVAIR, told Marine Corps Times in an emailed statement Tuesday.

The development comes as U.S. aircraft have faced mounting electronic warfare attacks against aircraft in Syria.

Army Gen. Tony Thomas, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, told audience members at a conference in April that adversaries were trying to bring down AC-130 gunships in Syria using electronic warfare, or EW.

“Right now in Syria, we're in the most aggressive EW environment on the planet, from our adversaries,” Thomas said. “They're testing us every day, knocking our communications down, disabling our AC-130s, et cetera.”

The Corps is amid an overhaul of its forces and equipment to prepare for a potential fight with near-peer adversaries like Russia and China.

Both countries boast an impressive array of electronic warfare capabilities. Russia has been using the Syrian battlefield to hone its EW skills.

The top Marine has oft repeated the threats posed to GPS systems from rising adversaries and says the Corps needs to be prepared to fight in GPS denied environments.

The F/A-18 is the Corps' bridging aircraft as it moves to the new high-tech F-35. As the Corps transitions the older legacy Hornets are undergoing a service life extension, meaning the aircraft are being updated to handle the modern battlefield.

“Installation in F/A-18 A-D helps ensure continued mission capability as the service life of the aircraft is extended and facilitates supportability by using more common equipment,” Land said.

The Navy and the Marine Corps already use the anti-jamming GPS antenna in a number of airframes, according to Land.

“Typical installations replace a platform's existing GPS antenna with a NAVWAR antenna and separate antenna electronics, while leaving a platform's GPS receiver in place,” Land added.

The Corps expects the F/A-18 to be in sunset by 2030.

As the Corps moves to the F-35 and phases out its Hornets, the legacy fighters will consolidate on the West Coast by 2018 with the exception of VMFA (AW)‐242, which will remain aboard the Corps' air station at Iwakuni, Japan until it transitions to the F-35 in 2028, according to the Corp's 2018 aviation plan.

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/07/10/the-corps-wants-to-protect-its-hornets-from-gps-jammers/

On the same subject

  • US Army discontinues Rapid Equipping Force

    October 5, 2020 | International, Land, C4ISR, Security

    US Army discontinues Rapid Equipping Force

    Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has discontinued its Rapid Equipping Force stood up during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to get urgently needed capabilities into the field in 180 days or less. As the Army shifts from a focus on counterinsurgency operations to going up against near-peer adversaries like Russia and China across air, land, sea, cyberspace and space domains in large-scale operations, the REF's utility and mission has been in question. The service is also disbanding its Asymmetric Warfare Group. “As our focus changes to great power competition and large-scale combat operations, Army analysis indicated that the personnel and resources could best be utilized in building the operational fighting force,” an Oct. 2 Army statement read. “To ensure the value of organization's work over the past 14 years is not lost, all lessons learned will be maintained by the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, via the Center for Army Lessons Learned, Centers of Excellence and other [Training and Doctrine Command] enterprise stakeholders.” The discontinuation won't happen overnight. Both organizations will be fully deactivated by the end of fiscal 2021 “and will transition the mission of providing immediate support to other organizations,” the statement noted. Over the past several years, the REF hung on to certain missions and continued to advocate for its relevancy. A year ago, Defense News sat down with the REF's director in a new, smaller office space at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, in a conference room surrounded by small counter-unmanned aircraft systems that it was rapidly fielded to units and considered one of its success stories. In 2017, the REF was focused on counter-drone technologies; dismounted electronic warfare equipment; tethered intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities; and urban operations equipment including up-armored commercial vehicles. But many of those technologies have found other homes within the Army. As the service stood up its new security force assistance brigades, the REF expected a surge in work to support the needs of those units in the field as they deployed. The REF played a small role at the time, providing the first SFAB with a few items it needed ahead of deployment such as communications gear and an item that assisted the unit with indirect fires. Last year, the REF was highlighting its nearly 10-year-old Expeditionary Lab, a 3D-printing trailer that can be deployed downrange to solve problems for units operating in austere environments. Col. Joe Bookard, who is still the REF's director, told Defense News at the time that the REF would continue to fill the niche of urgently supplying soldiers with capabilities to meet immediate needs while they are deployed. He said that, in a way, the REF has been doing what Army Futures Command is doing now, but on a smaller scale: providing capabilities that are rapidly procured to a small number of soldiers for evaluation, and then refining those capabilities as needed. In 2019, the REF addressed 400 requirements sent from combatant commanders to address operational capability gaps, Bookard said. Among some of the recent success stories is the tiny Black Hornet, an unmanned aircraft system that is now a program of record and was fielded as the Soldier Borne Sensor. The REF was also working to transition two hand-held counter-UAS capabilities — the DroneBuster and the Drone Defender — to the larger force as official programs. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/10/02/army-discontinues-rapid-equipping-force/

  • Turkish defense firms showcase new systems for air defense, ground ops

    July 25, 2023 | International, Aerospace

    Turkish defense firms showcase new systems for air defense, ground ops

    Aselsan's new GÜRZ system was designed to protect stationary units and formations on the move from low-flying threats.

  • AVs Switchblade 600 selected for Tranche 1 of the U.S Department of Defenses replicator initiative

    May 9, 2024 | International, Land

    AVs Switchblade 600 selected for Tranche 1 of the U.S Department of Defenses replicator initiative

    The first iteration of the Replicator initiative aims to accelerate all-domain, attritable autonomous systems to warfighters at speed and scale.

All news