Russia has reportedly deployed advanced electronic warfare equipment to counter Ukraine’s precision bombing capabilities, Forbes reports.
Ukrainian forces have successfully used jamming technology to disrupt Russia’s satellite-guided bombs for months, significantly reducing the effectiveness of Russia’s larger air force. Now, it appears Russia is employing similar tactics against Ukrainian precision munitions.
“They have brought in new electronic warfare equipment,” a Ukrainian military blogger Sonyashnyk noted in the report. “They can really interfere with a strike.”
The blogger further explained the technical impact: “The GPS of the bombs can go out.”
While this represents a concerning development for Ukrainian forces, Forbes war correspondent David Axe reports that Ukraine should be able to adapt by relying on bombs with self-contained guidance systems.
The effectiveness of Russian jamming compared to Ukrainian capabilities remains unclear. Ukraine has historically maintained an electronic warfare advantage, quickly deploying sophisticated radio jammers that disrupt Russian communications networks.
This development could affect Ukraine’s ability to reliably strike Russian targets with precision munitions like the French-made Hammer and American-made Small Diameter Bomb GBU-39. Recently, Ukrainian Su-27 fighters have been using these weapons against bridges in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast, attempting to isolate Russian troops in the border region where Ukrainian forces have conducted limited incursions.
Backup navigation systems could tip the scales
Axe highlights the cyclical nature of warfare technology – each measure eventually faces a countermeasure, which then faces its own countercountermeasure. For precision bombing, satellite jamming is countered by inertial navigation systems (INS).
“The future belongs to autonomous INS,” declared Fighterbomber, the unofficial Telegram channel of the Russian air force.
The American-made Joint Direct Attack Munition and French-made Hammer glide bombs in Ukraine’s arsenal feature backup inertial navigation systems. Russia’s equivalent systems reportedly suffer from accuracy issues. According to Mark Schneider, an analyst cited in a 2022 essay for the US Navy’s professional journal Proceedings, Russian missiles are often only one-tenth as accurate as claimed.
If both sides continue to jam each other’s satellite guidance systems, the war may increasingly depend on these backup navigation technologies – potentially giving Ukraine an advantage if its inertial systems maintain superior accuracy.
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