Electronic warfare
From ArticleWorld
Electronic warfare refers to any military action that involves the use of electromagnetic energy to control the use of the electromagnetic spectrum or to attack or gain intelligence about the enemy.
EW is an indirect way of attacking the enemy, because the target is only required to be within the range of radio signals and not necessarily in a direct line of sight.
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Types
There are three main types of electronic warfare (EW) as explained below:
Electronic attack (EA)
This includes electromagnetic countermeasures (ECM) – such as jamming – which are used in order to disrupt the enemy's use of the electromagnetic spectrum in radars and other communication. EA also includes anti-radiation weapons (ARW) and directed-energy weapons (DEW).
Electronic support (ES)
This type refers to the passive use of electromagnetic energy in order to gain intelligence about enemy whereabouts. It was previously referred to as electronic support measures (ESM). There are four main functions of ES:
- To search for signals
- To intercept and sort out signals of interest
- To detect the location of signal’s source
- To examine the resultant technical and operational information
Electronic protection (EP)
This type refers to measures taken to protect friendly forces from their own EA activities, or from the enemy's EA or ES. EP was earlier known as electromagnetic counter-countermeasures (ECCM).
EP can be active or passive. Examples of passive use include:
- Shielding of electronic emissions in order to protect against enemy EA and ES
- Emission control (EMCON), which is used for restricting friendly communications in order to confuse the enemy
- Frequency management
Examples of active EP include:
- Encryption, which is used to avoid interception by the enemy
- Different forms of modulation such as spread-spectrum communications in order to provide low probability of interception (LPI)
- Antijam (AJ) communications