War in peace
Thirty years ago, I purchased a book that was about the American Air Force. The book was published in the late 80s and it was discounted when I purchase it 4 years later. It had touched on many new concepts (It was an easy read with nice pictures) on American Aviation warfare. It touched on Stealth, DARPA and what the mistakes the American did in the previous century.
I have reread the book two decades later and found that most facts were correct. What was incorrect was classified at that time. (Eg. American flew Russian fighters to train their own fighter pilots.)
The topic that sparked this article was a concept called Range Gate stealing. Basically, an Electronic Warfare plane would send out false signals to fool the enemy radar. It was different from jamming which blinded the enemy radar. The problem was the explanation of Range Gate stealing was not very well explained. As long as a plane was returning a signal, the enemy knew where he was.
More research only confused me. It was apparently an effective tool (It was a fact know after WWII and was operational in the 60s)
With more knowledge, here is my explanation of the Range Gate stealing concept. When a radar sends out a signal, it needs to bounce off an object for the radar to capture the return signal. the return signal is relatively weak compared to the original signal. This allows the Electronic Warfare plane to return a similar signal. Now the trick with the false signal is that it can be at a different speed as the true return signal of the plan. The false signal can be sent out with more energy.
So what the enemy radar operator sees was
The thing was that once the false signal was targetted, the Electronic Warfare plane could turn it off. This would fool the enemy radar because the targetted signal had disappeared. It could detect the plane after a few seconds delay but by then the Electronic Warfare plane could have make its play while the radar operator was blind.
I have reread the book two decades later and found that most facts were correct. What was incorrect was classified at that time. (Eg. American flew Russian fighters to train their own fighter pilots.)
The topic that sparked this article was a concept called Range Gate stealing. Basically, an Electronic Warfare plane would send out false signals to fool the enemy radar. It was different from jamming which blinded the enemy radar. The problem was the explanation of Range Gate stealing was not very well explained. As long as a plane was returning a signal, the enemy knew where he was.
More research only confused me. It was apparently an effective tool (It was a fact know after WWII and was operational in the 60s)
With more knowledge, here is my explanation of the Range Gate stealing concept. When a radar sends out a signal, it needs to bounce off an object for the radar to capture the return signal. the return signal is relatively weak compared to the original signal. This allows the Electronic Warfare plane to return a similar signal. Now the trick with the false signal is that it can be at a different speed as the true return signal of the plan. The false signal can be sent out with more energy.
So what the enemy radar operator sees was
- The original plane heading towards them or at least in their zone.
- A false signal that showed the plane was possibly nearer or further from the target.
- If the radar was targetting the stronger signal, they would have attracted to the false signal
The thing was that once the false signal was targetted, the Electronic Warfare plane could turn it off. This would fool the enemy radar because the targetted signal had disappeared. It could detect the plane after a few seconds delay but by then the Electronic Warfare plane could have make its play while the radar operator was blind.
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