众议院军事委员会(HASC)电子战专家培根:美国 “未准备好” 与俄罗斯和中国的电子战 [美国媒体]

华盛顿:一位在国会任职的资深电子战官员表示,美国军方 “没有准备好” 对高端对手实施无线电和雷达干扰。众议员唐 · 培根说:” 在干扰阿富汗和伊拉克的恐怖主义通讯方面,我们已经取得了重大进展。“ 他是一位退役的一星将军,他最近访问了这两个国家.....

HASC EW Expert Bacon: US ‘Not Prepared’ For Electronic Warfare Vs. Russia, China

众议院军事委员会(HASC)电子战专家培根:美国 “未准备好” 与俄罗斯和中国的电子战



EC-130 Compass Call electronic warfare aircraft

图:EC-130“罗盘呼叫” 电子干扰飞机

WASHINGTON: The US military is “not prepared” to conduct radio and radar jamming against high-end adversaries, a veteran electronic warfare officer now in Congress says. We have made major progress jamming terrorist communications in Afghanistan and Iraq, says Rep. Don Bacon, a retired one-star general who recently visited both countries. But even against such low-tech foes, he told me, we’re hampered by aging equipment — like the EC-130H Compass Call he flew — and outdated doctrine.
“We are moderately prepared for the low-end fight like we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s what we’ve been doing,” Bacon said. “But in a high-end fight, we are not prepared.”

华盛顿:一位在国会任职的资深电子战官员表示,美国军方 “没有准备好” 对高端对手实施无线电和雷达干扰。众议员唐 · 培根说:” 在干扰阿富汗和伊拉克的恐怖主义通讯方面,我们已经取得了重大进展。“ 他是一位退役的一星将军,他最近访问了这两个国家。但他告诉我,即使是针对如此低科技的敌人,我们也受到老化设备的阻碍– 比如他飞行的 EC-130H 电子干扰飞机– 以及过时理论的影响。
(译注:EC-130 H Compass,绰号 “罗盘呼叫”,由 C-130 运输机改装,于 1982 年 开始服役 )



Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler in Iraq

图:美国海军陆战队 EA-6B 徘徊者式电子作战机在伊拉克

Afghanistan & Iraq

阿富汗 & 伊拉克

The first half of Bacon’s assessment surprised me, and I said so: We’re only “moderately” prepared to jam terrorists and guerrillas, largely uneducated adversaries using off-the-shelf electronics, after 16 years of fighting them?

培根评估的前半部分让我感到惊讶,这么说:在与恐怖分子和游击队进行了 16 年的斗争后,我们只是 “适度” 地准备好了对恐怖分子和游击队的干扰? 这些人大多是没有受过教育的对手,使用的是现成的电子产品。

For one thing, it turns out we haven’t actually been doing much offensive electronic warfare for most of those 16 years. Back when Bacon flew over Iraq, the overwhelming focus was on just one mission: jamming radio-controlled roadside bombs (RCIEDS). Air Force Compass Calls – originally designed to jam enemy communications – and Navy and Marine Prowlers – designed to jam anti-aircraft radars – were urgently retasked to protect Humvees rolling down the road. The death toll from home-made landmines pushed all other electronic warfare missions aside.

首先,事实证明,在这 16 年的大部分时间里,我们实际上并没有进行过多少攻击性电子战。当培根飞越伊拉克上空时,人们的注意力集中在一个任务上:干扰无线电控制的路边炸弹 (RCIEDS)。空军的” 罗盘呼叫 “(译注:即 EC-130 H)——最初是为了干扰敌人的通讯,而海军和海军陆战队的” 徘徊者 “(译注:即 EA-6B)–——设计用来干扰防空雷达,却最终只用来保护沿途行驶的悍马,自制地雷造成的死亡人数迫使所有其他电子战任务都被推到了一边。
     


Simulated IED explosive

图:模拟简易爆炸装置爆炸
(译注:简易爆炸装置 Improvised Explosive Device)

But when Bacon joined a congressional delegation to Iraq and Afghanistan over Christmas – including a visit to his former unit – he found there’d been a change. In both countries, he said, “we’ve seen a big shift towards degrading enemy communications.” Instead of defending convoys, US electronic warfare forces have increasingly gone on the offensive, shutting down the enemy’s radios so they can’t coordinate tactics or call in reinforcements when they’re attacked by US special operators and local Afghan or Iraqi soldiers.

但是,当培根在圣诞节加入国会伊拉克和阿富汗代表团时 -- 包括拜访他以前的部队 -- 他发现情况发生了变化。在这两个国家,他说,“我们看到了一个重大的转变,那就是削弱敌人的通讯。” 美国电子战部队不再为车队护航,越来越多地展开攻势,关闭敌人的无线电设备,使他们在遭到美国特种部队和当地阿富汗或伊拉克士兵的攻击时,无法协调战术或增援。

This is major progress, regaining the electronic initiative and returning systems like Compass Call to their original purpose. But the US still has too few EW assets and many of those are too old.
“The Navy’s doing better than anybody,” he said, having replaced most of its geriatric Prowlers with new EA-18G Growlers. “But the Army and the Air Force let their EW expertise atrophy.”

这是一项重大进展,重新获得电子战主动权,并使系统如 EC-130 H“罗盘呼叫” 电子干扰飞机的调用回归了原来的目的。但美国的电子战装备仍然太少,其中许多装备都太旧了。
“海军的表现比任何人都要好,” 他说,并用新的 EA-18G“咆哮者” 电子攻击机取代了大部分老旧的 EA-6B” 徘徊者 “,但是陆军和空军却让他们的电子战技能萎缩了。”

The Army has no standard-issue offensive jamming gear at all, although some is being developed and ad hoc kit is being hastily fielded to Europe. The Air Force has the EC-130H Compass Call, but it’s a big and slow target derived from the C-130 turboprop cargo plane, and the aircraft is wearing out. The Air Force plans to transplant the Compass Call’s EW package to a smaller, newer commercial jet (provisionally designated EC-X), an effort Bacon approves, but it has not bought any yet.

陆军根本没有标准的攻击性干扰装备,尽管有些正在开发中,临时装备也被匆忙派往欧洲。空军有 EC-130 H“罗盘呼叫”,但它是从 C-130 涡轮螺旋桨货机衍生出来的一个大而慢的目标,而且飞机正在磨损。空军计划将 EC-130 H“罗盘呼叫” 的电子战套件移植到一架小型的、较新的商用飞机上 (暂时命名为 EC-X),这一计划已经获批,但尚未采购一架。

For now, “we’re flying 1973 Compass Call aircraft; they’re hard to maintain,” Bacon told me. “We’re getting EC-130s over the target area, but we don’t have a huge fleet of them.”
Overall, while EW in Afghanistan and Iraq has made major improvements, “we’ve had to learn on the fly,” he said. “That’s why I say moderately (prepared). I don’t think we should be patting ourselves on the back big time. I think we got the job done, I don’t know that we did it elegantly.”

现在,“我们正在驾驶 1973 年的 EC-130 H“罗盘呼叫” 飞机,它们很难维护,” 培根告诉我。“我们在目标地区得到了 EC-130s ,但我们没有足够的平台运载它们。”
他说,总的来讲,虽然阿富汗和伊拉克的电子战取得了重大进展,但 “我们不得不在飞行中学习。”“这就是为什么我说师” 适度 “(准备)。我不认为我们应该放下心思,我想我们已经完成了任务,但我不知道我们是否做得很好。“

Russia & China

俄罗斯 & 中国

The high-end fight, of course, will be even harder. Traditional “stand-off” jammers aren’t stealth aircraft, so they rely on keeping their distance from anti-aircraft threats. That keeps getting harder and more dangerous as Russian-made surface-to-air missiles grow in range, with the latest round for the S-400 Triumpf system claiming a reach of 250 miles. The old Air Force Compass Call and the new EC-X, the old Navy Prowler and the new Growler, are all at risk. (So are other support planes such as AWACS).
That’s why the US needs “penetrating” jammers, Bacon said: stealth aircraft that are harder – though hardly impossible – to target and which can slip into enemy airspace to conduct electronic warfare at shorter ranges.
Would that mean the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which has much-touted but publicly unknown EW capabilities? Perhaps, Bacon told me, emphasizing he had to keep far away from any classified materiel. In the near-term, though, he is most interested in the F-35’s potential as “a giant sensor package,” stealthily conducting reconnaissance ahead of the main force.

当然,这场高端战争将更加艰难。传统的 “隔离式” 干扰机不是隐形飞机,所以它们依靠的是远离防空威胁的距离。随着俄罗斯制造的地对空导弹射程不断扩大,这种情况变得越来越困难和危险,S-400 Triumpf 系统的最新射程为 250 英里。空军旧的 EC-130 H“罗盘呼叫” 和新的 EC-X,海军旧的 EA-6B” 徘徊者 “和新的 EA-18G“咆哮者”,都处于危险之中 (其他支援飞机,如预警飞机也是如此) 。

这就是为什么美国需要 “渗透式” 干扰机,培根说:隐形飞机很难或几乎不可能瞄准这类型干扰机,而且能够潜入敌方领空,在较短的距离内进行电子战。

这是否意味着 F-35 联合打击战斗机就是培根所提到的这种飞机? 也许是吧。F-35 受到很多吹捧,但公众并不知其电子战能力如何,培根告诉我,强调他必须远离任何机密材料,但他表示,在短期内,他最感兴趣的是 F-35 作为 “巨型传感器” 的潜力,可以在主力部队之前悄悄地进行侦察。



B-21 Raider artist rendering

图:B-21“奇袭者 (Raider)” 渲染图(译注:B-21 是美军下一代远程攻击式战略轰炸机)

No one aircraft will solve the problem, he emphasized: The US needs a “balanced force” of both manned EW aircraft and drones, both stealthy and non-stealthy. “Stealth is not the silver bullet by itself; stealth has to be surrounded with EW support,” Bacon said. (Stealth reduces radar signature but can’t eliminate it). “Before you get a B-2 or B-21 over the target, it’s going to take some EW support as well, in the high-end fight.”
The B-2, of course, is the famed “stealth bomber” designed in the 1980s. The B-21 is its 21st century successor, still in development, which may have EW and reconnaissance missions as well as bombing. The services are also conducting a joint study of future airborne electronic attack.

单一的飞机不能解决这个问题,他强调:美国需要一支 “平衡的力量”,既有载人电子战飞机,也有无人驾驶飞机,包括隐身和非隐身飞机。培根说:“隐身本身并不是什么高招,隐身必须得到电子战的支持。”(隐身减少雷达信号,但无法消除信号)。“在顶级对抗中,B-2 或 B-21 飞过目标之前,也需要一些电子战支援。”

当然,B-2 是 20 世纪 80 年代设计的着名 “隐形” 轰炸机,B-21 是它二十一世纪的后继者,还在开发中,它可能有电子战和侦察以及轰炸等能力,这些部门也正在对未来的机载电子攻击进行联合研究。

Before we figure out what EW gear to buy, however, we need to think through how we’ll use it, Bacon said. That intellectual groundwork is still far from solid, he said.
“I don’t think we’ve even got our doctrine right,” said Bacon. “Sometimes we just jump right to the weapon systems, but if you can’t get that foundation right, I don’t think you’ll get the weapons systems right either.”
Bacon has advocated that the radio spectrum – where EW operates – should be officially designated a domain of warfare co-equal to land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. “Folks refuse to say the electromagnetic spectrum is a domain to dominate and have superiority in. I think that’s a problem,” he said. “When I ask them, they go, well, it is true, we know it’s true but we don’t want to say it because they think it means DoD’s going to spend more money.”

培根说,在我们研究出采购什么电子战装备之前,我们需要考虑如何使用它。他说,这些知识基础还远没有稳固。
培根说:“我认为我们的理论知识甚至都不正确。”“有时我们只是直接跳到武器系统上,但如果你不能正确地建立这个基础,我认为你也不会正确地得到武器系统。”

培根主张将电子战正式指定为与陆地、海洋、空中、空间和网络空间同等的战争领域。“人们拒绝说电磁战是一个占主导地位和优势的领域,我认为这是个问题。“他说。“当我问他们时,他们会说,嗯,确实如此,我们知道,但我们不想这么说,因为他们认为这意味着国防部(DoD)会花更多的钱。”

译注:DoD,即美国国防部(Department of Defense of the United States)


Rep. Mac Thornberry

图:众议员 Mac Thornberry

Washington

华盛顿

The Defense Department doesn’t even have the right personnel in place to coordinate the intellectual foundation-laying, Bacon said. “We don’t have the right leadership at the right levels,” he hold me. “We have one flag officer that’s dedicated to electronic warfare and that’s the guy in STRATCOM. He’s a good man — I’m not knocking him, but we need to have some clout in the joint staff as well. 
For Bacon, the battle begins in Congress. He’s co-chairman of the House Electronic Warfare Working Group, along with Democrat Rick Larsen, who represents the Navy’s big Prowler/Growler base in Washington State. He also has the support of the House Armed Services Committee chairman, Mac Thornberry, “a big believer in EW.”
But there are “not many” Thornberries or Larsens on the Hill, Bacon admits. “There’s a few folks that get it,” he says, adding with a chuckle: “Many people can barely spell ‘EW.’” 


培根说,国防部甚至没有合适的人员来协调智识基础的建立。“我们没有合适的领导者,” 他抓住了我,“我们有一名专门从事电子战的将级军官,就是战略指挥部(STRATCOM)的那个人,他是个好人 -- 我并不是指责他,但我们也需要在联合参谋部有一定的影响力。“

对培根来说,这场战斗始于国会。他是众议院电子战工作组的联合主席,民主党人里克 · 拉森 (RickLarsen) 是华盛顿州海军的大型 EA-6B” 徘徊者 “/EA-18G“咆哮者” 基地的代表,他还得到了众议院军事委员会主席麦克 · 桑伯里的支持,“他是电子战的坚定拥护者。”

但培根承认,他们在国会没有更多的支持者。“只有几个人明白了这一点,” 他笑着补充道:“很多人几乎连‘EW’的拼写都不会(译注:EW 即电子战的缩写,Electronic Warfare)。”



Curtis Conway
He who owns the Electromagnetic Spectrum will win the next war. It would be best that this domain be commanded by a Unified Joint Commander.

拥有电磁战能力的国家将赢得下一场战争,最好是由一个统一的联合指挥官指挥这一作战领域。

Rogelio
If the enemy dominates EW you will send a thousand tanks and a million men to oblivion.

如果敌人占主导电子战,你派一千辆坦克和一百万人去只是去送死。

TDog
Skills atrophy when all you do is fight folks who tool around in pickup trucks.

当你所做的一切都是与那些在皮卡车里使用工具的人战斗时,技能就会萎缩。

ycplum
"No one aircraft will solve the problem, he emphasized..."
I was afraid we were going to build a trillion dollar stealth, carrier-capable, air superiority fighter/long range bomber/EW aircraft with vertical take off capabilities.
Oh, and with the leather seats, Bose sound system

” 单一的飞机不能解决这个问题,他强调。。“
我担心我们会建造一架价值一万亿美元的隐形、航空运载、空中优势战斗 / 远程轰炸 / 电子战,具有垂直起飞能力的超级飞机,哦,还有真皮座椅,Bose 音响。

Mark Gubrud
"Spectrum" implies the Fourier basis but most of the action these days is in broadband codespace. Also, ordinary spatial considerations dominate in electromagnetic warfare as in other "domains."

“频谱” 蕴含的是傅里叶基础,但现在大多数的行动都是在宽带编码空间中。同样,普通的空间因素在电磁战中也占主导地位,就像在其他 “领域” 中一样。

Chris B 
No, spectrum here refers to the bureaucratic "force" spectrum of Air, Land, Sea, Cyber and Space, and whatever the fuck the marine corps thinks it is this week. It does not refer to the electromagnetic spectrum or anything described by Maxwells equations, whether defined in the time or frequency domain.

The rot is far worse than you think it is, and I can guarantee that not a single general in charge of EW has even heard of Claude Shannon or read his seminal work on the topic. It's all about buzzword bullshit until you get out of the pentagon basement and into that corner office

不,这里的 “频谱” 就是空中、陆地、海洋、网络和太空的官僚主义的 “力量 “频谱,不管他妈的海军陆战队怎么认为,它不涉及任何电磁波谱或麦克斯韦方程描述的任何东西,无论是在时域还是频域。
腐败的情况比你想象的要糟糕得多,我可以保证没有一个负责电子战的将军听说过克劳德 · 香农,也没有读过他关于这个话题的开创性着作。在你走出五角大楼地下室,走进那个角落的办公室之前,这都是胡说八道。
(译注:克劳德 · 香农是美国数学家、信息论的创始人)

Robert Warner
Hope folks listen to Don Bacon.

希望人们听听唐培根的声音。

Keithon de Bique
yes big, bad america has the stomach for defenseless foes like iraq and libya. 700 billion military budget and the Taliban has more land then ever. No need to test how good russian/ chinese radars are if you bring troops home

又大又坏的美国只对像伊拉克和利比亚这样毫无防御能力的敌人有胃口。坐拥 7000 亿的军事预算,还让塔利班占据越来越多的土地。没必要测试俄罗斯 / 中国的雷达有多好了,带着军队滚回美国吧

John H
It's staggering how the various US services do not liaise with each other when it comes to many of their platforms and systems. It's inefficient and hence costly. In short it's weird.

令人震惊的是,美国的各种服务在涉及到它们的许多平台和系统上,竟然没有相互联系。它效率低下,因此成本高昂,总之这很奇怪。

Rogelio
The aircraft shown explain the situation : The US spends more money on defense than Russia, China and the next six countries in the world, combined. Overall we spend nearly a $ trillion (Pentagon, CIA, NSA, Homeland Security and other agencies combined) yet we are flying Aircraft that are 40 or 50 years old, technology-wise. What a surprise to learn that our EW capacity is in the dark ages. 

这架飞机解释了这种情况:美国在国防上的花费比俄罗斯、中国和世界上接下来的六个国家加起来还要多,总的来说,我们花费了近万亿美元 (五角大楼、中央情报局、美国国家安全局、国土安全部和其他机构加起来),但我们却在驾驶有 40 或 50 年历史、技术落后的飞机。得知我们的电子战能力处于一片黑暗之中,真是令人惊讶。