Which just highlights the issue at the heart of my point: all these western weapons systems are utterly reliant on some magic sauce working perfectly, and if their opponents figure out what that sauce is and either develop a countermeasure or figure out the flaws and exploit them, the systems are fundamentally no better than their (significantly cheaper and easier to maintain) counterparts. It’s Security Through Obscurity implemented as a strategic doctrine.
Let’s not kid ourselves by calling it gimmicks or overly complicated. It is the same hardware and methods for the Russian military. It also isn’t security through obscurity. Everyone switched to software defined radios for their communication and radar for a reason.
There are methods to combat such jamming but Ukrainian forces don’t have the training or capability. NATO can’t just magicially make the Ukrainian military into one with the capabilities of military super powers like the US, China, or Russia. The US and Russia both have the capacity, infact the Russian military is extremely capable when it comes to the electronic warfare and countering electronic warfare because their military has to be on par capability wise with the US military.
For radar systems on vehicles modern hardware is all software defined for a reason. This is true for latest generation US, Russian, and Chinese hardware. The enemy electronic warfare teams pin point the exact frequencies and bands your radar/communication are operating on, your own electronic warfare teams listen for jamming and the moment they detect it you respond by changing the configuration in software to shift your systems to new frequencies, bands, and/or encryption keys. The issue for Ukraine is this stuff is the advanced combined arms and logistics that only large military powers are capable of, instead we have sad situations like what’s left of the Ukrainian air force disabling all the electronics in their aircraft as they approach the front line because they have no capacity to detect and counter Russian electronic capabilities.
Which just highlights the issue at the heart of my point: all these western weapons systems are utterly reliant on some magic sauce working perfectly, and if their opponents figure out what that sauce is and either develop a countermeasure or figure out the flaws and exploit them, the systems are fundamentally no better than their (significantly cheaper and easier to maintain) counterparts. It’s Security Through Obscurity implemented as a strategic doctrine.
Let’s not kid ourselves by calling it gimmicks or overly complicated. It is the same hardware and methods for the Russian military. It also isn’t security through obscurity. Everyone switched to software defined radios for their communication and radar for a reason.
There are methods to combat such jamming but Ukrainian forces don’t have the training or capability. NATO can’t just magicially make the Ukrainian military into one with the capabilities of military super powers like the US, China, or Russia. The US and Russia both have the capacity, infact the Russian military is extremely capable when it comes to the electronic warfare and countering electronic warfare because their military has to be on par capability wise with the US military.
For radar systems on vehicles modern hardware is all software defined for a reason. This is true for latest generation US, Russian, and Chinese hardware. The enemy electronic warfare teams pin point the exact frequencies and bands your radar/communication are operating on, your own electronic warfare teams listen for jamming and the moment they detect it you respond by changing the configuration in software to shift your systems to new frequencies, bands, and/or encryption keys. The issue for Ukraine is this stuff is the advanced combined arms and logistics that only large military powers are capable of, instead we have sad situations like what’s left of the Ukrainian air force disabling all the electronics in their aircraft as they approach the front line because they have no capacity to detect and counter Russian electronic capabilities.