In its simplest form, electronic countermeasures (ECM) achieve the same effect as turning on a vacuum cleaner or a mixer near a television set: electronic interference. Every radar has its own distinctive characteristics, including the radio frequency at which it operates, sending out electromagnetic pulses that reflect off invading aircraft. Once a radar’s signature is identified with the help of an on-board computer, ECM specialists transmit patterns of blinding “white noise” causing radar screens to go blank. They can also produce false or exaggerated echoes that lead missiles and fighters away from bombers. ECM can wreak havoc for hundreds of miles around. “One EA-6B off the EAst Coast of the U.S. could shut down every airport ground-control station from Boston to North Carolina,” says one congressional defense aide.
Since the Vietnam War, when surface-to-air (SAM) missiles caused heavy losses among American pilots, the United States has invested billions in ECM technology. American and Saudi pilots spent the prewar months running cat-and-mouse probes of Iraqi radar, prodding them to switch on their defenses and tip their hand. European analysts say pilots may also be the beneficiaries of jamming secrets supplied by the Soviets, one of several contributors (along with the United States, France and Kuwait) to Iraq’s hybrid radar. Last week over Baghdad, the work paid off. Navy EA-6B Prowlers and Air Force EF-111 Ravens quickly detected Iraqi battle radars and blocked them from providing targeting information to missiles and fighters. Air Force officers told Newsweek that the Iraqis managed to scramble a handful of Mirage and MiG-29 jets but that jammers cut the planes off from their ground-based command and control centers. They promptly fled north to avoid the American warplanes. “When you knock out the eyes from the ground, these guys in the air are blind,” says an Air Force colonel. With Iraq’s long-range radars crippled, F-4G Wild Weasels fired High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMS) that locked onto SAM batteries and disabled their radar antennas with specially designed shrapnel. Antiradar weapons were also dispatched to hunt for stations switched off to elude detection. British Tornado bombers used the ALARM missile, which can hang from a parachute until it finds and active transmitter.
What happened to Iraqi air defenses? The allies expected tenacity. But Israel military analysts say the defenses may have been overrated to begin with. Because Iran’s puny Air Force posed little threat during its eight-year war with Iraq, Saddam’s ground troops got the lion’s share of the military budget. They also suggest that Iraqi anti-air gunners, like soldiers in other Arab countries, are trigger happy–long on emptying magazines and short on fixing targets. Allied experts add that Iraqi pilots are not well versed in close air combat.
American officials say they take nothing for granted. Air Force officers assume that Saddam’s commanders are using intelligence gathered from initial assaults to adjust and improve defenses. At the weekend, they were proving more troublesome. Shorter-range tactical SAMs still pose a problem, as well as thousands of antiaircraft guns still defending troops in southern Iraq and Kuwait. Hundreds of Iraqi planes may have survived the allied onslaught, possibly held in reserve for use in the coming ground campaign. Cratered runways can be repaved and SAM radars can be repaired in a matter of days; allied warplanes may have to return time and again. Some resistance has been fierce. SAM defenses around a major concentration of elite Republican Guards in southern Iraq proved so impenetrable during the first night of attacks that an entire wave of jets broke off without dropping a single bomb. One U.S. plane was shot down before the mission was aborted. “We’re not running around here saying we’re kicking butt,” says one Air Force colonel. For the United sTates and its Desert Storm allies, control of the skies is clearly within reach. But it may require a vigorous effort to keep.
