The Value of Electronic Warfare Endures

The use of electronic countermeasures (ECM) within naval aviation can be traced to 1943, when U.S. Navy patrol aircraft were equipped with crude detection capabilities to track radar signals from enemy warships. This initial capability was in fact a "tuned cavity" on the skin of the aircraft. The resonance detected by the cavity was linked to an amplifier and connected to an operator's headphones. The operator moved a small iron bar horizontally in and out of the cavity to detect the presence of radar signals, and the bar was calibrated to indicate the frequency being intercepted.

Enemy radar frequencies generally were known and could be "fingerprinted." Signal strength was a guessing game, but slewing the nose of the aircraft would indicate where the strongest signal was coming from and thus reveal enemy positions. Multiple small training courses were established to support this growing capability. The instructors were aircrew members with firsthand experience in this "new" science. Fleet Airborne Electronics Training Units were established, and many survived through the 196Os.

Winston Churchill acknowledged the contributions of electronic warfare to victory in World War II. These were made possible through the coordinated efforts of the British government and the U.S. Navy Research Laboratory (NRL), where many new ideas and concepts were explored. For naval interests, perhaps the most remarkable exploit was defeat of the German radio-controlled glide bomb that had devastating success in sinking U.S. and allied warships. The Germans were using very high frequency (VHF) radio waves modulated by high-frequency audio tones to guide these weapons, launched by bombers miles from the scene. NRL and British scientists eventually were able to record these high frequencies and emulate them to develop a countermeasure to confuse the glide bomb and prevent it from reaching its target. It was so successful that few of these weapons remained effective against the NRL "black box."

Following the end of World War II, a survey to determine the value of the European bombing campaign proved the value of Army Air Force and Royal Air Force bombers equipped with a variety of countermeasures. We learned that Allied ECM effectiveness was so great, that to conserve ammunition, German antiaircraft batteries were ordered not to fire. Chaff was so effective that the Germans offered a prize of 100,000 Reichmarks for a solution to this rain of tinfoil that blinded their radars.

The Lamp Burns Low

The popularity and use of electronic countermeasures waned after 1945 and was nearly nonexistent within naval aviation when the Korean War began. Only one carrier-based squadron, VC-35, had any active electronic warfare (EW) capability. That squadron flew the AD4N Skyraider, which carried a pilot and two enlisted aircrewmen. The crewmen operated a surprisingly broad set of equipment, including a very efficient radar, a number of highly sensitive countermeasures receivers, an underwing, podmounted electronic jammer, and manually dropped packages of chaff.

Early in the war, one of VC-35 threeplane detachments was ordered to drop chaff. The drops were successful, but within days, the entire inventory of chaff within the U.S. Seventh Fleet was expended. No further drops were made for the duration of the Korean War. The AD4Ns were used primarily for night attack missions, when the onboard radar was used to identify interdiction targets.

The successor to the AD4N, introduced to VC-35 in late 1953, was the AD5N. It had similar capabilities but added antisubmarine warfare equipment. With ASW capabilities removed, these aircraft later were designated AD5Q and then redesignated EAlE. They would form the basis for the only electronic warfare capability anywhere for many years to come.

VC-35 was redesignated VA(AW)-35 in 1956 and disestablished in 1957. Concurrently, a new EW squadron designated VAW-13 was formed, flying the EA1E.

In the late 1950s, the U.S. intelligence community began to document and report the existence of Soviet surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems. By the early 1960s, U.S. Navy aerial bombing ranges had simulated SAM sites to orient attack squadron pilots to their physical appearance, but it was broadly held that these systems were not truly mobile in that their electronics could not survive the abuse of mobility over unimproved surfaces. The "surprise" of the early years of the Vietnam air campaign was that Soviet-supplied SAM systems were indeed mobile and deadly. The United States had no ready countermeasure and hurry-up systems were hastily employed to give aircrews a warning they were being tracked by a SAM system. Within naval aviation, these simple devices were known as "Shoehorn," an apt name in that they were literally squeezed aboard Navy fighter and attack aircraft. Actual countermeasures were several years from reality, but interim concepts included placing a one-time shot of chaff behind the speed brakes in some aircraft, or tucked in behind the tailhook. No formal tactical training concerning elecIronic countermeasures was available to fleet squadrons during most of the 1960s and well into the 1970s.

Renewed Interest

In the 1960s, it became apparent that new defensive and offensive countermeasures were essential to survival in the skies over North Vietnam, and procurements to obtain them were pushed through. (The down side was that no meaningful logistic support was provided with the new hardware. This included billets and personnel, training, and in many cases, spare parts.) An airborne jamming capability to counter the Soviet SA2 SAM system was added to the A3 airframe, which then was designated EKA3B.

Subsequently, approximately 50 aircraft were modified to the EKA3B configuration. Many flyable A3s were retrieved from the desert and given new life and a new mission. The counter-measures suite was a moderately powerful C-band jammer, an excellent broadband communications jammer, the AN/ALQ-98, plus some self-defense detection systems and a large chaff dispensing ability. Again, all training was on-the-job. Tactics were experimental and lessons learned were shared among the aircrews.

Home for the EKA3B aircraft was VAW-13, at Naval Air Station Alameda. That the squadron's tactical EW mission was not well recognized or appreciated is suggested by VAW-13's vagabond existence-relocated from the United States to Guam in the late 1950s, then moved back to Alameda when Guam became populated with "more critical" assets.

Detachments of three aircraft were deployed to many carrier decks, and their heavier maintenance was provided by a detachment based at Naval Air Station Cubi Point in the Philippines. Missions in support of Task Force 77 often were launched from there, transiting to and returning from the Tonkin Gulf. These long-duration combat missions have never been recognized officially, and to this day, the crews that flew them have been relegated to mostly undocumented history.

VAW-13's receipt of the EKA3B was not inauspicious; multiple obstacles had to be overcome to make the first deployment. The lack of equipment, aircraft, aircrews, maintenance personnel, training, and spare parts delayed introduction by several months, and a hastily bundled detachment of EAlEs were substituted for the first planned EKA3B deployment. This event did bring some senior attention to the plight of the VAW community, and eventually the logistics of tactical electronic warfare assets were improved, but never really solved.

The Baton Is Passed

The VAW community was reidentified as VAQ in 1969 and deployed in squadrons composed of three EKASBs and two KA3B tankers. Beginning in 1970, VAQ squadrons transitioned to the EA-6B, a variant of the A-6 bomber configured to accommodate the requirements of aviation EW. To consolidate A6 "smarts," Navy EA-6Bs were collocated with the medium attack (A6) assets at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, where they remain to this day.

What remained to be accomplished was the training these aircrew required, and more important, the broad acceptance of these expensive assets as a permanent part of mainstream naval aviation, if strike aircraft were to operate in hostile environments and survive.

The required training and some training assets to support the EA-6B community eventually were funded, although it would be many years before a genuine training pipeline would be established. Only through some clever "public relations" did the fledgling EA-6B community receive some sophisticated training. Senior officers in Washington with some oversight responsibilities for the EW community managed to arrange a visit to Whidbey Island by the secretary of the Navy. There, he witnessed a hangar bay training session wherein a real EA-6B, with all systems activated through groundbased power, was being used as a training device. His reactions were multiple. While admiring the innovative thinking, he was quick to recognize the outrageous expense of this procedure. Soon thereafter, EA-6B systems simulators arrived at Whidbey.

The capabilities of the EA-6Bs were upgraded as funds permitted, and each technical step forward enhanced their performance. However, the issues of sufficient hardware, out-of-date training, and aging airframes remained.

EA-6B capabilities and contributions are today recognized at the national level, and this has resulted in increased tasking. Some VAQ squadrons had been disestablished or transferred to reserve status as the number of carriers and airwings was reduced. But as demand grew, VAQ squadrons were too few to maintain the pace of deployments, and reserve squadrons were called to active service and disestablished squadrons were reactivated to help meet the need.

The Next Wave

Current plans are to replace the EA-6B with a variant of the F/A-18. While digital technology can assist in sorting and classification, electronic warfare and attack still require human interpretation and action by a team. The proposed EA-18G, with two seats compared to four in the EA-6B, surely limits a crew's capacity to manage the same tasks as the EA-6B, even with improved interfaces between the crew and the systems they operate.

One operator with a bank of computer-operated preprogrammed jammers cannot outthink a clever adversary. Simple manual ruses can defeat hard-wired countermeasures. Multiple humans, schooled in the use of their equipment, have a better chance. If the lessons of history are ignored and the role of skilled operators is turned over to programmed machines, the EW lamp could burn low again. The mission is too important to let that happen.