AmitR wrote:shiv wrote:
...
Would the said missile site being camouflaged by these 10,000 chips stay on exactly the same frequency? Surely - jamming one frequency would make the radar site jump and change frequency immediately revealing the real McCoy from among 10,000 decoys.
The Chinese technology seems to be more advanced. All the radars and the decoys can be networked and may easily be made to transmit signals on the same frequency hop. As usual US builds an multi billion dollar technology that can be hoodwinked with cheap set of radio emitters.
I believe this is a decoy sort of system for a semi-active SAM missile system, meant to blunt the supremacy of the USAF in EW and ECM systems, which gives their aircraft a very strong ability to conduct deep strikes (especially SEAD and DEAD ops) without too high a risk.
What the chinese system does is essentially send out a UWB RF signal using this black box, all with a pseudo-noise signal. The pilot/aircraft will be unable to identify which of those 10,000 channels is actually the one guiding the missile. This makes it almost impossible to jam the homing signal to confuse the missile, unless you have extremely fast and extremely powerful processors, and/or an equally UWB active jammer with similar power - neither of which are feasible today due to weight and power considerations.
However, while this will definitely give the defender an advantage, I think there is a slight exaggeration being created here about the level of potency this system will provide. This sort of system isn't new or revolutionary. The 10,000 channels brings an interesting problem, since to make your system perfectly camoflaged, your radar power must be divided between all these channels, which drops the homing signal power and thus, range of the system. If your homing signal of a higher power than the others, an intelligent ECM system can easily crack it.
Apart from all this, lets not forget that this sort of jamming/interference is only a small part of EW and Self Protection suites in todays aircraft. Even if one system is rendered less effective, there are many other systems to take over and continue. I think that while the USAF will look at this system seriously, they will not lose much sleep over it. Such systems do exist, and Chinese aren't the first. US and indeed, others will have enough ways to counter it. With processors becoming lighter and faster, I wouldn't be surprised if they are able to neutralize this threat within a very short time.
Experts, please correct me if anything I've said is wrong.