Electronic warfare in Ukraine has lessons for US weapons, navigation

ORLANDO — The U.S. is gaining valuable insights about the performance of its technologies amid electronic interference as Ukrainian troops use them on the front lines, according to one official.

Washington and other governments have committed billions of dollars of security aid to Ukraine, including long-range missiles, armored vehicles and secure communication devices. The jamming and spoofing that blankets fighting in Eastern Europe offers a trial against Russian tools rarely seen in action.

Michael Monteleone, the director of the Army’s Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing/Space Cross-Functional Team, on May 5 told reporters the conflict is a “huge learning experience for us.”

“The global community has shared a lot of our technology, our weapons systems, our command-and-control systems and others, with the Ukrainians,” he said on the sidelines of the GEOINT conference in Florida . “You’re seeing that being used in real time, and it is a source of feedback.”

Monteleone’s cross-functional team, expected to shift its focus to so-called all-domain sensing in the coming months, is tasked with improving soldier access to critical sources of situational awareness, including where they are, where they are headed and when they will arrive.

Digital harassment can render such information useless .

“Even early in the war, we learned what happened when GPS just didn’t exist, and how the Ukrainian soldiers dealt with that, and how the Russian soldiers dealt with that,” Monteleone said.

The Defense Department’s spending is increasingly motivated by potential battles with Russia in Europe or China in the Indo-Pacific. Russian electronic warfare has hamstrung Excalibur precision artillery as well as an undisclosed ground-launched version of an air-to-ground armament, according to experts.

The lessons gleaned from Ukraine’s fight are making “everybody think about the problem space,” Monteleone said, “including where our investments truly need to be.”

The Army in recent years earmarked millions of dollars for sophisticated electronic warfare equipment as well as jam-resistant navigation gear.

The service inked a $318 million deal with BAE Systems for M-code GPS cards and tapped TRX Systems to produce second-generation Dismounted Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing Systems, which soldiers can carry in the field. That deal was worth $402 million.

Colin Demarest was a reporter at C4ISRNET, where he covered military networks, cyber and IT. Colin had previously covered the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration — namely Cold War cleanup and nuclear weapons development — for a daily newspaper in South Carolina. Colin is also an award-winning photographer.

奥兰多——据一位官员称，随着乌克兰军队在前线使用其技术，美国正在获得有关其技术在电子干扰下的性能的宝贵见解。

华盛顿和其他国家政府已向乌克兰提供了数十亿美元的安全援助，包括远程导弹、装甲车和安全通信设备。东欧战区普遍存在的干扰和欺骗手段，为检验俄罗斯鲜少投入实战的武器装备提供了一次绝佳的机会。

5月5日，陆军安全定位、导航和授时/空间跨职能团队主任迈克尔·蒙特莱昂告诉记者，这场冲突对我们来说是一次“巨大的学习经历”。

他在佛罗里达州举行的地理空间情报会议间隙表示：“国际社会已经与乌克兰分享了许多技术，包括武器系统、指挥控制系统等等。你们现在可以看到这些技术正在被实时运用，这也是反馈的来源。”

蒙特莱昂的跨职能团队预计将在未来几个月内将重点转移到所谓的全域感知，其任务是改善士兵获取关键态势感知来源的途径，包括他们在哪里、要去哪里以及何时到达。

网络骚扰会使这些信息失去作用。

蒙特莱昂说：“早在战争初期，我们就了解到在没有GPS的情况下会发生什么，乌克兰士兵是如何应对的，俄罗斯士兵又是如何应对的。”

美国国防部的开支越来越受到与俄罗斯在欧洲或中国在印太地区潜在冲突的影响。专家指出，俄罗斯的电子战技术已经严重削弱了“神剑”（Excalibur）精确制导火炮以及一种未公开的空对地武器的陆基版本。

蒙特莱昂表示，从乌克兰的斗争中吸取的教训让“每个人都在思考问题领域”，“包括我们的投资真正需要投向哪里”。

近年来，陆军拨出数百万美元用于购置先进的电子战设备以及抗干扰导航设备。

该军种与BAE系统公司签署了一份价值3.18亿美元的合同，采购M码GPS卡；同时委托TRX系统公司生产第二代单兵携带式可靠定位、导航和授时系统（DAPS），该系统可在野战中使用。该合同价值4.02亿美元。

科林·德马雷斯特曾是C4ISRNET的记者，负责报道军事网络、网络安全和信息技术方面的新闻。此前，他曾为南卡罗来纳州的一家日报报道美国能源部及其下属的国家核安全管理局，主要关注冷战后的清理工作和核武器研发。科林还是一位屡获殊荣的摄影师。