ECM arty shells ????

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Highspeed
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ECM arty shells ????

Post by Highspeed »

Still reading " A Military History Of The Cold War " and the author mentions that the Soviets possessed a 152mm artillery round which contained a communications jammer. He would be in a position to know, as a high ranking British Army officer during that time period.

It sounds like a fascinating story, but I can't find any more information about the shell.

Do any of you former Cold Warriors know anything about it ?
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randy
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Re: ECM arty shells ????

Post by randy »

First I heard of it, but then my focus was more on air to air, air to ground and SEAD related Electronic Combat.

Would not surprise me if the Soviets at least played with the concept, given some of the other things they developed and deployed.
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Langenator
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Re: ECM arty shells ????

Post by Langenator »

It seems like something that would have pretty limited/specialized utility, given that artillery shell flight times are measured in seconds. Unless it somehow put out a jamming burst with enough power to actually fry the targeted system(s), since I doubt it would remain functional after impact.
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Highspeed
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Re: ECM arty shells ????

Post by Highspeed »

I did wonder if you might have been aware of it Randy...

I wonder if the electronics could have been hardened to survive an impact in enough cases to make it useful ? Or worked a bit like an illum round, ejecting an electronics package which descended on a parachute ?

Another thing that puzzles me is what would it use for an antenna ? tactical comms were in the low part of VHF ( 50 mhz ) and on HF in the British Army ( and presumably the rest of NATO ) in that era - which means an efficient radiator needs to be pretty large. Maybe it trailed a wire behind it ?

Maybe it was a false flag and didn't actually exist ? I can think of a couple of reasons for that - one, to try to get the West to waste time and money developing a similar capability or two, to disguise the activity of fifth columnists\special forces who might have been sneaking around planting jammers by hand
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randy
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Re: ECM arty shells ????

Post by randy »

Highspeed wrote:Or worked a bit like an illum round, ejecting an electronics package which descended on a parachute ?
I was thinking along the same lines
Another thing that puzzles me is what would it use for an antenna ? tactical comms were in the low part of VHF ( 50 mhz ) and on HF in the British Army ( and presumably the rest of NATO ) in that era - which means an efficient radiator needs to be pretty large. Maybe it trailed a wire behind it ?
It could be that, and there are ways to get a shorter antenna using coils, not as efficient RF wise, but the Sovs were always working on a close enough is good enough basis . Or it could have been aimed at high-band VHF and UHF which was used for air to air and ground to air comms (as in CAS) and require smaller antennas.

Another possibility would be jamming counter-battery radars to degrade the accuracy of any return fire.
...even before I read MHI, my response to seeing a poster for the stars of the latest Twilight movies was "I see 2 targets and a collaborator".
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First Shirt
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Re: ECM arty shells ????

Post by First Shirt »

randy wrote: Another possibility would be jamming counter-battery radars to degrade the accuracy of any return fire.
That's the first thing I thought of, jamming to minimize the effectiveness of counter-battery fire.
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Old Grafton
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Re: ECM arty shells ????

Post by Old Grafton »

Highspeed wrote:I did wonder if you might have been aware of it Randy...

I
Maybe it was a false flag and didn't actually exist ? I can think of a couple of reasons for that - one, to try to get the West to waste time and money developing a similar capability or two, to disguise the activity of fifth columnists\special forces who might have been sneaking around planting jammers by hand
Kudos. You have a most exceptional sneaky mindset. Most guys start pondering hardware, you got right onto misdirection.
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PawPaw
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Re: ECM arty shells ????

Post by PawPaw »

First Shirt wrote:
randy wrote: Another possibility would be jamming counter-battery radars to degrade the accuracy of any return fire.
That's the first thing I thought of, jamming to minimize the effectiveness of counter-battery fire.
The best way to minimize the effectiveness of counter-battery radar is to triangulate on it, and send a couple of batteries of 8-inch after it. If it radiates, it dies. After a few examples, the remainder get the idea.
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Re: ECM arty shells ????

Post by Aesop »

Shot to splash for the average 155mm at max range would be +/- 20-35 seconds.

I second the vote that the most beneficial ECM use is by dropping the HE and WP versions on the emitter(s) upon which you desire to impinge.
Even more so to Cold War Soviet armies, who deployed howitzers the way we deployed jeeps: by the dozens.
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randy
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Re: ECM arty shells ????

Post by randy »

Yeah, as the taught us at the Intro to Command, Control and Communications Countermeasures course "C3CM begins with a 9mm round into the back of the operator's head and increases in complexity from there."
...even before I read MHI, my response to seeing a poster for the stars of the latest Twilight movies was "I see 2 targets and a collaborator".
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