Basics of direction-finding

opswarfare has come across a series of "Physics 101-type" articles on electronic warfare (EW) in the Journal of Electronic Defense (JED). This journal is available by logging in via the NLB eResources website, using the EBSCOhost database. opswarfare has just finished reading Issue 11 of the aptly named EW101 series of articles.

This particular issue, and the next one, look at how direction-finding (DF) works. DF is one of the basic "weapons" of EW, as it enables accurate targeting of enemy command and control assets, e.g. HQ units. Most HQ units use a plethora of radios to communicate, and DF detects these radio waves. The location is calculated using lots of physics and mathematics.

With this information, a commander can call for air-strikes or artillery barrages on the target. Because of that, units often site their radio antennas (which emit the radio waves) away from their actual location, and use cables to physically link the radios to the antennas.

Normally, DF requires 2 or more monitoring stations, like the diagram below.

But as the article rightly points out, DF can also be done by 1 station in certain circumstances, like the example below.

RUSI interviews Polish military chief

The RDS Military Interview
Normally, interviews with the chief of defence force tend to be boring and dry, with scripted answers and mostly ending up looking like badly drafted press releases. (mind you, examples of good press releases are out there) Well, this interview by RUSI is quite different. While opswarfare is still "digesting" its contents, a quick initial comment is the frankness of the responses given by General Gagor. A short excerpt below.

Transformation of the PAF is a big challenge. The full interoperability of the PAF required fundamental changes within three areas of activity, namely in command, procedures and logistics. The structures of the General Staff and the high-level commands were adjusted to match NATO patterns better. The chain of command was modified to be more flexible, and we are still changing the force structure in order to establish a professional military and to abandon compulsory or conscript service. Unfortunately, the main weakness of the command and control system is the lack of the appropriate communication assets due to the significant costs involved in purchasing new equipment and upgrading old equipment and software.

Farnborough Air Show 2008

AVIATION WEEK
Farnborough is back! This is one of (if not) the biggest air show in the world. Lots of new products on show, plus plenty of wheeling and dealing. opswarfare will spot some of them as the event progresses. First highlight is the BAE Mantis UAV, which seems to be conceived as a direct competitor to the hugely successful Predator/Reaper UAV.

Did You Know It's Illegal to Make War with Rain?

Ares Homepage
A quite fascinating snippet of Vietnam war history, and it's link to the ENMOD environment convention.

Amid policy disputes, Qaeda grows in Pakistan

New York Times / International Herald Tribune

opswarfare rarely blogs on terrorism (opswarfare's personal view is that terrorism is possibly a distraction from military operations), but the above news is slightly different in focus. If you don't wish to read the long article, here's a brief clip from the article.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush committed the nation to a "war on terrorism" and made the destruction of Bin Laden's network the top priority of his presidency. But it is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan's tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world.

Read reader comments (and replies from the reporters) here. Editor selections are here.

Logistics considerations in urban warfare

opswarfare first came across this area (logistics in urban warfare) after finding an article (see blog post here) on the lessons learned by the Russian army during the conflict in Chechnya.

The points raised by the paper (and comments by opswarfare) are as follows

"urban warfare consumes more ammunition"
While this is quite obvious, the paper notes the increased use of smoke ammunition, e.g. smoke grenades, smoke artillery rounds, etc. While most military planners might cater for increased small arms ammunition and hand grenades, smoke is a very useful tool in urban warfare, as it helps to conceal troop movement, especially at areas where there is little or no cover. (e.g. open areas between buildings)

"need for armoured supply/ambulance vehicle"
The old M113 Ultra vehicles (which have mostly been replaced by the Bionix IFV) in the SAF inventory can perhaps be used for the above role.

"better way to re-arm & refuel vehicles"
Training exercises should incorporate a "hot" resupply component to familiarise crew with resupply procedures under combat scenarios.

"civilian population issues"
opswarfare considers that the civilian population should be assisted if it does not impede the tempo of combat operations.

"maintenance of vehicles"
Similar to a point made above on resupply, workshop crew should be trained in servicing vehicles in the field.

"medical help to attend to increased numbers of casualties"
Medical personnel should be well-distributed among combat units, i.e. organic medical support. This is already done in the SAF, but perhaps experiments can be conducted where certain battalion-level assets are farmed out to augment existing medics.

"rehearsals"
More emphasis should be made on incorporating logistics operations into training exercises, especially in ensuring that ops tempo is kept high.

Presence of armed groups threatens southern Lebanon’s stability – UN

UN
3 reports on the release of a UN report on the situation in Lebanon. The above link is a UN News Centre report. Here is a report from Israel ("UN troops in Lebanon forced to delete images of covert cables") and the other one is from Lebanon ("1701 report notes 'unprecedented' Israeli air violations").

Interesting to see different emphasis been made in the 3 reports. The original UN report is here.

International Workshop on Autonomy and Armed Separatism in South and Southeast Asia

ARI & LKYSPP
Forgot to highlight this earlier. opswarfare just attended the first day of the above workshop. It has been very informative (discovered new stuff even after a quick google of the topics highlighted). A few quick comments of the proceedings of the first day.

1. Professor Anthony Reid - was candid, highlighted straight off the bat that autonomy is not as "sexy" as independence to a lot of people, and that there are often connotations that autonomy is top-down driven as compared to grassroots-based independence movements
   
2. Professor Kishore Mahbubani - was kind enough to throw a few "controversial" issues into the hat, e.g. that for the amount of effort put into resolving the Palestinian issue, the results have been dismal. He calls for a move away from looking at things from a Western context, and that "there is no monopoly on wisdom"
   
3. Dr Michelle Miller - explained how the idea for the workshop came about during the writing of her book on Aceh. Also, with the number of separatist issues in Asia, she wondered if the Aceh model could somehow be used elsewhere.
   
4. Panel 1 (on Indonesia) kicked off with Associate Professor Damien Kingsbury presenting on behalf of Associate Professor Bilveer Singh (who had an accident, and could not attend. best wishes to his recovery) on the situation in West Papua. Autonomy has not worked in Papua, as it should have been independent in the first place (the Dutch were going to grant it independence before the US stepped in to pressure a UN solution that ended in Indonesian occupation)
5. Dr Miller's arc focused on Aceh, and highlighted that "windows of opportunity" could be a key for groups pushing for autonomy, e.g. the 2004 tsunami was the event that helped pushed the autonomy process along
6. Panel 2 (on Timor Leste) had Adérito de Jesus Soares comparing Timor-Leste with Western Sahara (opswarfare notes that the comparison was not really fleshed out; perhaps he had insufficient time)
7. Dr Douglas A. Kammen seemed to have spotted a 5-year cycle to events relating to Timor-Leste's independent struggle, which perhaps suggests that groups may want to take note of this type of influence. He also correctly points out that the Timor-Leste story is not autonomy, more of gaining back independence
   
8. Panel 3 (on theory and practice) started with Prof. Kingsbury suggesting that most separatist movements stemmed from post-colonial countries and with ethnic issues often the spark point. He also considers that nationalism as a concept doesn't really work now
9. Dr Davin Bremner introduced his organisation, and highlighted how negotiations can go wrong, and how to address this problems. He also introduced a internet tool on his organisation's website that allow anyone to compare between various separatist situations
10. Panel 4 (on Burma) had Associate Professor Monique Skidmore highlighting the plight of the Karen people, where autonomy (more like enforced ceasefires) did not improve matters, but perhaps made things worst
11. Associate Professor Karin Dean concentrated mainly on the Kachin people, and also suggested that new media was bringing the Burma issue to the fore
12. Mr. David Scott Mathieson expanded on the issue of spaces in the context of rebel military leaders
13. more to follow, especially on the interesting Q & A
    

A pity that opswarfare will miss the second day due to another prior appointment.

Eurosatory 2008

Jane's
Coverage of upcoming weapon systems at Eurosatory 2008.

An example is the Loitering Munition concept, which could be useful for counter-insurgency operations. opswarfare has seen too many videos where Coalition forces go out on patrol, and then get pinned down by an ambush. Then, due to insufficient organic firepower (of the indirect kind), much time is wasted (and the initiative lost) in calling for air-strikes.

A Loitering Munition could be used in this scenario, with a quick call to artillery forces to fire one of these missiles in the general direction of the contact, and while the missile loiters, the enemy position can be confirmed (and properly identified) before guiding the missile towards the target.

Some of the competing products can be found on this Defense-Update page.

How UK fights remote control war

BBC NEWS | UK |
A few new developments that opswarfare sees in this article

1. UK Reapers are also controlled from Creech Air Force base in the US
2. One Reaper has crashed
3. UK Reapers have fired ordnance in combat

The above points leads to a few questions

1. Is there some technical issue preventing the control station from being set up in the UK?
   
2. What caused the crash?
3. Was it a high-value target that they tried to hit?

Time to do some searching...

[Update: 15th June 2008]

1. The MOD also has a short article.
2. In "sort of" related news, Raytheon has just confirmed that a new missile is being developed for use on the Predator UAV (the Predator is the predecessor of the Reaper), but the customer details are currently unknown