Images: Ukraine Defense Ministry
What’s New: Another example of how GPS impacts nearly everything and its importance in modern warfare.
Why It’s Important:
- “… a Pole-21 crew has to be very judicious with how it uses its jammer—switching it on only when there are no Russian forces in the vicinity that need satellite guidance. “Russian E.W. often suppresses not only the enemy’s equipment, but also its own, leading these systems to sometimes being switched off,”
- Ukraine’s Air Force used a JDAM, a GPS-guided bomb, to destroy the site when it was apparently off air.
What Else to Know:
- GPS was designed as a weapon. Dr. Brad Parkinson’s tasking was to “put five bombs in the same hole.”
- Despite 40 years of the US government encouraging use of GPS for all manner of things, it is still a weapons system operated by the U.S. military.
- Most user equipment, even the military’s, can be easily manipulated. As the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel show.
- Some nations have PNT systems used by civilians and infrastructure that are not weapons systems and are not being actively contested in various parts of the world.
Last week, Ukrainian forces blew up the Pole-21 GPS-jammer … with an apparent GPS-guided bomb.
The irony wasn’t lost on the independent Conflict Intelligence Team. “It can be assumed that the [electronic-warfare system] was not operational at the moment of the strike,” CIT observed.
The Pole-21 system is a combination of antennae and powerful radio-signal generators that can interfere with the radio links between GPS satellites and the drones, cruise missile and precision-guided bombs—such as the American Joint Direct Attack Munition—that rely on GPS for guidance. A Pole-21 is effective out to 15 miles or so.
