China making Growler version of Xian JH 7
As a truth that future warfare fully relies on the Air power, whether it's a fighter jet or the missiles, mean time there were couple of technologies also adopted by the fighters and missiles is the countermeasure suites, to make sure their travel is safe and secure from guided missiles , almost all of the fighter jets and Military cargo and Transporters uses the Flares and Chaffs to disrupt the guided missile, at best chaff's are used to confuse the radar guided missiles which uses aluminized glass filament or silver coated nylons, and the Flares used to spoof the infrared or heat seeking missiles by dropping number of burning magnesium or hot burning materials,
But those are ineffective due to several reason, they can be used very quickly making empty the shells, and because of modern missiles they can easily bypass any kind of chaff's and flares, which is the widely used countermeasure systems, But later technologies emerged to confuse the missile by it's data link, usually missile transmit and receive target information through a unique frequency which is mostly in the millimeter band which means the frequency range is somewhere between 60 to 120 Ghz, as per some open sources the AGM hell fire missile uses the 94 Ghz frequency to transmit the target information, while the missiles actual frequency is Top secret. so It's needed a amplifier system that can generate the frequency same at the missile frequency to disrupt it,
The Americans and the Israeli's found that application very early now they were masters in such warfare, usually the Americans use the AN ALQ 99 pod which generates the frequency that can spoof almost all kind of Air to air, ground to air and Radar signals, the Specially designed F 18 is used to accommodate such huge Systems, Jamming is same like Communication Jammer COMJAM used to jam enemy communications, however in Air warfare it can be carried by a fighter jet and react very quickly,
The Chinese now only identified the use of dedicated jamming systems like the American EA 18 Growler, China plans to convert the Fighter bomber JH 7 as their dedicated Jamming platform, it's a good idea since the JH 7 can carry much larger payload, designed to fly very low, and large combat radius to assist the friendlies to complete the mission at long range,
China already have a COMJAM and EW flying system based on the H 6 bomber, and another model based on the Y - 8, because of huge in size and low speed, those are not combat capable, like air combat or aerial dog fighting's, means the enemy forces can easily identifies the larger plane and kills it very easily if they identified heavy radio frequency interferences, So it's looks the JH 7 is a good options since it's same like the fighter jets, can also carry out Air to air missions and SEAD operations,
Meanwhile Still IAF has no good such systems,however is IAF not new to this field, when in Kargil the Indian Airforce mirages used the Remora EW pod designed by the French, which spoofed the Pakistani Stinger missiles, making the bombing run safer even in dense manpad threat zone. also earlier once IAF silently sounded inside their Circle that IAF should buy a squadron of EA 18 Growler from the US, Since it's rival forces could adopt the same kind of technology in future, while the Plans shelved same like other plans, and Now China ramps up it's JH 7 and rebooting with advanced electronic warfare systems,
However Chinese also have small EW pods in the Su 30 wingtips, it's the Russian origin SAP 518 Jamming pods, the standard Russian wingtip jammers for Flanker and Full back variants, most of the Flanker users like Algeria, Malaysia and Chinese also have the same system, But the Indian MKI don't have such systems, since IAF adopted to use the Israeli made ELTA EL/L 8222 Jamming pods, However now only India thinks to use the Russian made SAP 518 wingtip jammers in the Su 30 MKI fleet, earlier it was spotted when HAL puts the Su 30 MKI in a vibration test, So it's believed the modified Sukhoi's who used to carry Brahmos also comes with the wingtip Jammers like SAP 518.
However those Kind of wingtip Jammers or very small, and small range, they never comes close to the AEWCS and dedicated Jamming Fighters bubble, compared to the dedicated Jammers like American EA 18 G, those wingtips are just a small caliber bullets.
Even Chinese are new to the EW environment, they can study the existing SAP 518 jammers and develop their own and deploy in it's own JH 7 fighter Bombers, So in future warfare IAF pilots should ready to face the Chinese magic, otherwise IAF should step up to counter such threats by buying modern EW systems or develop our own.
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