The US Navy already knows how to fool enemy radars: drones that create ghost fleets

In combat, firepower is crucial, but good armor and countermeasures are also essential to defend against enemy attacks. That is why both passive (such as a decoy) and active (aircraft countermeasures) elements that act as shields in a skirmish have been developed throughout history. The United States wants to go one step further in electronic warfare with a system that completely deceives enemy radars.

Specifically, they say that if they had more money they would accelerate the development of a drone that simulates being a warship.

The decoys of the Navy. When we think about military countermeasures, through movies and video games, the mind goes directly to the flares of the planes. We have seen these elements in movies like 'top gun' or video games like 'Ace Combat' and consists of a series of flares that are launched to mislead the navigation systems of an enemy missile. There are other decoys and boats, for example, have systems such as Nulka.

It is a defense system that is present on more than 150 warships in Australia, the United States and Canada and are like completely autonomous beacons after being launched that “seduce” (saying by those responsible, BAE Systems Australia) to enemy missiles to divert their trajectory and protect the ship. The Nulka beacon generates an electronic signal that imitates that of the ship, moves away from it and confuses the enemy missile.

The list of the Three Wise Men. The United States wants to go one step further, and to develop new systems, funding is needed. That is why each year they send Congress a list with the budget they need for the next fiscal period, but they also have another list known as the 'Unfunded Priorities List', or UPL. The different branches of the military are required to send this UPL to Congress every year, and it is basically a wish list so that, if possible, the country allocates more funds to that branch.

As we can see in The War Zone, this wish list has already been sent by the Navy. These are 13 projects whose development would advance if they obtain another additional 2,244 million dollars. Among the different projects, we can see that they are interested in accelerating the development of their 'Long Endurance Electronic Decoy', or LEED, program. Specifically, they ask for 110 million for this program, something that contrasts with the 38 million for fiscal year 2024.

NEMESIS. The objective of this program is to create a system that, using a drone or a swarm of them, generates the illusion that there is a ship or a fleet in front of enemy systems. This is a complete deception, since it could be used for distraction maneuvers such as making enemies believe that there are ships in certain areas when, in reality, there are only drones.

It's something the US Navy has been working on for years and has been dubbed 'Netted Emulation of Multi-Element Signature', or NEMESIS. It was discovered in 2019 and it was not something that remained a project on paper, but rather a complete development to simulate ghost fleets of both airplanes, submarines and warships. The drones would leave a false signature on enemy sensors that 'real' units could exploit in an attack.

Advancing electronic warfare. NEMESIS, or the LEED system, would be similar to Nulka, but with greater autonomy and maneuvering capabilities that allow operations further from the launch zone and for longer. The two systems have points in common and seek to deceive enemy radars, but while one is a countermeasures system, the other can be used to deceive during combat operations to create false targets that ward off enemy forces.

In the end, it is another form of electronic warfare. In it, systems are used that deny enemy access to electromagnetic space, cutting off signals or preventing the use of technologies, but also confusing enemy systems and, together with cyber warfare, it is one of the hallmarks of current combats. That is why these types of conflicts are often referred to as “silent wars” and, sometimes, they even affect civilian systems.

New race for militarization. In the end, this wish list for the US military is a new example that major powers are investing billions in their militarization. Cases like that of the United States (with enormous military power and a lot of industry around) are not surprising. Nor that of a China that is also investing in technology, army, heavy helicopters or aircraft carriers, but it is still something global where cases such as Japan and its new rearmament strategy stand out.

Image | Stuart Rankin and BAE Systems

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