Posted in

AF adds jammer to Reaper

by David••41

As an old EW guy I gotta tell you – I think the Air Force is hitting a home run here.

They have announced putting an ALQ-167 jammer into an MQ-9A Reaper drone.

The successful trials at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, focused on providing electronic attack from the Reaper, a General Atomics Aeronautical Systems product typically used to collect intelligence or conduct reconnaissance. The pod is derived from technology developed by the Georgia Tech Research Institute, which in 2013 described the project as using commercial electronics, custom hardware and novel machine-learning for flexibility.

“The goal is to expand the mission sets the MQ-9 can accomplish,” MAJ Arron Aguilar, the 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron assistant director of operations, said in a statement May 13. “The proliferation and persistence of MQ-9s in theater allows us to fill traditional platform capability gaps that may be present.”

Electronic warfare, or EW, is an invisible fight for control of the electromagnetic spectrum, used to communicate with friendly forces, to identify and suppress opponents, and to guide weapons. Dominance of the spectrum will be critical in a fight with China or Russia, the two most significant national security threats, according to U.S. defense officials.

“Fifteen hours of persistent noise integrated with a large force package will affect an adversary,  require them to take some form of scalable action to honor it, and gets at the heart of strategic deterrence,” Chmielewski said. (Lt. Col. Michael Chmielewski, the 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron commander – Ed.)

C4ISRNET via Yahoo

Think of a drone with a  20 hour loiter time jamming your comms… you’re gonna be unhappy. Anyone who tangled with an old ASA or CEWI unit on a Reforger knows what it’s like – nothing like getting your comms persistently washed out by static, odd noises, feedback etc…then hearing “Mary Had A Little Lamb” being played in all that noise and realizing you’ve been had. (A trademark of some old friends of mine.)

And the best part? This particular jammer has a great code name…”Angry Kitten.” That’s gotta be hard explaining to the local zampolit that despite your best efforts, comms were still down due to “Angry Kitten” – I think I’d maybe desert before trying to explain that one.  I kinda like it… maybe the next one should be called “Peeing Puppy”? ” Howling Hamster”?

You might also like

Colonel Michael Shawn Garret arrested

Naval Academy appealing reinstatement of fired professor

USCG Recruitment Woes

41 thoughts on “AF adds jammer to Reaper”

      1. ” maybe the next one should be called “Peeing Puppy”? ” Howling Hamster”?… How a bout “Trigglypuff”?

          1. “Babbling Biden”
            “Cackling Karine”
            “Jamming Jean-Pierre”
            “Howling Hillary”
            The possibilities are many.

  2. A little psyop as the whipped cream toppings to the shit Sundae jamming.

  3. “Seasons don’t fear the reaper
    Nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain”

    Have it play that song while orbiting over the battlefield.

    3. NAAH, drive ’em NUTS with mid-70’s Disco, they’ll be babbling lunatics in no time flat!

      1. Or even better yet Vogon Poetry, anyone remember that from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”?

        1. Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
          Thy micturations are to me, (with big yawning)
          As plurdled gabbleblotchits, in midsummer morning
          On a lurgid bee,
          That mordiously hath blurted out,
          Its earted jurtles, grumbling
          Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer. [drowned out by moaning and screaming]
          Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles,
          Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts,
          And living glupules frart and stipulate,
          Like jowling meated liverslime,
          Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes,
          And hooptiously drangle me,
          With crinkly bindlewurdles,mashurbitries.
          Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
          See if I don’t!

  5. Its been three years since I was working “Angry Kitten” Unless things have changed its not going after comms.

    As opposed to being a combat pod its more of a technology demonstrator and the numbers are very few, a double handful or so for the Air Force.

    The angry kitten is a mod to the Navy’s ALQ-167.

  6. Put Creepy Kamala’s hysterical laugh on a loop and play that for the enemy.

  7. Back in the Bad Old Days the story goes a Navy EA-6B with its ALQ-99 pretty much shut down Seattle. Oops.

      1. Whidbey Island, moss backs and webbed toes. That’s before the RF hazard, too.

    3. I can recall a few times in my yute where an EW in a B-52 jammed the TV’s in Riverside CA. My dad could tell what had been left on by how fast the picture rolled.

  8. So the new designation would be EMQ-9A Reaper. 😁 Hopefully it’ll cause a lot of MIJI reports to be filed by any future enemies.

  11. DJ Frazzle Zorch and the Jam Reaper.

    It’s got a beat frequency, but you can’t dance to it.

  12. Love the names you came up with David.
    Maybe make them more personal though, like:
    Soiled Panties, or Weak Bladder

Comments are closed.