Electronic Warfare. Radar Jammer Proliferation Continues
Abstract
The military services have spent more than $9 billion on electronic warfare devices called jammers to protect tactical aircraft against threat weapon systems. Jammers protect aircraft by transmitting electronic signals to interfere with the radars used to control threat weapons. Statutory requirements and congressional committee comments repeatedly encouraged the services to develop warfare systems that can be used by more than one service to meet the common air defense threat. Achieving commonality among the services avoid duplicative costs for system development, enables lower unit production costs through larger quantity buys, and simplifies logistical support while reducing costs. Despite statutory and committee report emphasis and DOD's stated commitment to commonality, the military services have continued to acquire numerous, different jammer systems to protect the same type of aircraft against a common threat, and no commonality has been achieved. Further, since GAO's 1985 report, the prospects for achieving commonality have deteriorated because the Air Force abandoned the only program having promise for commonality. The proliferation continues in large part because DOD has not been effective in overseeing the services' jammer programs. In addition, DOD has not developed an effective electronic warfare master plan to achieve the intended commonality.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADA247563
Entities
People
- Allan C. Richardson
- Charles A. Ward
- Danny G. Owens
- Jackie B. Guin
- Wendy G. Piggott
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office