This is the first phase of a £500-million ‘Maritime Electronics Warfare Programme’ to improve electronic warfare capabilities on Type 45, 26 and 31 warships, as well as the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers.

The Ministry of Defence say that the new technology will allow more simultaneous detection and identification of radio signals over a greater frequency range than current capabilities. This will aid faster operational decision-making, enhanced situational awareness and anti-ship missile defence capability.

Defence Secretary of State Ben Wallace said:

“In a world of rapidly evolving threats, these enhancements will upgrade the Royal Navy with pioneering radar detection capabilities maintaining the UK’s operational advantage at sea. The £100-million investment with key industry partners will underpin vital defence outputs whilst supporting jobs and investment in the South-West of England.”

Senior Responsible Owner for the programme, Royal Navy Commodore Steve Prest, said:

“The ability to understand and exploit the increasingly complex electro-magnetic environment is critical for the operational success of the Royal Navy. This technology will deliver a generational leap in our electronic warfare capabilities to ensure we maintain the operational advantage we need well into the 21st century.”

Rear Admiral Jim Higham, DE&S Director Ship Support, said:

“I am delighted to have achieved contract award and look forward to working with Babcock, Elbit and QinetiQ. Now the real work begins – delivering this crucial capability to the frontline to time and cost and supporting the men and women of the Royal Navy in what they deliver for our nation.”

EUnder the programme, Elbit Systems UK will design, manufacture and deliver maritime EW suites comprised of fully digital full-spectrum Radar Electronic Support Measures (RESM) and EW Command and Control (EWC2) systems. The firm advise that “these latest generation technologies will enhance the situational awareness and anti-ship missile defence of front-line platforms and improve their capability to exploit the electromagnetic environment”.

Martin Fausset, CEO of Elbit Systems UK said:

“It is clearly the case that both conventional and asymmetric threats are increasingly present in the maritime operating environment and the pace of change in technology means our adversaries will continue to exploit it. As such, it is operationally vital that the Royal Navy has the latest capabilities that can evolve in line with and, ahead of, existing technologies. Elbit Systems UK is proud to be working with the Royal Navy as we prepare to confront and overcome the threats of today and tomorrow by providing world-leading solutions.”

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
Twitter

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

54 COMMENTS

  1. Are these technologies that were conceived of and developed in the UK or imported from Israel and manufactured in the UK ? Either way, i’m hugely impressed by what Israel’s defence sector produces and it is saving British lives.

    • I know your answer was (half) tongue-in-cheek, but Electronic Warfare and other countermeasures are a major part of ship defences when dealing with incoming threats. It’s not as cool as a kinetic solution, but the real-world engagements that we see are showing just how impressive EW is.
      There aren’t loads of details, but the AShM attacks on the USN Burkes a year or two back off the coast of Yemen implied that a solid percentage of them weren’t taken down by the missiles or CIWS at all, but by the “soft” countermeasures. Previous to that, CIWS systems have failed for whatever reason and AShMs have been diverted by countermeasures at the last minute. I appreciate though, that you’ll likely be thinking that these are for older types of AShM. True, but realistically speaking they’re the ones we’re most likely to actually have launched at us. The odds are much higher that we’ll be facing a Russian or Iranian proxy force willing to launch missiles at our ships than that we’ll actually be going toe to toe with a Russian or Chinese vessel armed with the latest and greatest they have.
      Also, not strictly ship related, but take a look at the effectiveness of the Bayraktar drones across Syria, Libya and particularly Nagorno Kharabakh (spelling?). The drones did take casualties, but there are many documented cases of them operating within relatively sophisticated AAD envelopes without being shot down- which is attributed to their sophisticated EW suites by most analysts I’ve read. Again, there’ll be the argument that they’re export versions of the S300, Pantsir, etc. But they’re also pretty up to date and, again, far more representative of what we can expect to be facing. Aside from that, we only have the Russians’ and Chinese’ word for it that their newest seekers are significantly better than what they’re selling elsewhere.
      All said, we should always be at the cutting edge of EW, because it makes a big difference to vessel survivability.

      • While you make good points I must stress that the primary role of an escort ship is to defend against adversaries and engage enemy ships.
        allowing them to sail without an anti ship missile is the equivalent of sending a soldier out without a rifle

        • Sorry, I mis-read your post; I read the article as about dealing with incoming threats, hence the talk of countermeasures etc. You were clearly seeing the sensor systems in the article from the persepctive of identifying an enemy but not being able to prosecute it due to lack of weaponry.
          I agree, an AShM should be something we have- even if it’s a secondary capability to our air defence missiles.

        • You can find bigger things to complain about the EW, still.

          In 1973 Israel defeated waves of anti-ship missiles with Electronic Warfare equipment. Clearly the missiles were much more useful there.

  3. You have to be careful with Israel. A few years ago they supplied the Army and RAF with certain bit of kit for our helicopters, that used on board systems to provide it with navigational data, which was then displayed on either a helmet mounted display or an attached display that fitted to NVGs. However, this item also recorded the data. So when it went U/S it had to go back to Israel for repair. Israel then knew where and when RAF and AAC helicopters were operating. This wasn’t discovered until a few years after it came into service.

    The MoD found out and immediately cancelled the contract. However, The Israeli firm then set up an independent UK repair centre, so the items didn’t go back to Israel. So the contract was re-established.

  4. Excellent investment for a crucial capability improvement. It might not be as sexy as some other fancy sounding weapon systems, but it’s critical for warship survivability.

  5. Extended range gear in action…

    Ops room T31 somewhere in the Pacific.
    “Sir, incoming warning”
    “Yes, what is it?”
    “As we are future proofed and so do no not carry weapons, it says, run away, fast.”

    • Not going to be able to outrun a hypersonic missile. Need hard or soft kill or effective decoys otherwise your likely dead.

      • See the former 1st Sea Lord wish away weapons to future proof ships.

        (@gunbuster would have done better at the atmosphere of the ops room).

    • I wonder if Gollies in the EWO will now have the capabilites, too listen to or download Crews Mobile Phone and txt with this investment Just a thought ? David

    • “Air-launched Missiles on the way!”

      “Can we intercept them using our jammers?”

      “No. David Barry on UK Defence Journal said anti-ship missiles are more than Electronic Warfare so we decided not to invest in the right defensive equipment.”

        • Why does this have to concern other news? Priorities don’t have to overlap.

          Just because you want anti-ship missiles on surface vessels doesn’t mean we suddenly don’t need ECM suites and other EW equipment.

    • From the text it appears it is not related. This is for signal intelligence. to analyse the radio/radar signals that arrive to antennas on ship.

      From the text this increase the frequency bands analysed, so the existing systems might even remain in place.

        • I was hoping for the same thing, including data links for fleet helicopters and other wondrous things. I think we may be expecting too much from £100M though, or at least £100M in the MOD’s hands…

      • Yes, most definitely. The majority of ESM currently used cannot detect very high frequency radar operating in the Ka, V and W bands. A number of missile systems are now using active radars in these bands (eg Brimstone/Spear-3). Therefore, it is highly likely that countries perceived to be a threat to the UK, will also be developing missiles that have radars operating ion these bands. A number of very high bandwidth data-links are also using the Ka band, so if the ESM is sensitive enough it might be able to detect that as well.

        • If I remember correctly the bog standard EW set goes up to around 18gigs.
          Anything above that and various add on black boxes are needed. RN EW sets have lots of add ons and black boxes to cover additional frequency ranges and also things like laser illuminators.
          The new EW contracts now and upcoming are going to tie together all Of these individual systems under one maintainance and supplier authority and also include soft kill decoys and active jammers in the later years.

          • I have to be careful what I say, as EW is a touchy subject.

            I do have a thought that current passive/active decoys may need to be upgraded, so that they can be thrown much further from the ship. Perhaps BAe could do a development on similar lines to their Kingfisher sonarbuoy delivery system? This would either launch a chaff delivery system, a active RF jammer (DRFM based jammer – based on Britecloud) or a active IR jammer. Perhaps, these expendable decoys/jammers could be kept aloft with a parachute, balloon or some form of floatation? But fired so that it lands closer to the horizon in front of the incoming threat. When fired upwards, it could be used to decoy incoming ballistic or high diving threats.

            Hmm, hello is that DSTl?

  7. It’s good to see they will be getting at least some cutting edge capability to go on the offensive, albeit in a non kinetic way. Most of the surface fleet seems to have dumped everything into state of the art defensive systems but little in the way of offensive capabilities other than a 4.5 inch gun and an outdated anti ship missile against ships armed with hypersonic missiles. A bit like having the world’s best body armour and but being armed with a snub nosed revolver and then being expected to take out a sniper wielding a .50 cal.

  8. Wow! RN moving away from UK based Thales as standard RESM supplier and moving over to dependence on Israeli technology? Wow! I’m not decrying in any way Israeli technology, but I’m just surprised by the move

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here