Iraqi tool may outwit U.S. bombs

Mercury News ^ | Mar. 15, 2003 | Aaron Davis

[Hadean]

For all of America's high-tech efforts to avoid civilian casualties in a war with Iraq, Saddam Hussein could use a rather simple weapon to misguide U.S. ``smart'' bombs.

Saddam has obtained radio transmitters designed to jam the global positioning system signals that guide a majority of American bombs to their targets, according to U.S. military intelligence reports. The satellite signals are also used to coordinate American troop and tank movements on the ground.

U.S. military officials say the jammers will be more of a ``nuisance'' than a threat and a few fuzzy satellite signals certainly wouldn't turn the tide of war. But they do acknowledge that, at worst, the jammers could diminish the expected accuracy of a bomb from a few feet to about 100 yards -- a significant distance in an urban setting.

The bigger concern, military officials say, is that Saddam could use GPS jammers to intentionally paint civilian targets as military ones. GPS jamming signals radiating from buildings would make them appear as command centers or something else Saddam might be trying to hide, and make them natural targets for U.S. missiles.

[bluecollarman]

Well the first thing to do is to tune a weapon to home in on the gps blocking signal.... Problem Solved.

[Doug Loss]

Clearly BS. A few HARMs set to home on the jammers' frequency (HARMs aren't GPS-guided)--problem solved.

[Enterprise]

"Iraqi tool may outwit U.S. bombs"

Yes, this is along the lines of Abraham Lincoln, who said, "You can fool some of the bombs some of the time, but you can't fool all the bombs all of the time."

I have a sneaky suspicion that the United States knows that Iraq has these devices, and has already enacted countermeasures to neutralize them. But I'm confused here - I thought that Saddam Hussein WAS the Iraqi tool. Or was it fool - I forget.

[OPS4]

Saturation bombing can take out the tool and its operators.

Maob is coming to a 5 square mile soon.

Ops4 God Bless America!

[sd-joe]

This is an old story that has popped up 2 or 3 times already. It has been proven to be BS.

[Movemout]

Not to mention that the new improved HARMs use mmw technology to see the target in the last few seconds. The only problem is with supply. HARM is no longer being manufactured and the upgrades are only being applied to some not all. Personally, while I think it is criminal, I don't care if Saddam orders the destruction of his own people. It only bolsters the arguement that he should be removed from this planet permanently. I can't see any leader in the USA ordering the intentional destruction of innocent civilians were the roles reversed.

[Kay Soze]

Agreed old news on these stupid little Russian made devices.

Even the microwave oven trick the serbs used did not work.
Serbs would take the doors off micorwave ovens and aim them at the sky in an attempt to scrnable signals.

US Army et all already have the work around.

see Afghanistan succes for demonstration.

[Enterprise]

LOL! Hey Iraqis - here's a MOAB - Fool THIS!

[Hadean]

This is an old story that has popped up 2 or 3 times already. It has been proven to be BS.

First I've heard of it and I didn't find it in a search. The Mod should pull the thread if that's the case.

[WHBates]

These devices are available and I'm sure they have been tested.

[dwills]

i'm sure he didn't mean this particular article or any insult to you

no, mods shouldn't pull this because, while i've heard of this scrambling effort i haven't seen replies as confident as in these threads

it's somewhat heartening

[finnman69]

These things will be only effective if you throw them at US troops after the e-bomb goes off.

[sd-joe]

I am not saying that you post of the Mercury news is a duplicate. I am saying the same story has shown up in different media over the past few months.

Somebody must be feeding it to the media for some purpose or another.

[sheik yerbouty]

Break out the B52s and use shi'ite loads of dumb bombs, perhaps with appropriate artwork on them!

[Hadean]

Somebody must be feeding it to the media for some purpose or another.

A lot of that going around. If it's BS, I'm glad you spoke up on it.

[Nick Danger]

These devices are available and I'm sure they have been tested.

Alas, no one who has tested one in a combat setting has lived long enough to tell us whether it worked.

All seriousness aside, directional antennas are a well-understood science. Real GPS signals come from space. These things are on the ground. The JDAM does not listen to things that are below it; it listens to things that are above it, and that also know what today's encryption password is.

These little $29.95 GPS jammers will confuse the heck out of fishermen, but they aren't going to do squat against an incoming JDAM.

[SolutionsOnly]

Right.

And they'll break all our top-secret crypto codes with their secret decoder rings, too.

[jwh_Denver]

LOL! Hey Iraqis - here's a MOAB - Fool THIS!

Hey France - here's a MOAB - Veto THIS!

[apeman81]

OOOPS! My bad. When I read the title, I thought this was Saddam thread.
Sorry.