A US military reconnaissance plane came under electronic attack from North Korea and had to make an emergency landing during a major military exercise in March, an aide to a lawmaker said Friday.I have always said that if you rely on the electromagnetic spectrum to the degree you cannot operate without it - you will be defeated.
The aide said the plane suffered disturbance to its global positioning system (GPS) by jamming signals from the North's southwestern cities of Haeju and Kaesong as it was taking part in the annual US-South Korea drill, Key Resolve.
The incident was disclosed in a report that Seoul's defence ministry submitted Thursday to opposition lawmaker Ahn Kyu-Baek of parliament's defence committee, the aide to Ahn told AFP.
Spokesmen for the defence ministry and US Forces Korea declined to comment.
Jamming signals, sent at intervals of five to 10 minutes in the afternoon on March 4, forced the plane to make an emergency landing 45 minutes after it was airborne, the aide quoted the report as saying.
We have become too reliant in GPS in the last 15 years; and too arrogant in our feeling of entitlement to the electronic commons. Try any non-GPS activity from navigation to weaponeering. Then take out SATCOM ..... watch.
There is plenty of good in this report - however accurate it may or may not be - if we are willing to listen.
One of the CH53's used for the Mogadishu evacuation in the middle of the first go around with IRAQ had a casualty and lost all electronic navigation capability. He made the rendezvous on time with a magnetic compass and a watch...and the ability to exercise educated judgement with basic navigation techniquies.
ReplyDeletePort Royal ran aground because they couldn't shoot bearings, record bearings, plot, determine fix position, label, DR, compute set and drift, and check the sounding taken at the moment the fix is taken with the fix position on the chart... minimum cyclic routine that should NEVER cease when underway.
Why? Experience and practice.
The problem with ECDIS and GPS is that the young'ins will look at the pretty lights and believe them, ignoring the hazard out the window.
Practice the fundamentals. Or fail.
PACE. True for every last system of communications and information we possess. Takes time, discipline, and training.
ReplyDeleteWe knew it once like we knew our names. Twenty-five years on, I can still run a half-wave dipole or set up a 1/8 height NVIS HF antenna.
We put all our eggs in the digital EM spectrum basket, somebody's gonna scramble them for us. Using another acronym we all once knew cold. MIJI.
Could someone please define "information dominance"?
<p><span>One of my proudest moments was the end of our transit from ROTA to Little Creek 1975. </span><span>Made land fall near Chesapeake Light – only 5 miles off track. LORAN was CASREP. Sextant, Chronometer and HO 249, Looked at my Star Finder [ISSUED 1966] the other day and it has finely expired. </span>
ReplyDelete</p><p><span>Exercising without Protected SATCOM must be practiced by every Naval Officer that expects to fight and win the next war at sea – yes Virginia there will be a next war at sea – get ready.</span>
</p>
INFO Dominance - don't know - but how do you have a Fleet [10th FLT] WITHOUT any ships?
ReplyDeleteAll I feel comfortable saying about this claim is that the facts, as presented in the story, do not pass the "smell test." MIJI of GPS does NOT constitute an in-flight emergency requiring a precautionary or emergency landing. There are other things going on here.
ReplyDeleteDammit, that was me!
ReplyDeleteMethinks there's a bit more to it, also. Like I said at the other post, a bit surprised it hit the UNCLASS news.
ReplyDeleteI agree...either the a/c only had GPS degredation/loss, scrubbed the mission because of it and returned for a routine (if much sooner than planned) landing, with the story being overblown and describing the decision to scrub the mission as an "emergency landing," or there was something else going on to require the crew to want that plane on the ground as soon as possible. My bet is on the second possibility...and honestly, I'm a little surprised that even the bit about GPS jamming made it out from the high side.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I was over there for this exercise, but I was further south, toiling in the DDOC and enjoying lots of soju and Hite...usually but not always in that order.
<span>"I have always said that if you rely on the electromagnetic spectrum to the degree you cannot operate without it - you will be defeated."</span>
ReplyDeleteWell, when did you first say so, CDR?
http://aquilinefocus.blogspot.com/2007/05/chinas-greatest-military-threat-is-no.html
Years ago in a country far far away that used to be a hostile during the Big War, we would routinely travel to the Pearl of the Pacific to review contingency plans should some idiotic neighbor do something stupid. Being out of the warrior seat and in the logistics supplier seat I crowed long and hard about the expiration of LORAN and it being replaced by GPS only. And this was when we were just sticking GPS into C-12s, C-9s, and C-130s.
ReplyDeleteWas poopoo'd off the stage by the koolaid drinkers with cries of "you can't jam GPS", "GPS will ALWAYS be available and we can _____ to ensure ____". Maybe we should stick a Glonass recvr in the cockpit as well
You don't really want to have a measuring contest ... do you? :)
ReplyDeleteDrinking during an exercize? Violating General Order no.1? Shocked I tell you shocked!
ReplyDeleteMost folks don't know this...But I would very definitely say there are almost certainly some that browse through here who really...REALLY...should know if they don't already...
ReplyDeleteAnd that is that US Flagged airliners (both passenger and cargo) owned by US airlines (the last really viable US Flagged Merchant fleet if you think about it) REGULARLY traverse North Korean airspace (Iranian too) with US citizens aboard...
(All this is sanctioned by the State Department BTW)
Be a darned shame if one of 'em were ever caught up in a crossfire...Cyber or otherwise.
Accidents do happen...From time...To time
just sayin'
"or there was something else going on to require the crew to want that plane on the ground as soon as possible. My bet is on the second possibility...and honestly, I'm a little surprised that even the bit about GPS jamming made it out from the high side."
ReplyDeletemade me wonder too...
its either bogus bs...or right curious
which is why i shared the musings above
The problem with ECDIS and GPS is that the young'ins will look at the pretty lights and believe them, ignoring the hazard out the window.
ReplyDeleteThose alluring Sirens are still out there, ready to seduce the unwary with their seductive song....
MIJI, MEACONing, all were and have been used to devasting effect.. nothing new here under the sun. What HAS changed is our ability as stated in the monologue, to have a back up NON GPS that we can use... We are all guilty.... I use a GPS on my little 17 foot whaler.. I rarely use my compass anymore... I havnt shot a compass bearing out of my bayou or bay ever... that is my shortcoming.
ReplyDeleteGPS is and will be the achilles heal to UAV/UAS (here all for you URR...," RPA") we need to do better.
even MORE telling is the NK willingness to use measures that are clearly offensive, meant to cause harm and they do so with little regard to retaliation.. they percieve the Yankee Air Pirate as weak..
EMP... not just for breakfast.. read One Second After... we are all 3 days away from a return to the 1800's...
Looked at my Star Finder [ISSUED 1966] the other day and it has finely expired.
ReplyDeleteWhizwheel starfinders are so last century...
They got an app for that now!
:-D
Just to add some things to the converstation. In the Korean Air Space, and basically all the air space between Shemya Island up north down to Hainan Island in the south is an operating area that rules state is you lose your primary and secondary navigation methods, let alone your parimary/secondary attitute reference systems it is an inflight emergancy with a requirement to land now.
ReplyDeleteI will also state having dealt with GPS systems and aircraft recievers, there is a way to jam them and it isn't via those GPS jammers we heard about during the Iraqi War. Instead think of the ways that the Soviets and thier clients use to try and jam the VOA.
URR,
ReplyDeleteI don't know but I think that what the NORKS did, if the news reports are to be believed, they were basically jamming a bunch of radio freqs if Cell Phone coverage in some of the Cities up north were being affected. All in an attempt to shut down either VORTAC, NDBs, or some other radio Nav system in the aircraft along with the GPS signals and basically cause an international incident which would have given them authorization to shoot. If so then to prevent a repeat of that OH-58 2nd Cav incident back in 1994, the USAF in Korea probably called for that "weather sampling" aircraft to land immediately to prevent said cross border incident.
Perhaps, but if true it was not their overly-broad band jamming that they usually do, and was somewhat directional. If indeed "jamming" was all it was.
ReplyDeleteThat maybe true, too. There are ways to use multiple land based sites to pin point a specific target and like most of the EW combat weapons you will have bleed over to the other portions of the frequencies. Remember your radio theory for a second, as we super hetrodyne a frequency we produce both the center tuned freq but also two side lobes (the positive and negative sidebands from the math of the two seperate frequencies) those side lobes can drift out of the frequency band if the power of the transmitters grow then the drift grows on a logrithmic scale (if I remember my radio power theory properly).
ReplyDeleteThere is also a way to jam GPS signals and if your using a ground base transmitter (like what the NORKS and most Soviet Client states have to affect things such as the VOA or other propganda tools) you can affect it one of two ways. One is to completely shut down one of the three signals being recieved (a minimum of three sigs is required to do the time difference math to tell you where you are in the world) or over power the signal and input your own data into the stream (which can be done just as well, but is harder if the reciever is told to only look for the encrypted signal and you have to worry about "burn thru" from the satellite signal).
Since most tactical USN aircraft that I have dealt with fixing, they use GPS primarly and then will degrade to GPS aided INS, then straight INS, then to straight Dead Reckoning. The issue is that if your INS package isn't sufficently robust then when GPS drops off line, you will spend about 3-5 minutes at 160+knts trying to reduce an error factor down to specifically know where you are. When your operating near a contested border like the 38th parallel that is a dangerous thing.
Just like depending too much upon GPS, now a days, our ships (probably cutters, too) are all depending Way Way too much on AIS.
ReplyDeleteIn stead of the normal radar tracking of surface craft and vessels nearby, USN (and I've heard USCG, also) are mainly watching all those AIS track symbology that just (somehow) appear all over our CIC and Pilothouse displays. Gee, the Surface Picture is no longer difficult ! In fact, it's so easy that we can put less enlisted OS watchstanders into CIC every 4 hours !
One slight problem..... anyone can buy an AIS and carry it (or mount it) inside their boats. Despite some precautions, it is no doubt easy enough to spoof, and hack into a legit AIS and change it to Automatically Identify itself incorrectly and be reported to all underway and land based harbor displays. EMP, GPS, AIS ..... we are just as stupid now as in December 1941.
Interesting that the aircraft had to make an "emergency landing." If it was a U-2 as the photo, but not the text says, it would have to be one heck of a jammer if it was ground based as the article alludes to. Altitude plus horizontal distance, plus antenna located on the top of the aircraft shield quite a bit of jamming. I'd be pretty surprised if the U-2 wasn't using a GPS aided INS, and all they'd have to do it turn off the GPS. The INS would degrade over time, but shouldn't have been enough to require an emergency landing. Something isn't right.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is that ever since the OH-58 that strayed across the border and was shot down in 1994. Any aircraft that has a degraded navigation system while operating in Korean air space shall not operate near the DMZ and out into either the Sea of Japan or the Yellow Sea. This is to prevent an international incident. I worked on some EA-6B's and we used GPS as our primary nav tool with a ring laser gyro INS as back up, By rules as told to us from 7th Air Force, that if we had a degrade in GPS/INS systems then the jet was to immediately boogie on a southern heading and get ATC control to an airfield in South Korea for landing. Just one of those rules to prevent the NORKs from going nuts at the daily meetings in Panmujon and to prevent ordnance from going across the DMZ.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually being addressed in closed door settings, in many "old school" and "new school" ways, which is probably the right way to do it. Unfortunately, we have painted ourselves into quite a corner WRT our reliance on the electromagnetic spectrum, automation, deferred maintenance and reduced manpower. It is all the same thing--reduce the number of archaec skillsets that real men of the sea have, "make computers do it" and then act surprised when someone targets your computers. I'm glad that we're taking care of the problem now, but it is many years too late and a problem that we have allowed to get too big.
ReplyDeleteHell, maybe reducing the size of the fleet will be a good thing...less ships to fix. Maybe we'll actually fix them now? HA. Wishful thinking.
"One Second After" by William Forstchen published 2009. I just bought and read the paper verison for $7.49 at WaltMart.
ReplyDeleteOnly thing more scarry, is that the US Navy is just so unprepared. We don't even require any EMP protection for cables that are inside helo hangers, LHD hangers, CVN hanger decks.
I guess we are hoping that when the EMP small nuc goes off, way up high, that we will have all our DDG helo doors closed, CG, LHD, CVN, etc. Not that all the thousands of topside cables are adequately grounded at all, but we don't even attempt to protect all the necessary cables inside the Pilot House, passageways that open to weather decks, etc. Just like December 1941. At dawn, we are still sleeping.
<p><span>At the Boat School, in the early 1980’s, I had an Italian Naval Officer for my celestial nav class.<span> </span>We shot sun lines, reduced them WITHOUT a nav calculator…. and whined the whole time.<span> </span>LORAN was up.<span> </span>SATNAV was up and GPS was on the drawing board.<span> </span>What was the point of learning celestial anyway?<span> </span>I’ll never forget the wise Commanders accented rebuttal to our whining.</span>
ReplyDelete</p><p><span>“The Soviets may jam your precious LORAN and shoot down your precious Sat Nav, but they will never shoot down the sun and the stars.”<span> </span>Q.E.D.</span></p>
going to sea is no longer fun.
ReplyDeletemore and more, it pains me greatly to bear witness to what has been lost.
the absence of wheelbooks, and basic navigation skills are symptoms.
What the hell are you guys worried about? Diversity gives us strategic depth and capability. I know this because the CJCS and CNO keep pounding this into my freaking nugget through endless and repetitive training cycles and messages. After quotas are reached, all else is gravy, for we are the Global Force for Good and nary a shot will ever need to be fired!
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't believe nobody else commented on the nugget that was the last line of the article: "The UN's International Telecommunication Union in April urged the North to stop disrupting signals in the South." There's just so much win in that statement it deserves a "Winning!"
ReplyDelete