Jammer Bomber

• cavsg

  6 Jun 03, 08:26

  Jammer Bomber
  Aviation Week & Space Technology
  06/02/2003, page 30
  
  Robert Wall
  Washington
  
  B-52's electronic attack role faces funding, technical roadblocks
  
  The first piece of the U.S. Air Force's emerging electronic attack architecture should be ready in four to six years, but the path to using the B-52 in a standoff jamming role still faces several hurdles.
  
  With the Pentagon's EA-6B Prowlers rapidly nearing the end of their service life and more capable air defenses emerging, senior Defense Dept. officials ordered the military services to devise plans to continue to meet electronic attack needs. The Navy has decided to pursue the EA-18G (see p. 29), the Marines are taking a wait-and-see attitude before committing to either the EA-18G or its preferred option, a jamming derivative of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Air Force followed a more complicated distributed architecture, building on manned and unmanned systems.
  
  But at the heart of the Air Force strategy are modifications to the B-52, which would serve in a standoff jamming role. Service officials are only slowly revealing details of their approach, having spent the past months trying to refine their road map.
  
  While the Navy and possibly the Marine Corps are eying dedicated electronic warfare assets, the Air Force is pursuing an approach it believes is more flexible. Maj. Gen. Daniel P. Leaf, USAF's director of operational capability requirements, says "it will not be an EB-52," short-hand for a dedicated electronic attack version of the bomber. The B-52 "will happen to have a jamming capability. But it will still be a capable bomber, a capable cruise missile launcher. We don't have the extra assets to develop single-mission airplanes."
• SlowPoke

  6 Jun 03, 18:52

  EB-52? sounds like "Old Dog" from Dale Brown novels....
  
  and yes, I read such trashy novels when I was young