How Boeing’s electronic fighter jet gets caught in China’s “killer network” in the South China Sea

The Boeing EA-18G is an electronic warfare aircraft used primarily for electronic jamming.

Based on the F/A-18 Super Hornet platform, the aircraft can be equipped with various electronic warfare systems to suppress enemy reconnaissance and communications signals in all frequency bands and in all directions with high power. It can also fire anti-radar missiles for precise strikes against ship radars, making it a key combat force in the US AirSeaBattle strategy.

Production of the Growler began 20 years ago, and since 2021 the U.S. military has spent enormous amounts of money to improve its equipment for future wars.

But that doesn’t mean it’s unbeatable, as the researchers show.

“Cognitive intelligent radars have capabilities such as proactive environmental sensing, arbitrary transmission and reception design, intelligent processing and resource planning. They can effectively counteract the complex and variable electromagnetic interference of the EA-18G,” wrote the project team led by Professor Liu Shangfu, a radar expert at the Naval Noncommissioned Officers’ School in Bengbu, southeast China’s Anhui Province.

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Should China be concerned about the recent security pact between Japan and the Philippines?

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“System detection is not simply a matter of stacking multiple detection sensors or a loosely connected network, but rather of making comprehensive use of the performance characteristics of different sensors based on actual situations, and rationally allocating and planning detection resources from a tactical perspective to improve the information control capabilities of the platform,” Liu’s team wrote.

By sharing information, the ships create a vast “kill web” capable of “flexibly, actively, quickly and intelligently countering the EA-18G, thus achieving a transformation from ‘single resource confrontation’ to ‘systematic detection resource confrontation,'” Liu and his colleagues wrote.

The official Chinese report on the Nanchang confirmed this change in tactics. The ship is said to have broken the traditional formation, advanced 100 nautical miles (185 km) and, with rear guard support, prevented the US aircraft carrier strike group from advancing toward a Chinese training area.

In response, the U.S. military dispatched carrier-based aircraft. Videos released by China showed the EA-18G may have adopted a combat mode called “jamming-while-accompanying,” in which it formed a formation with other fighter aircraft and carried out noise jamming or emitted strong signals from dense false targets to blind the Nanchang.

However, the radar system on Nanchang continued to function normally and detected the main targets of the US fleet.

A commander of the Nanchang ship told state media that the U.S. planes and ships retreated shortly after the protective covers of the vertical launch system were opened.

At first the Americans had the upper hand, but the game soon changed.

According to the US Congress’s National Defense Strategy Commission in 2022, the US is “losing its advantages in electronic warfare, which is compromising the country’s ability to conduct military operations against capable adversaries.”