Jamming And Hacking Are Russian Army’s Strength: British Army Report

 Jamming and hacking with sophisticated deployment of electronic warfare equipment are major strengths of the Russian defense forces  which could threaten NATO aircraft, GPS-guided weapons and soldiers on the ground.

The Russian troops with its tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons with electronic warfare can outsmart the British army warfare tactics.

"The British army indicates Russian use of electronic warfare is described as “game changer” on the battlefield even as NATO and UK are scrambling to catch up,” The Times defense editor Deborah Haynes tweeted quoting a leaked British Army report accessed by the news daily.

The report, Insights to “Training Smarter” Against a Hybrid Adversary, published in March said, “Russian use of artillery makes UK’s planned £3.5 billion fleet of Scout lightly-armoured vehicles ‘disproportionately vulnerable’ to mortar and rocket fire from Russia if there was a war between the countries."

In September 2014, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) awarded a contract to General Dynamics to deliver 589 SCOUT Specialist Vehicle (SV) platforms to the British Army to provide essential capability to the Armoured Cavalry within the army by 2020.

The report argued that the personnel must be made more aware of the threat after a series of accounts of US troops operating in Ukraine were hacked. The troops should leave their electronic devices at home when on exercise, the report said.

“It is warfare where anything is a weapon,” Deborah quoted sources as saying.

“Russian tactics against forces in Ukraine include acoustic device to pinpoint snipers, Russian drones fly in pairs, lower aircraft draws fire from ground so higher aircraft can pinpoint location of Ukrainian firing point.”

“Text messages are sent to every mobile in a targeted area minutes before attack by Russia-backed separatists to create confusion/fear,” the defense editor tweeted quoting from the report.

Russia reportedly had hacked into Turkey’s NATO-compatible radio-electronics mounted on helicopters, aircraft and ground vehicles to learn of the impending coup attempt against Turkish president Erdogan using its surveillance and eavesdropping equipment, Krasukha-4 deployed near Latakia in Syria.