Every military expert in Russia has been going over the documents hijacked from the Pentagon with a magnifying glass. Nobody knows how long they might have had their hands on them before we ever noticed the leak. The reports tell all about how Uncle Sam thinks the war in Ukraine is going. One of the things that the Kremlin is smiling about is the performance of our “smart bombs.” It seems that the ones which aren’t total duds, due to a manufacturing defect, are easily jammed by Russian equipment. That makes them much less effective.
Russia happy with the news
Russia is really happy with the news which recently broke about a Pentagon leak. They probably knew about it long before we did. Besides all the chaos and confusion the leak is causing between us and our allies, since we also got caught spying on them, there are a whole bunch of details favorable to the Russian side of the conflict.
For instance, one portion of the leak describes how “American-made smart bombs are falling victim to Russian electronic jamming in Ukraine, causing them to miss their targets.” A Defense Department official confirmed that.
In some cases, the report notes, “the weapons were also failing to detonate due to a technical issue, which Ukrainian troops have since addressed.” That’s a factory production issue but they found a work-around solution. The picture painted is a bleak one for Ukraine and the West but Russia is thrilled with everything they’re reading.
Leaked info has revealed that Russia has been jamming JDAM bombs in Ukraine.
The problems with the JDAMs were kept hidden, including their poor detonation rate. The JDAM relies heavily on GPS signals, these signals override any IMU information, which explains why spoofing the… pic.twitter.com/UYz4OXzBH5
— LogKa (@LogKa11) April 12, 2023
As Politico reports, “the news adds to an increasingly bleak picture of the state of Ukraine’s military.” Vlad is thinking that he might not even need to use his nukes after all.
“The documents show that Washington has grave concerns about Kyiv’s dwindling ammunition and air defenses, which could cause it to fall short of its goals for the anticipated spring counteroffensive.”
Back in December, the Pentagon started “sending Kyiv advanced equipment that could convert unguided air-dropped munitions into precision-guided ‘smart bombs‘ that can hit Russian targets with a higher degree of accuracy.” Russia has jammers.
Too many duds
While the precision guided bombs “can be launched by a variety of aircraft such as bombers and fighters,” the weapons “have experienced higher-than-expected dud rates and have missed their targets on the battlefield, according to a leaked slide prepared by the Joint Staff and confirmed by a U.S. official.”
The ones missing the target were affected by the jammers Russia has been using. The duds are a different story.
“In some cases, the bomb fuses were not arming when they were released, causing the weapon to fail to detonate. The Ukrainian air force put in place a fix to ensure the bombs are arming correctly, according to the slide.”
"Ukrainian bombs equipped with U.S. guidance systems, known as JDAMs, have failed recently. It speculates that bomb fuses are not being armed correctly and that GPS signal issues, potentially caused by Russian jamming efforts, could be at play"https://t.co/6W6OhcJYAM
— DF_AJ (@DF_AJ) April 12, 2023
Along with the report are “a diagram of the munition and lays out the technical issue the weapons are experiencing as well as the proposed fix.” How convenient, Russia says. Especially because the report also “provides a detailed account of the weapon’s failure rate in several recent attacks, including the dates and the number of munitions it took to take out the target.”
Ukraine found a fix for the duds but can’t do a thing about the jammers. “Russia is using GPS jamming to interfere with the weapons’ targeting process, according to the slide.” That’s also been confirmed by “a separate person familiar with the issue who’s not in the U.S. government.”
Mick Mulroy a former Pentagon official and retired CIA officer explains “I do think there may be concern that the Russians may be jamming the signal used to direct the JDAMs, which would answer why these munitions are not performing in the manner expected and how they perform in other war zones.“
