ARS 135 says that ECM works like an area jammer. Doesn't that jam the vehicle's own wireless communications? Including remote rigger control of drone vehicles? And if your enemy is 100 meters away with a missile launcher, which is outside of the ECM's area of effect, what does the ECM do for you?

Yaar, it can.


That depends on a couple factors, not least of which is the signal ratings and ECCM and relative distance 'tween rigger and drones/vehicles, use of non-standard wireless links, etc.


Prevent the enemy rigger from driving the drone-missile into your t-bird.

Possibly also disrupt the ability to lock onto your vehicle with sensors, and maybe disrupt the missile as it enters the AoE (kinda like turning into a DoM inside the AoE).

If the missile is wire-guided or thermal seeking, nothing changes.

If it uses any form of radar guidance, your missile is probably going to miss the intended target.

If it requires the launcher to maintain sight picture and lock, the missile will act a lot like a rocket when it hit the "wall" and loses link with the launcher.

Most missiles have different sensors that they use.

The Shrike, for example, uses the active ECM signal to lock on to its target.

The Javelin has a computer in the launcher with side and plan images of vehicles. The computer automatically selects based on the image of the vehicle the best location to hit to to cause maximum damage. The missile carries an image taken with the launcher as its target.

But let's face it in SR ECM and ECCM operates on magic and not on reality.

Also as I would think that the people running the ECM should know the pattern and signals that are being used to generate the ECM and would compensate by filtering those out for their own use. People on the outside would'nt know what those are without significate analysis which I would imagine would take too long during combat.

At least that's how I picture ECM working.

The javelin just goes for the most prominent thermal image, user selects top-attack or direct attack.

And good call on anti-radiation missiles, having a passive sensor in the missile would allow it to fly right up the ass of whatever noise machine was causing you trouble.

I stand corrected on the javelin

Few SSMs of the anti-tank variety have ECM capability, but with miniaturization of computers I would see this becoming far more common over the course of the next fifty years, especially as the Russians have ECM capabilities on their tanks. However, anti-radiation missiles are still as effective now as they will be in the future.

Actually, it doesn't have to. You can leave "holes" in the jamming at different specific tight-band frequencies and allow your own communications through the noise. There are nifty technical and mathematical things you can do to make those holes dynamic and unpredictable. I could go into detail about that,¹ but the bottom line is, in the abstract, you can jam other people's communications without affecting yours, like it says in your hymnal.


¹I don't go into technical detail on DSF anymore. If you want the full description of how something like this works, you'll either have to catch me in person, on Skype, or look it up yourself. =i)