Seems the RN uses cheapo Garmin GPS in Gulf

Why should we be so concerned about a mere handful of military personnel.?

The military establishment kidnapped and banished the inhabitants of Diego Garcia just to keep on the right side of the americans.

So if they can do that to the entire population of an archipelago in our name why should we complain about what happens to our military people when they have a very minor version of the same thing done to them?
 
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Why should we be so concerned about a mere handful of military personnel.?

The military establishment kidnapped and banished the inhabitants of Diego Garcia just to keep on the right side of the americans.

So if they can do that to the entire population of an archipelago in our name why should we complain about what happens to our military people when they have a very minor version of the same thing done to them?

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Fancy saying that in a Union Street pub? Or along the Hard? Or to a relative?

Didn't think so. Silly remark that man.
 
Your post is utter nonsence.Does any nation have a blameless history?

According to your logic it would be acceptable (for example)for German troops to be illegally detained because of the activities of the SS during WW2?

How about French soldiers?Fair game because their government authorised the sinking of a Greenpeace ship?


These young people are out there in a real conflict and deserve all the support we can give them.
 
The more expensive MilSpec kit will be, of course, NOT handheld but fitted. As it is on the mothership. Many will have cheap 'civilian' handhelds as backup devices - and why not!

Even a cheapo' GPS device is more accurate, by an order of magnitude, than all that preceeded it. .....Usually.
And it can readily be held in the door, so a photo can be taken looking down on the ship while showing the co-ordinates. Difficult, with the bolted-in kit....!

Silly boy!


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Given that the area is close to being a war zone, I was sort of expecting there to be some sort of signal blocking or scrambling going on out there, so that civvie gizmology would be u/s, and it would need superduperjamesbondie sort of kit to actually know where you are. But maybe I just read too many hi-tec military thrillers.
 
Hee hee! The answer is much more simple

If they try to show the position on their own gear nobody believes it cos its an MOD Interzone 2000 position and the first thing that commentators will say is that they can edit it ad infinitum

With a Garmin Etrek they present a position from a tried and tested 3rd party instrument which they can't interfere with
 
- Effective jamming techniques -

Yes, creating noise is easy, and depending on power, that noise can cover a moderate area. The trouble with creating noise is that you're very easy to detect - so step one in any electronic warfare is to take out the jammers. Easy. Just home in on them.

Next, all mission critical systems do not rely on GPS alone. Most also use Inertial Navigation, which will diverge very slowly from the last good GPS fix. Since usually we're talking seconds here, this fact is insignificant in weapons dellivery.

For the grunt on the ground, it's a bit more difficult, agreed. Luckily, he moves slowly, and usually with a compass, often with good visual fix on where he's trying to get to or what he's trying to do.

And throughout, if you're jammed, you know it. The GPS doesn't indicate. Nice, fail safe system. Fall back to other methods . . . .

False signals are not on the agenda yet, and probably never would be. Would need a set of satellites matching the existing sets . . . but if so, that would be a nasty can of worms!
 
The question I have is why SA was removed? and still hasn't been reinstated. New European and Russian systems will mean that the GPS system of today may not be the same in the future, even though not live yet.
 
Pay attention at the back. Let's go over this again./forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

The Navstar/GPS System transmits on a range of frequencies, and costs the US DoD about $750 million per annum to maintain.

The Space Segment satellites transmit what was called a 'Coarse Acquisition Signal' (L1), which was intended to permit cruise missiles to self-locate into 'an area'. The trouble was that the accuracy of positions so determined turned out to be very significantly better than expected - around 20-50 metres instead of several hundred - and the satellites couldn't be brought back for re-jigging. This 'CA' (L1) signal is what we civilians use in our GPS kits, now giving accuracies around 15metres 2RDMS.

MilSpec GPS devices additionally use the considerably more accurate Precision Code encrypted signal, which can give accuracies around 0.3metres 2RDMS, allowing precision guidance after use of both the CA and the P-Code. This is the accuracy that cruise missiles and terminally-guided munitions use, and which gives US military hardware a significant advantage on the modern battlefield.

GPS wiki

It is a matter for concern - not openly stated as yet - whether the ship's boats captured by the Iranians had the higher-capability MilSpec GPS devices installed, or whether they were equipped with CivilStandard kit. Clearly, a couple of MilSpec devices falling into the hands of the 'evil empire' - be that the Iranians or the Chinese - will worry the Americans, and us, considerably as the opposition will be able to copy much of the advanced firmware design and use the system against us.

Let us just hope that the ships' boats had 'el cheapo' kit fitted.
 
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step one in any electronic warfare is to take out the jammers. Easy. Just home in on them.

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I'm afraid Jimbo is several decades behind the game. Cheap and small GPS jammers have been available for a long time now. The size of a beer can, coupled to a car battery, sitting on a hill top. A dozen of them.... Do read some of the Google hits.


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But that's not the point. Pros are now much more concerned at the imminent emergence of effective 'signal spoofing' which introduces a pre-selected error vector into the position calculated by a User Segment ( GPS receiver ) device.

Don't tell me it can't be done.

Anyone who has been associated with military navigation at all in the past 60 years will be aware of 'meakoning' of radio beacon signals, famously during the Berlin Airlift, and of 'angle denial' and 'range gate stealing' in airborne radar ECM. There's a huge international EW industry built on the modern equivalents of such early Cold War techniques as those mentioned above.

According to Jimbo...
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"False signals are not on the agenda yet, ....but if so, that would be a nasty can of worms!"

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Sorry, Jimbo, 'false signals' research is very much on the agenda today. Especially if the 'Dark Side' now has its hands on some of the latest kit.....

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If any military system was compromised by getting hold of one example

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I have only one thing to say to that.... er, three....

Mig-25, Lt Victor Bolenko, 1976
Mig-29, Capt. Alex Zuyev, 1989
Mig-19, Capt Lee Chul-Su, 1996

...and that's not even mentioning

Typhoon 'Red October', Capt Marko Ramius, 1984



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'cheapo'..?

We use the Etrex 'in the field' and find it a splendid bit of kit (once you get around the highly-non-intuitive nature of the menus). Yes, I prefer the MLRs - and use them on my boat - but the Etrex is fine for navigation, rough site survey, etc, and with its built-in compass and altimeter, I would guess it would be ideal for egress...
 
My problem with the picture is that the helicopter is presumably the same one that had been monitoring the early stages of the search. It has returned to HMS Cornwall, they've lost comms with the search boats and have returned to find out what is going on. They then take a picture of the searched merchant vessel with a gps handheld but we have no idea how long after the original event this has taken place. If the two govts positions differ by a matter of kms, if the copter has only been gone for even 10-15 mins by the time it returns the vessel may have steamed from one territorial water to another...

obviously all conjecture and guesswork so probably not even worth reading
 
Bilbo,

I was well aware of the existence of small jammers - didn't need to google that. You miss my point, which is that effective jamming isn't yet around.

I gave just a few of the reasons. 1. Jamming is 'fail obvious', and secondary navigation then takes over. 2. Spoofing (agreed, very much on the agenda, I didn't express that very well) is not yet real as far as I'm aware, except under control of the satellite operators. 3. Jammers are easily detected and taken out - even if there are a lot of them. I don't understand why you deny this. And in the seaborne case we were examining, there are only limited points where these can be deployed anyway.

There are tactical reasons for not jamming too - you deny the system to your own side.

In the context of this discussion I'd agree that GPS denial through jamming over an area is possible, but it would not be useful.
 
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'cheapo'..?

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I refere the Honourable Gentleman to the heading of the original post...

...and I understand from my spies at Filton that the stylish new drinks and goodies-for-sale trollies being built for the A380 will have Barclaycard swipe terminals on one side, and Etrex GPS handhelds on t'other - so the trolley dollies can find their way about.

As for technothriller addict Jimbo - "Pay attention, now, 007!" - I would refer him to the Association of Old Crows - UK Chapter

crow.jpg


Get some in.....!


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