Normally, division staffs and higher echelons plan for the use of IEW assets. However, you may be in a situation where you have MI unit assets either attached or in DS of your unit. In either case, you must be able to properly direct those assets in support of your R&S plan, as well as your unit’s CR plan. To do that, you should understand:
IEW assets belonging to MI units do three things: they provide combat information; they provide data which contributes to production of intelligence; and they give your unit an EW capability. EW should be a vital element of your unit’s command, control, and communications countermeasures (C³CM) program. EW is one way commanders protect their electronic systems while attacking the enemy’s electronic systems. Your staff should plan for use of EW within three broad mission areas:
Defend
The defend mission includes your use of electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) to protect your unit’s electronic systems. ECCM includes proper use of signal operation instructions (SOI), terrain masking, and proper radio and television operator procedures. FM 24-33 contains detailed information on ECCM. The defend mission also includes ESM to find and target enemy jammers and ECM to screen friendly communications from the enemy.
Degrade or Disrupt
You degrade or disrupt enemy electronic systems by targeting electronic emitters or jamming electronic receivers. Normally, the small number of jammers available to you forces you to be highly selective about which targets to disrupt.
The S3 is in charge of the degrade or disrupt mission. You must support this mission through intelligence and ESM which intercept, identify, and locate potential targets.
Deceive
Electronic deception is normally controlled by division or corps. Deceiving, or electronic deception, provides false information to the enemy through electronic devices. It is intended to induce the enemy into acting against their best interests. Deception is achieved by feeding false or misleading information to enemy electronic sensors, or by transmitting it directly into operational channels. (Normally, this is part of an overall deception plan.) Make sure that what the enemy collects electronically agrees with, or at least does not refute, the overall deception scheme.
IEW systems collect combat information through ESM. Essentially, consider your IEW assets as one more source you can use to help answer your commander’s PIR. However, you do not directly task this source, specify which assets do what, nor emplace these assets. You do specify what you want to know, and coordinate with your IEWSE and S3 to make sure your IEW assets do not interfere with your unit’s scheme of maneuver. We will address this later in this chapter.
More than likely, your IEW assets will spend significant time supporting or executing the EW degrade or disrupt mission. Look at this mission as consisting of two components: passive and active. ESM is the passive part. That is, your IEW assets work to collect information that will support the ECM, or the active part, of the mission.
ECM consists of jamming and deception. Essentially, jamming delivers a high level of power to an enemy receiver, preventing that receiver from receiving its intended transmission. Your IEW assets must radiate energy to do this. Therefore, they are susceptible to enemy countermeasures.
Deception causes the enemy to misinterpret what is received by electronic systems. Once again, your IEW assets (and any other assets you choose to use) must transmit to deceive. Therefore, deception is active as well. More detailed descriptions of EW are in FM 34-1, Chapter 5.