The U.S. Marine Corps deployed a new portable signal jammer system last week to disrupt an unmanned Iranian aircraft and force it to plunge into the sea. The new integrated Light Marine Air Defense System (LMADIS) interrupts the signal between drones and their operators, causing them to be exposed to physics and inevitably to gravity.
The incident occurred on the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Gulf of Oman with the Persian Gulf. The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, stationed on the amphibious assault ship Boxer, parked an LMADIS jammer on the boxer’s flight deck to defend itself against Iranian UAVs known to be operating in the area. The Marines discovered an unmanned Iranian aircraft and blocked it when the drone approached the boxer within 1,000 meters.
LMADIS is a weapon of the unmanned counter antenna system (Counter-UAS), which consists of two Polaris MRZR scooters: a command vehicle and a jammer. According to a C4ISRNet article earlier this year, LMADIS consists of a “tactical air surveillance radar RPS-42, a small EO / IR camera, a Skyview RF detection system and a Sierra Nevada MODi RF jammer”.
The LMADIS setting procedure looks something like this: The RPS-42 detects the drone on the radar or Skyview detects the back and forth radio signals between the drone operators and the drone itself. Next, the electro-optical / infrared camera is on the incoming drone trains to make positive identification as friendly or hostile. In the event of hostility, the Marines point the MODi jammer at the drone and prevent the radio commands from the drone operators from reaching it. Gravity does the rest.
The LMADIS vehicle was on the bow of the boxer and was even held in front of the camera by another Iranian drone during a reconnaissance flight. The Iranian armed forces apparently did not assess LMADIS as a threat to their drone, although the system has been shown on US social media sites on the decks of other naval ships operating in the Middle East.
The MODi jammer has been tested against various civil drones, including the DJI Phantom 4 Pro, X8 Fixed Wing and Airhawk. The C4ISRNet article quotes the program manager for LMADIS with the words: “We have recognized that the threat to the user interface is constantly changing.” One day the enemy phantom professionals fly, the next day they fly a fixed wing with certain components. What really helps the fleet is what it flies and how it can be defeated so that we can turn back to the fleet and offer them a better product to keep up to date with the enemy’s current threats. ”
The Iranian drone was almost certainly larger than a commercial craft drone. According to a Pentagon spokesman quoted by NPR, the drone was an “unmanned fixed-wing flight system (UAS)”. It could have been one of Iran’s Mohajer drones.
Iran claims that the drone s was a Mohajer-4, but also claims that the drone was not shot down.
While both the commercial civil drones that LMADIS has been tested on and Iran’s military drones are likely to use the same control systems and frequencies, it is interesting that the United States appears to have downplayed the jammer’s capabilities since they were only tested against civil drones ,
The broader integrated marine air defense system is designed to fire drones, fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters and includes both non-kinetic (jamming) and kinetic weapons to fire drones. The kinetic weapon is a 7.62-millimeter mini-gun mounted on the new Humvee replacement, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. The Marine Corps plans to eventually equip LMADIS with laser weapons.
LMADIS is part of the Marine Corps air defense artillery and part of a broader effort to restore short-range air defense. While America’s overwhelming advantage in air power has made US ground forces safe from airstrikes in the past, the proliferation of drones as a weapon of war has created a weapon that could easily sneak under the patrol of F-35 fighters to marines on the ground attack.
The use of drones by groups like ISIS, smaller powers like Iran, and even Russia and China make an air defense system that can shoot anything from commercial drones to enemy attack helicopters and fighter planes a must.