War In The Fourth Dimernsion - US Electronic Warfare From The Vietman War To The Present

War in the Fourth Dimension – US Electronic Warfare from the Vietnam War to the Present (2001) by Alfred Price, published by Greenhill Books.

War used to be comparatively straightforward. Two groups of men assembled on opposite sides of a field, waved identifiable flags and attempted to hit one another with increasingly unpleasant pieces of metal. Then somebody discovered electronics, whereupon the battlefield expanded into an invisible fourth dimension populated by radar beams, radio signals, guided missiles, jamming pods and highly trained people staring anxiously at oscilloscopes.

In this extensively illustrated history, respected aviation and electronic-warfare specialist Alfred Price examines the development of American electronic warfare from the Vietnam War to the technologically bewildering conflicts of the modern era. It is the story of the struggle to detect the enemy without being detected, to transmit without being intercepted, and to make the other side’s extremely expensive equipment believe something completely untrue.

The Vietnam War demonstrated with considerable urgency that control of the electromagnetic spectrum was no longer an optional technical refinement. Radar-guided surface-to-air missiles and increasingly sophisticated air-defence networks could make life very brief indeed for aircraft crews, so the United States developed specialised aircraft, radar-warning receivers, electronic countermeasures and the wonderfully named Wild Weasel missions. These involved deliberately provoking enemy radar operators into revealing themselves—a military technique broadly equivalent to walking through a darkened room shouting, “Come on then, where are you?”

Price follows the subsequent contest through later American operations, showing how electronic warfare evolved alongside radar, missiles, aircraft and communications technology. Each improvement produced a countermeasure, which produced a counter-countermeasure, which presumably produced a committee, a procurement programme and several billion dollars’ worth of equipment whose precise purpose remained classified.

Yet this is not merely a catalogue of mysterious boxes bolted beneath aircraft. It explains the operational thinking behind them and the increasingly decisive role played by electronic intelligence, radar suppression, jamming and deception. By the time of the Gulf War, the invisible battle could begin long before the visible one, with enemy defences confused, blinded or persuaded that the incoming attack was somewhere other than where it inconveniently happened to be.

Packed with photographs, diagrams and technical detail, War in the Fourth Dimension is ideal for readers interested in military aviation, Cold War technology, the Vietnam War, radar, signals intelligence or the elaborate modern art of persuading a missile that it has misunderstood the situation. It reveals a form of warfare in which the most important weapons cannot be seen, the loudest confrontations make no sound, and victory may depend upon whether one electronic box can lie more convincingly than another.

An impressively specialised volume for the military-technology enthusiast, aviation historian or anyone who has ever wondered what all those peculiar lumps attached to combat aircraft are actually doing. The short answer is that they are helping the occupants avoid being converted into a cautionary footnote.

ISBN: 9781853674716. This copy is in As New condition: clean, exceptionally well preserved and apparently spared deployment in any hostile electromagnetic environment. Sold by Crappy Old Books, where the stock may be old, but at least none of it is actively attempting to jam your radar.

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