05 December 2023

Hensoldt, Rafael partner for naval ECM

by Richard Scott

A C-GEM offboard active decoy is fired from an Israeli Sa'ar 6 corvette. Rafael has teamed with Hensoldt to offer the German Navy an ECM suite featuring both C-GEM and the Digital Shark onboard jammer. (Rafael)

German sensor house Hensoldt has teamed with Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to offer the German Navy a new electronic countermeasures (ECM) suite combining both onboard and offboard jamming components.

Announcing the co-operation agreement on 27 November, Hensoldt said the tie-up was initially aimed at providing the Deutsche Marine with “a solution to close the capability gap in the self-protection of its ships”. According to the company, the teaming seeks to blend knowledge derived from Hensoldt's own Kalaetron Attack jammer with Rafael's existing Digital Shark shipboard ECM system and C-GEM active offboard decoy.

Kalaetron is a fully digital electronic warfare product family developed by Hensoldt to meet a variety of airborne self-protection, electronic attack, and signals intelligence missions. As one part of this portfolio, the Kalaetron Attack escort jammer pod combines cognitive software elements (based on artificial intelligence algorithms) with a fully digitised broadband sensor and an electronically controlled/software-defined jammer.

“[Kalaetron Attack] has proven to be very effective in neutralising air-defence radars in several test campaigns,” Hensoldt said in a statement. “Now [we are] using the knowledge gained from land and airborne tests to develop a capability for the electronic protection of naval vessels.”

Rafael's Digital Shark shipboard jammer is designed to counter multiple simultaneous threats approaching on different axes, and has been exported to a number of international navies. The C-GEM active decoy round, currently entering service with the Israeli Navy, is a reactive rocket-powered countermeasure that deploys a jammer offboard to effect angular seduction of radar-guided anti-ship missiles.

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