Armada Analysis - Podcasts

Ukraine has benefitted from supplies of US Electronic Warfare (EW) kit and expertise. Ukraine’s allies must be able to step up to quickly fill any void, in terms of EW assistance, left by Uncle Sam’s isolationism. At the same time, European allies must continue enhancing their defences against Mr. Putin’s regime. How can US EW capabilities be substituted for Ukraine? What are Ukraine’s electromagnetic needs as the war continues? These questions, and more, are the focus of this episode of Armada’s Radioflash! podcast with Oleksandr ‘Sashko’ Matviienko, a defence journalist and analyst from the publication CounteroffensivePro.

Whatever the long-term effect of DeepSeek, the news thrust Chinese technological innovation into sharp relief. Advances such as these could have major strategic ramifications for accepted US technological pre-eminence. Not least of which in the sensing domain, which a report entitled China’s Remote Sensing, published in December 2024 by OTH Intelligence, discusses in detail.

In this Radioflash! episode we talk to one of the report’s authors Tate Nurkin, a previous Radioflash! guest, about Chinese advances in sensing technologies across the board: How will the Chinese government and armed forces collect, process, store and use all this sensor data? What will be the impact of the dual use sensing technology being developed by the PRC? What effect is corruption having on China’s ability to secure the sensing capabilities the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) needs? Likewise, what impact will the PLA’s recent reorganisation of the Strategic Support Force into the Information Support Force have on PLA sensing capabilities writ large? All these topics, and more, come under discussion in this latest episode.

The new US Congress, and the administration of President Donald Trump, will have a heavy workload regarding the importance of the electromagnetic spectrum to America’s strength, security and prosperity. EW spending priorities will need be balanced with other defence and security needs. No matter how big any budgetary increases may be, economies must be made. There simply will not be enough available cash to fund every requirement. Meanwhile, the need to educate lawmakers on EW’s strengths and limitations will continue. Furthermore, the US Department of Defence bureaucracy must evolve to accommodate the need to innovate and deploy EW capabilities at pace. As our Radioflash! guest Ken Miller, director of advocacy and outreach for the Association of Old Crows’ international EW organisation explains, the next five years look busy.

Drawing on his operational experience in the Royal Navy, and time in industry, Alasdair Gilchrist, our guest on episode 16 of Radioflash! says we need to start thinking about how to engage threats without stovepipes.

Mr. Gilchrist, who has recently embarked on a new career as a consultant, has developed the SMART (Sensors and Measures Against Realistic Threats) Kill concept of operations. This takes the effects-based approach to prosecuting threats a step forward. He argues that traditional thinking about hard kill and soft kill approaches are becoming obsolete. The plethora of emerging threats militaries are facing, the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle (UAV) menace being a good example, is forcing this rethink.

Within the SMART Kill concept, sensing stresses the importance of threat comprehension. Are we understanding the real, and not the perceived, threat? This is particularly relevant on future battlefields where misinformation and disinformation risks clouding our threat sensing and comprehension. When engaging a threat, are we using our effects judiciously and responsibly? Should we be sending kinetics aloft to counter UAVs, when jamming may kill such threats just as effectively? The danger posed by swarms of UAVs aptly underscores this point. Can the SMART Kill approach allow us to use technologies which may not be exquisite, but which may perform the mission just as well, but at a fraction of the cost?

The Joint All Domain Command and Control architecture, or JADC2, is the US Department of Defence’s networking and computing project that will enable MDO. JADC2 will see the inter- and intra-force connection of all personnel, weapons, sensors, platforms, subsystems and capabilities at all levels of war. The undertaking is ambitious. Reports say that since 2022 the Pentagon has spent up to $2.6 billion on JADC2. A further $9 billion could be spent on the initiative before the end of the decade.

In episode 15 of Armada’s Radioflash! podcast we talk to Leslie Hulser, executive vice president, corporate strategy of Persistent Systems. We examine the status of JADC2, what this overarching effort has achieved to date, potential problems and shortcomings, and the work that still needs to be performed.

So-called ‘sub-threshold’ actions by Moscow, which aim to amplify destabilisation but are short of outright war, are occurring in the electromagnetic spectrum. Estonia has witnessed recent disruption to civil aviation strongly suspected to have been caused by Russian GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) jamming. GNSS jamming has also caused disruption to everyday life in Estonia. Ride sharing services and food deliveries are two consumer services affected by Russian GNSS attack.

At the same time, Estonia has faced regular and significant state-sponsored Russian cyberattacks. Barring a major political change in Russia, there are few signs that Moscow’s hybrid warfare against Estonia will cease any time soon.

However, it is not all bad news. Domestic science and technology ingenuity is playing its part. Estonia has world-class innovation focused on nullifying and reducing the severity of nefarious Russian actions in the spectrum. Tallinn’s strategy writ large is not just to prevent Russian invasion but to deter it.

In this latest edition of Armada’s Radioflash! podcast we chat about these and other issues with John Longhurst, chief executive officer of Tangent Link and longtime Estonian resident.

An increasingly congested radio spectrum is set to challenge the limits of human cognition in the search for the signal of interest. In this episode of Radioflash! we catch up with Patrick ‘Krown’ Killingsworth, EpiSci’s  director of autonomy projects.

We define the terms Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) and their unique capabilities. ML algorithms are trained on huge amounts of data which makes these algorithms great for processing huge amounts of data, a key requirement in Signals Intelligence (SIGINT). The application of AI and ML in SIGINT is not necessarily about replacing the human but helping the SIGINT operator sort these data. Nonetheless, the continuing introduction of AI and ML into SIGINT analysis prompts concern and enthusiasm in equal measure. Ensuring that enough data are available for training algorithms creates challenges given the paucity of data which the SIGINT cadre may be interested in.

We talk about the risks of using synthetic data for training and tackling the risk by anticipating potential problems from the start. AI- and ML-enabled SIGINT systems continue to get smarter, faster and more accurate. The future brings challenges in terms of moving this SIGINT technology from the strategic level to the tactical edge, although edge computing in the tactical domain should help no end in this regard.

In this latest episode of the Radioflash! podcast we are joined by Juliana Suess, a research fellow studying space security at the Royal United Services Institute defence and security thinktank in London. We discuss counterpace weapons, both kinetic and electronic, and their long history. The influence of cyberwarfare as a counterspace weapon also falls under our gaze.

We examine the changing nature of counterspace warfare and the fact that attacks may no longer only be the preserve of nation states. We tackle the use of space Electronic Warfare (EW) during the ongoing war in Ukraine, and Russian capabilities. Moreover, the influence of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) jamming forms part of our discussion. We also talk about the steps that state and non-state actors can take to reduce their risks from space EW.

A new book by historian Dr. Tony Redding, entitled V-Bombers on Britain’s Nuclear Frontline, lifts the veil on aspects of the V-Bomber force that have hitherto been shrouded in mystery. In this Radioflash! podcast he joins us to tackle such questions and to share other results of his research on the UK’s nuclear deterrent. More details of Dr. Redding’s publications can be found on his website.

Element6 produces synthetic diamonds and details on how these are formed can be found here. The company is involved in a Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiative called LADDIS (Large Area Device-quality Diamond Substrates). LADDIS is examining ways in which laboratory-grown diamonds can be used in microelectronics.

If you want to learn more about the role diamonds play in defence electromagnetics? Tune in to our latest Radioflash! podcast. We will be chatting to Ian Friel, Element6’s business development programme manager and principal scientist Andrew Edmonds.

In episode 8 of the Radioflash! podcast, we chatted to Colonel Jeffrey H. ‘Fish’ Fischer, a European and global security expert, and author of the Curt Nover series of thrillers. Fish talked about the Electronic Warfare (EW) implications of Israel’s ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. This discussion generated significant interest and prompted an old friend of the podcast, Major Erik Bamford, to get in touch. Maj. Bamford is the Norwegian Armed Forces’ staff officer for electronic warfare and the Association of Old Crows’ director of region 1. Region 1 covers Africa, Europe and Middle East.

In this episode, we discuss the unique challenges inherent in performing EW in built-up areas. Maj. Bamford outlines the current state-of-the-art regarding the general literature on urban warfare. He talks about the place of electronic warfare within wider theories and approaches to urban combat. It is noteworthy, he says, that there is a paucity of dedicated texts looking at the peculiarities of EW in built-up areas. The examination of urban EW has tended to focus on electronic warfare’s role in the counter-improvised explosive device battle.

Meanwhile, troops must fight in a complex built-up environment home to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Radio Frequency (RF) emitters. To further complicate matters, radio waves have strange behaviours in urban environments, bouncing off hard surfaces and working badly underground. Certain building materials either reflect or absorb RF in particular ways. These phenomena only serve to further complicate the EW cadres’ work in the urban environment.

Maj. Bamford is keen to work with other EW practitioners who share his interest in urban electronic warfare and he can be contacted via the Armada website.

For this episode of Radioflash! we are joined by Colonel Jeffrey H. ‘Fisch’ Fischer. Col Fischer is a European and global security expert, and author of the Curt Nover series of thrillers.

We will be asking how the Israeli intelligence community seemingly either missed warnings that the attack was going to take place, or failed to act on those warnings? How did Hamas’ intelligence picture seemingly work so efficiently in allowing the organisation to pull off such an audacious attack? What effect will anticipated subterranean warfare in Gaza’s conurbations have on Israel’s application of electronic warfare? Join us as we explore these questions and more.

In this podcast we are joined by Colonel Jeffrey H. ‘Fisch’ Fischer, a European and global security expert, Ukraine watcher and author of the Curt Nover series of thrillers. We discuss initial perceptions of Russian airpower and ground-based air defence strengths. Premature predictions of the ineffectiveness of Ukrainian airpower are questioned, while Ukrainian success in destroying Russian air defence systems are highlighted. Why is Russia’s use of the electromagnetic spectrum seeming to contribute to Russian Air Force fratricide? What role have uninhabited aerial vehicles played in the battle for air supremacy? Will the Link-16 tactical datalink be used by the Ukrainian Air Force and what effect might this have on the battle? Moreover, how is Ukraine’s military contributing to the ongoing OCA battle? Should Ukraine win the OCA battle, how might this achievement affect the wider war? All these questions fall under the Radioflash! spotlight. Tune in to find out more.

Silvus Technologies Jimi Henderson joins Armada’s military communications webpage and monthly newsletter editor Dr. Thomas Withington on this special podcast to examine the challenges of establishing and using tactical communications networks in congested and contested environments. We look at how Silvus Technologies is responding to those challenges to provide the security, speed, reliability, and electronic warfare resiliency needed to achieve Spectrum Dominance.

How do we manoeuvre in the information space? What steps should governments and militaries be taking to ensure we are safeguarded against disinformation’s adverse effects? In our latest Radioflash! podcast we talk to Ewen Stockbridge, chief executive officer of 360ISR. 360ISR is an operational support company specialising in the field of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. We chat to Mr. Stockbridge about these challenges, and more.

Once again, this year’s Association of Old Crows (AOC) Electronic Warfare Europe conference and exhibition was a resounding success. Held in the delightful city of Bonn, Western Germany, Multi-Domain Integration (MDI) was the event’s overarching theme. MDI sees the integration of all personnel, capabilities and bases across all services to perform synchronous operations at all levels of war. This risks creating headaches for electromagnetic spectrum operations command and control. Major Erik Bamford, principle electronic warfare staff officer in the Norwegian armed forces and director of the AOC’s region 1 covering Europe, Africa, the Middle East and India, made this the theme of his presentation. In this Radioflash! podcast, he explains how these challenges can be addressed and overcome.

The article discussed the British Army’s recent acquisition of a tropospheric communications system. As the name suggests, tropospheric techniques exploit the troposphere. This is a layer of the atmosphere stretching up to 43,000 feet (13,106 metres) above the Earth’s surface. When aimed at an angle towards the troposphere, some radio signals can jump over the horizon reaching distances of up to 500 kilometres (311 miles).

Tropospheric communications are proving attractive for long-range military communications, joining their high frequency and satellite communications brethren. Why is tropospheric radio in vogue? What can it do that other forms of communication cannot? To answer these, and other questions, we are joined on this Radioflash! podcast by Daniel Gizinski, Comtech Telecommunication’s chief strategy officer.

Ericsson predicted the world would have one billion 5G subscribers by early 2023. This could grow to five billion by 2028. As the ether gets more saturated, hostile actors have more places to hide their signals of interest. Moreover, new techniques like artificial intelligence are coming to the fore to help the electronic warfare expert find the signal in the noise. Joining us on the podcast to help make sense of these challenges is Taph Willumsen, head of training and cyber and electromagnetic activities, at MASS.

Keen eyed members of our audience may remember an article we published in late November entitled Fast Forward the Future. This looked at the emerging field of Fictional Intelligence (FICINT). In 2021 the Royal Air Force commissioned a three-volume series of books to imagine the RAF in 2040. These looked at the challenges it, and the wider world, may face.

In episode 2 of Radioflash! we are joined by Peter W. Singer, an expert on fictional intelligence, founder and managing partner at Useful Fiction. He is also a New York Times bestselling author writing on technology and warfare.

Mr. Singer and your correspondent will be speaking at a panel event on 15th February discussing Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy. More details on Mr. Singer’s and his colleagues’ work can be found at useful-fiction.com. You can also purchase his books online and they are available in all good bookshops.

Fittingly, our first guest is Dr. Bleddyn Bowen, associate professor of international relations at the University of Leicester. He is the author of two books on the militarisation of the cosmos: War in Space: Strategy, Spacepower and Geopolitics and the recently published Original Sin: Power, Technology and War in Outer Space.

Space has never been more important to the military. The heavens host spy satellites collecting intelligence and communications satellites letting navies, armies and air forces keep in touch. Yet space is competitive. The US and her allies depend on it as do their rivals Russia and the People’s Republic of China. Anti-satellite weapons risk spacecraft safety. Meanwhile the private sector is taking on a host of missions once the preserve of the military. We sit down with Dr. Bowen to talk about these vexing challenges.

Human factors play a key role in Electronic Warfare (EW) but how do we empower EW practitioners to meet today’s and tomorrow’s challenges? How do the tasks of today’s EW practitioners differ from those of yesterday? What tools do today’s and tomorrow’s practitioners need to meet contemporary and future threats? To discuss these important subjects Armada’s EW Podcast chats to Dave Devine and Phil Guy of Mellori Solutions, a leading Australian EW company.

The article by space expert Dwayne Day revealed these satellites had provided SIGINT to the British military during the Falklands War. Mr. Day tells us more about this extraordinary revelation in our latest Armada Electronic Warfare Podcast.

Elettronica has developed the E4Shield virus inactivation system which is effective against Covid-19 and several other pathogens.

In our latest Electronic Warfare Podcast we chat to Simone Astiaso, Elettronica’s vice president of engineering and operations, about this new technology and its potential.

Elon Musk despatched terminals to provide wideband internet coverage via his Starlink satellite constellation. His actions mirrored those of Viasat which had provided terminals before the invasion.

Both Starlink and Viasat experienced Russian cyberattacks but these were quickly rectified with software updates.

In our latest Armada MilComms Podcast we talk to Adam Bartosiewicz, vice president of WB Group about the provision of private sector SATCOM in Ukraine, and its tactical and operational significance.

Jeffrey Fischer has 30 years’ experience with the US military. He has worked as an EW officer and completed seven combat tours in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans. His new novel Balkan Reprisal will be published this autumn.

In our latest podcast, we chat to Jeff about Russia’s use of electronic warfare in the Ukraine conflict so far, and how this could develop in the future.

The ongoing war in Ukraine has placed cyber warfare firmly on the agenda. A new book by Daniel Moore called Offensive Cyber Operations: Understanding Intangible Warfare is helping us understand cyber operations.

In our latest Electronic Warfare Podcast he talks about the relationship between cyber warfare and military operations, and reflects on Russian cyber operations in Ukraine.

We are delighted to launch Armada’s new series of Military Communications podcasts. In our first episode we dive into the world of Multiple-In, Multiple-Out radio.

Better known as MIMO, this innovative tactical communications technology is making its presence felt in the defence sector. However, you may be unaware of MIMO and how it operates? Jack Moore, vice president of business development for US special operations command and the US Army at Persistent Systems explains how this technology works. Persistent Systems is a leader in MIMO technology for the military and civilian markets.

In our latest Electronic Warfare podcast, we catch up with John Longhurst, CEO of TangentLink, to talk about this year’s forthcoming EW Live event.

As previously, this year’s event will be held in the city of Tartu, southern Estonia. EW Live will run from 19th to 22nd September. The event will include live demonstrations, an exhibition and conference. More information regarding the event can be found on TangentLink’s webpage.

In our latest Armada International Electronic Warfare Podcast we discuss the EMP, how it is generated and steps that can be taken to reduce its effects. Our guests are electromagnetic pulse experts Davidson Scott of Emag Associates and Brad Face of The Face Companies.

In our latest Electronic Warfare Podcast, we chat to Dr. Dwayne Day, a space historian who has written extensively on Cold War space SIGINT gathering.

Sam Cranny-Evans is a research analyst at London’s Royal United Services Institute. He recently published some interesting new research on People’s Liberation Army (PLA) land forces electronic warfare. We catch up with with Mr. Cranny-Evans in our latest Armada EW podcast. We talk about the PLA’s EW doctrine and posture, and the importance of electronic warfare to the Chinese way of war. Mr. Cranny-Evans’ research can be found here.

Mr. Guardia specifically looks at the McDonnell Douglas/Boeing F-15C Eagle combat aircraft flown by the US Air Force’s 58th Fighter Wing. These jets supported the air campaign accompanying the eviction of Iraq from Kuwait by a US-led coalition in 1991.

We talk about the important role of the aircraft’s electronic warfare systems and radars during their deployment. Mr. Guardia is an old friend of the podcast, having joined us back in November 2020 to discuss his book Foxbat Tales: The MiG-25 in Combat.

You can find paperback and ebook versions his new book here.

In our latest podcast, we catch up with Mack McKinney of smoothprojects.org. Mr. McKinney is an experienced teacher who has trained thousands of students during his career. He specialises in applying the CONOPS approach to system design and development. He shares with us how CONOPS can help the realisation of complex systems, particularly in the electronic warfare domain.

The Armada postbox was recently graced with the arrival of Norm Wade’s Cyberspace Operations and Electronic Warfare book. Published by The Lightning Press, of which Mr. Wade is the owner, the book is an excellent primer on these two facets of war.

Clear, concise and augmented with excellent diagrams and graphics, the book is an indispensable addition to the bookshelves of anyone with an interest in electronic and cyber warfare. The work is available both as an ebook and a paper copy. To learn more, and to order your copy, visit https://www.thelightningpress.com/smartbooks/cyberspace-operations-smartbook/

In our latest Armada Electronic Warfare Podcast we catch up with Tate Nurkin, non-resident senior fellow with Forward Defence at the at the Brent Scowcroft Centre for Strategy and Security of the Atlantic Council. Mr. Nurkin recently authored a publication entitled The Five Revolutions: Examining Defence Innovation in the Indo-Pacific Region. This report, which is sponsored by Thales, examines how technological change is affecting the defence-industrial domain in the region, including in the electronic warfare sector. It employs Mr. Nurkin’s ‘Four Revolutions’ framework which he developed as a mechanism to understand and interpret dimensions of modern conflict and military competition.

Since 1978 293 people have lost their lives in during attacks on civilian aircraft executed by Man-Portable Air Defence Systems. Bird Aerosystems produces self-defence equipment designed to protect civilian and military aircraft against these threats. Mr. Mazor shares his thoughts on the trajectory of the civilian counter-MANPADS market, its drivers and restraints in our latest Armada International Electronic Warfare podcast.

The Foxbat was one of the most feared and enigmatic aircraft of the Cold War. We chat to Mike Guardia, author of the new book Foxbat Tales: The MiG-25 in Combat about the aircraft’s innovative radar.

The MiG-25 (NATO reporting name Foxbat) combat aircraft first graced the skies in March 1964, entering service with the Soviet Air Force in 1970. Reaching top speeds of almost Mach Three (1,600 knots/3,000 kilometres-per-hour), the MiG-25 was a potent interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft.

For the Foxbat, speed was life. It had little in the way of self-protection, but it did have a mysterious radar under the nose. The Smerch series transmitted on an X-band frequency of 9.993 gigahertz/GHz, but had a secret dual band capability allowing the radar to also transmit on a Ku-band frequency of 14.9GHz.

In our latest Armada EW Podcast Mr. Guardia reveals what made the Smerch radar special, and how the West unravelled its secrets.