Has Saddam Hussein a means of Jamming the Tomahawk Guidance Signals? -- RUSSIAN ARTICLE [translated]

THE WHOLE WORLD watched the latest act of struggle of the US and Britain against Iraq that was named the operation "Desert Fox". But a very few paid attention that this time Americans did not brag too much about precision of their weapons. More than that, there was an impression that their widely publicized rockets behaved rather strangely -- up to the point of flying into Iran. It looked like some strange force knocked "Tomahawks" off their course.

It was all the more strange knowing that Iraq has no modern air-defense system against airstrikes of the enemy. More than that, Iraq lacked capacity not only to shoot down but even to detect presence of "Tomahawks" and, in that sense, was completely defenseless faced with that modern weaponry. So what has happened?

When CNN aired the latest info from the area of military actions, in the remote and snow-covered city of Saint Petersburg, a Russian Professor smiled mysteriously. Probably, like no one in the world, he rejoiced with every misfire of American winged rockets. And the number of those misfiring exceeded one hundred -- for some invisible reason "Tomahawks" were losing their brains.

The professor is sure he did it.

From the file of the newspaper Utro. [Russian: "Morning"]

A rocket "Tomahawk" was produced from 1983. Altogether over 4,000 units were produced. Depending on the modification, its range reached 2,600 kilometers. The flight speed 800 km/hr. The cost 1.3 million dollars.

... Albert Hitchhock deduced the formula of fear: a person could be scared to death by small everyday things. Therefore when Americans began serial production of the "winged rockets", the "Tomahawks" phobia spread. The rockets were feared the most! It came to things funny. At one time in the USSR they banned photographs of the city blocks because in the opinion of the censors, using such pictures, the enemy would have been able to write a program laying out the course for the "winged rocket".

However, there is nothing fancy put into the principle of how a Tomahawk works. At first they navigated towards the target using the landscape below. Before the launch, the flight map was loaded into the rocket's brain and during all the length of the flight it verified matching of the map to the landscape below. After the "Desert Storm" "Tomahawks" were slightly modified. Experience showed that in the soot and smoke from fires, the laser eyes of the rockets read the landscape quite poorly and that reduced efficiency of the weapon significantly. For that reason during the operation "Desert Fox" "Tomahawks" were navigated from satellite. Soot and smoke under the wings of Tomahawks became of no consequence. Together with satellites it became a perfect weapon.

Suddenly at that point a new counterforce emerged.

From the file of "Utro"

Kashinov Valentin Vladimirovich. A Doctor of Technical Sciences. Born in 1943 in the city of Krasnoyarsk. At 27 made his Master and in 37 Ph.D. Presently work for the research institute of physiology named after Ukhtomsky. He is specialized in the domain of signals and calculus of variations.

• It is not necessary to know any secretes for suppressing signals of the American Satellite Navigational System NAVSTAR. -- explains the professor.
• The frequency in which that system works is well-known. I only devised the type of a signal that should be transmitted from the ground to cut the satellite's link with the "Tomahawk" -- that is how to blind the rocket. I described the schema of the device that turned out to be very simple and cheap (about $200.00) and sent my offer to Baghdad via Internet.
• Why there? Are you a secrete admirer of Saddam Hussein? -- Before that I sent my calculations in a number of Embassies in Moscow. I am not aware of their reaction. May be they did not understand what it was all about or were too lazy to contact their specialists.
• Aren't you afraid that tomorrow they would put you in prison for Treason to the Motherland or revealing of some kind of state secretes?

There is no law in Russia banning knowledge of the anti-weapon systems against aggressions. I did not reveal any state secrets. I made my calculations on the basis of the data of our scientists Ovcharenko and Poddubniy that was published in one of the issues of "Radiotehnika" for 1992. Americans are very conceited and supercilious. They did not even bother to learn the alphabet of the Russian language for reading scientific literature. And exactly in that domain our scientists reached what Western scientists could not even dream about. So, recently US became very proud that they created NAVSTAR, considering it a major breakthrough into the future.

It is true, it is a top technology. But it is also a top stupidity. Think for yourself: what kind of a space system that is that could be knocked out by any terrorist-radio-amateur. They had to be shown their place somewhat.

Is it possible that Iraq applied the idea of a little known foreign scientist in practice? And why not? In any case that fact was present in one of the recent reports made by our Intelligence. It is understandable that today neither the US nor Iraq would comment on the subject. But we can recall that Western scientist borrowed the concept of Stealth from the article of our Petr Ufimtsev that was published in the opened press. That time Americans over the mound still read publications of the Russian scientists.

Igor Elkov.

Commentaries of "Utro":

Can Kashinov become a national hero of Iraq?

Could, indeed, Kashinov help in struggle of Iraq against US and GB? I called to one of the main luminaries in Russia on that subject, a specialist in radio-guidance of rocket-flights, a winner of Lenin's and State's awards of the USSR, Academician Gennadiy Sergeevich Legasov. Upon learning what we were talking about, Academician became very much interested and asked for Kashinov's Petersburg telephone number. He answered my request to comment on that material by saying:

Theoretically, what Kashinov says is possible. Every radio channel may be jammed with radio-interference. All that it takes is to send the proper radio-signal to its receiver jamming the guidance signals. Regarding the circumstances of "Tomahawks" it is necessary to make a careful study of Kashinov's technical suggestion to evaluate its effectiveness.

Victor Baranetz.

--"Za Russkoye Delo"
Russian Newspaper
Editors P.O. Box 170,
198103, St.-Petersburg, Russia
E-mail: [email protected]