Electronic warfare systems do not fire shells, do not lay mines, do now launch missiles, but they can have devastating effects. Electronic warfare describes tools that basically work in the electromagnetic spectrum, jamming radio signals, disrupting communications, severing connections between unmanned systems and their operators and doing other dirty work. The Russian electronic warfare system RB-341B Leer-3 is an annoying thing like that and the defenders of Ukraine destroy them as soon as they find them.
Russian electronic warfare system RB-341V Leer-3 – this weapon has been in service since 2015. Image credit: Vitaly V. Kuzmin via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The defenders of Ukraine managed to detect and destroy the Russian electronic warfare system RB-341B Leer-3. Ukrainian soldier Mykola Kolesnyk said that the valuable Russian system was spotted by drones of the 129th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade playfully called “Luftwaffe”. They determined the coordinates of the Leer-3 and tracked the device until the moment of destruction.
It only took one HIMARS missile to send this Leer-3 into Hell. But not only the electronic warfare system itself was eliminated. “The target was destroyed together with the operators,” said Mykola Kolesnyk. The crews of such systems are also extremely valuable targets, because they are highly trained professionals and that’s a finite resource.
The Leer-3 is a modern Russian electronic warfare and radio reconnaissance system operating in the GSM range. The Leer-3 has been in production since 2015.
The Leer-3 is capable of many different tasks. This system can suppress cell phone networks within a radius of about 6 km, send jamming signals and misleading messages, locate signal sources, and much more. The Leer-3 can identify locations with a high density of mobile devices and mark them as potential targets, because, of course, soldiers usually have many mobile devices.
This system can also act as an information transfer module, helping different units to coordinate their efforts and surveillance information. The Leer-3 is a bit of an unusual electronic warfare system, because it normally works with Orlan-10 drones. The Leer-3 crew normally consists of 5 people. It is mounted on the KamAZ-5350 6×6 chassis, so it can accelerate to 120 km/h and get ready for work in just 30 minutes after arriving at the designated place.
Ukraine is putting a lot of effort into destroying Russian electronic warfare systems, because they help the Russian invaders coordinate work between units, suppress Ukrainian communications, monitor mobile device gathering places, and disrupt the work of drones. Large electronic warfare systems are few and far between as they are expensive and their achievements are harder to sell to the policy makers than the work of artillery or missile systems.
Written by Povilas M.