23/07/2014 - Officially the United States announced the code-named military maneuvers Black Sea Breeze 2014 e Rapid Trident II, the 21 May 2014. The NATO exercise in the Black Sea, which lasted for 10 days, is over, but it was still underway during the slaughter of the Malaysian Airlines MH17 flight in the eastern part of Ukraine, 40 miles from the Russian border.
Maneuvers included the use of war aircraft and electronic intelligence such as the Boeing EA-18G Growler and the Boeing E-3 Sentry (photo), Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS).
The first one has the main function of carrying out SEAD missions, that is the suppression of the opposing antiaircraft defenses, and it is a real concentrate of technologies able to hook up the emissions of the search and guiding radars of the adversaries. The on-board equipment is mainly composed of: the ALQ-218 receiver, the CCS (Communication Countermeasure Set) ALQ-227, the digital version of the USQ-113 used for communication disturbance, the CMDS (Counter Measures Dispenser System) AN / ALE-47 for launching chaff and flare and the 16 Link Encrypted Data Transmission System.
The Boeing E-3 AWACS can detect planes far to 400 km, far beyond the range of anti-aircraft defense. An AWACS flying at a height of 9000 meters, has a radar coverage of 312.000 square kilometers, in fact, only three overlapping orbits can monitor the entire Central Europe.
In air-to-air combat, AWACS systems communicate with friendly airplanes, to extend the range of their sensors and also facilitates less visibility, as the raiders no longer need to use their radar to detect the enemy intrusions.
During the exercise Black Sea Breeze, surface units and NATO aircraft had placed the Donetsk and Lugansk regions under total radar and electronic surveillance, and the US military said that in the 10 days it also monitored commercial air traffic, it could therefore be assumed that it included the MH-17 flight. At the same time as Sea Breeze, approved by the Ukrainian Parliament, a second exercise was under way called Rapid Trident, which also included actual US Army 200 from bases in Germany, and this was directed by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
All projects Sea Breeze the missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf (photo), sailing in the Black Sea since last May, participated. The Vella Gulf is part of the class of Aegis cruisers. The AEGIS AN / SPY1 radar is able to continuously monitor the airspace on 360 degrees without the dead times due to the rotation of a mechanical antenna; can chase and manage the hiring of multiple multiple targets simultaneously. The SPY-1 improves a series of functions normally used for different traditional radar systems: long-range aerial surveillance; three-dimensional aerial discovery; surface discovery; target tracking; intermediate guide for missiles equipped with semi-active radar sensor. In fact, the surface unit manages to trace all the aircraft over a vast region.
Therefore, from the Black Sea, the Vella Gulf could monitor the Malaysian Airlines MH17 and any missiles fired at the aircraft; AWACS aircraft flew over the region when the MH-17 passed over Ukraine and the Growler aircraft were enabled to intercept all missile radars. It is therefore credible that the electronic surveillance and discovery systems of NATO have recorded what happened to the MH17 flight.
Giovanni Caprara
(photo: U.S. Air Force / US Navy)