Project Guardian: Optimizing Electronic Warfare Systems for Ground Combat Vehicles

A comprehensive U.S. Army study was recently conducted to evaluate the combat worth, cost and risk associated with the application of electronic warfare suites to ground combat vehicles. The study, Project Guardian, represents a new process for determining the optimum set of sensors and countermeasures for a specific vehicle class under the constraints of threat projection, combat survivability, cost, and technical and operational risk. The process begins with a thorough projection of anti-armor threats for a specific time frame. Threat and EW performance is then modeled and incorporated into CASTFOflEM the approved U.S. Army force-on-force simulation used on all major weapon system cost operational effectiveness analyses. Simulation runs, using a variety of scenarios, are conducted to evaluate EW suite combat effectiveness in terms of point defense i.e., each vehicle provides its own defense and as a force protection measure i.e., EW assets are distributed across the battle unit. Next, the cost of development, production and installation is estimated using industrial and international sources. The risk portion of the study employs a standard process for estimating the technical and operational risks associated with the EW components.