Hey everyone, welcome back to My Weird Prompts. We are coming to you as always from our home here in Jerusalem, and today we have got a topic that feels particularly relevant given everything happening in our neck of the woods lately. It is February fourteenth, twenty twenty-six, and while most people are thinking about Valentine’s Day, the geopolitical landscape is looking a bit more complicated. Our housemate Daniel sent over a prompt about a very specific piece of military hardware that has been moving around the board recently, and it opened up this whole world of invisible conflict that most of us never even think about.
Herman Poppleberry here, and Corn, I have to say, Daniel really hit on one of my favorite deep dives with this one. We are talking about the Boeing E A eighteen G Growler. It is an aircraft that looks like a standard fighter jet to the untrained eye, but it is actually a flying laboratory of electromagnetic chaos. If the F-thirty-five is a ghost, the Growler is the guy who walks into a room and turns off all the lights, cuts the phone lines, and starts playing heavy metal over the intercom so loud you can’t hear yourself think.
Right, and the catalyst for this was some recent reporting Daniel saw about these jets being repositioned from Puerto Rico over to Spain. Specifically, we are talking about a squadron moving to Naval Station Rota to be closer to the action in the Middle East as tensions with Iran and its proxies continue to simmer. Daniel mentioned something that I think a lot of people feel, which is this assumption that modern stealth fighters like the F thirty-five or the F twenty-two should just be able to do everything. If we have these trillion-dollar platforms with all their advanced sensors, why do we still need a specialized plane just for electronic warfare?
That is the million-dollar question, or I suppose the multi-billion-dollar question in this case. The short answer is that while a modern fighter has some electronic warfare capabilities, it is like comparing a Swiss Army knife to a dedicated industrial power tool. The Growler is that power tool. It is designed to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum in a way that would simply overwhelm the power and cooling systems of a standard multi-role fighter. You have to remember, Corn, that jamming isn't just a software trick. It is a brute-force physics problem. It requires massive amounts of raw electrical power and the ability to dissipate the heat that power generates. A stealth fighter has to keep its weapons inside and its skin smooth to stay hidden. A Growler? It’s covered in pods and antennas because it doesn't care if you see it—it just cares that you can't understand what you're seeing.
So let us pull back for a second because Daniel mentioned that this type of warfare actually dates back to the nineteen forties. I think when most people hear electronic warfare, they think of cyberattacks or hacking into a computer. But this is something different. This is about physics, right? This is about the actual waves in the air.
Exactly. It is helpful to think of the electromagnetic spectrum as the terrain where this battle is fought. Just like the infantry fights for a hill or the navy fights for a strait, the electronic warfare community fights for control of the airwaves. In World War Two, this started with the Battle of the Beams, where the British and Germans were trying to bend or spoof the radio navigation signals bombers used to find their targets. Then came things like window or chaff, which were just strips of aluminum foil dropped from planes to create massive reflections on enemy radar screens. It was crude, but it worked. It made the radar operator see a giant cloud instead of individual bombers. By the time we got to the late nineteen forties and fifties, we realized that if you could broadcast noise on the exact same frequency the enemy radar was using, you could effectively blind them.
And from there it turned into this massive technological arms race. I remember reading about the Wild Weasel missions in Vietnam. That seems like the spiritual ancestor to what the Growler does today.
Spot on. The Wild Weasels were incredible and, frankly, a little bit crazy. Their job was literally to fly toward enemy surface-to-air missile sites, wait for the radar to lock onto them—which meant a missile was likely about to be fired—and then follow that radar beam down with a missile to destroy the site. Their motto was Y G B S M, which stood for You Gotta Be S-ing Me, because the mission profile was so dangerous. They used modified F-one-hundreds and later F-four Phantoms. The Growler is the modern evolution of that, but instead of just being a target that shoots back, it is a sophisticated disruptor that can manage dozens of threats simultaneously.
So let us look at the Growler itself. It is based on the F A eighteen F Super Hornet airframe, which I assume makes maintenance and parts easier since the Navy already uses the Hornet. But what makes it a Growler? Daniel mentioned the A L Q ninety-nine tactical jamming pods. What are those actually doing?
Okay, so this is where it gets really nerdy and fascinating. If you look at a Growler, you will see these large, canoe-shaped pods hanging under the wings and the belly. Those A L Q ninety-nine pods are actually self-powered. They have a little ram-air turbine on the nose, which is basically a small propeller that spins in the wind as the plane flies to generate the massive amount of electricity needed to blast out jamming signals.
Wait, so the plane's own engines aren't enough? They need extra turbines just for the jamming equipment?
Precisely. To jam a modern, powerful radar system, you have to put out more energy than the radar is receiving from its own reflection. It is like trying to drown out someone talking to you by screaming at the top of your lungs. That takes immense power. The Growler uses those pods to intercept enemy signals, analyze them in real-time, and then broadcast a counter-signal that either blinds the radar with noise or, even more impressively, deceives it. And we should mention that as of right now, in early twenty twenty-six, the Navy is finally rolling out the Next Generation Jammer, or N G J, to replace those aging A L Q ninety-nine pods. The new ones use Gallium Nitride technology and active electronically scanned arrays, which allows them to be much more precise and powerful.
Deception sounds much more subtle than just screaming. How do you deceive a radar?
It is called digital radio frequency memory, or D R F M. The Growler captures the incoming radar pulse from the enemy, digitizes it, modifies it slightly, and then sends it back. By doing this, it can make the enemy radar see fifty planes where there is only one, or it can make the radar think the plane is five miles away from where it actually is. It is essentially creating a hall of mirrors in the sky. If you are a missile operator, you see a target, you fire, but the missile is chasing a ghost while the real Growler is miles away laughing at you.
That is incredible. And while it is doing this, it is also protecting the rest of the strike package, right? Daniel brought up the term S E A D, or Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses. Can you walk us through how a Growler actually integrates into a mission?
Sure. Imagine a group of F thirty-fives or F-sixteens heading toward a target. They are stealthy, but they aren't invisible, especially to lower-frequency radars. The Growler flies along with them, or stays slightly back, and creates an electronic umbrella. It identifies every radar ping in the area, geolocates exactly where those radars are, and then selectively jams them. This allows the strike jets to get in, drop their ordnance, and get out without the enemy ever getting a solid lock for a missile. Without the Growler, those stealth jets are at much higher risk. It is the difference between trying to sneak through a dark house and having a friend who can temporarily blind the security guards with a strobe light.
You mentioned geolocation. That seems like a huge part of this. It is not just about blocking the signal; it is about finding the source. How does the Growler do that so accurately?
It uses a system called the A L Q two hundred eighteen. These are sensors located on the wingtips of the plane—those pods that look like they should be carrying missiles but are actually filled with electronics. Because the sensors are physically separated by the width of the aircraft, they can use the tiny difference in the time it takes for a signal to reach each wingtip to calculate the exact direction and distance of the transmitter. It is basically like how our two ears allow us to tell where a sound is coming from, but with incredible mathematical precision. This is called interferometry. It allows the crew to pinpoint a mobile radar unit on the ground and either jam it or pass the coordinates to a teammate to destroy it with an A A R G M E R, which is the Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile Extended Range. That missile is the modern successor to the old HARM missiles.
It strikes me that the crew must be under an immense amount of cognitive load. In a regular fighter, you are focused on flying and dogfighting. In a Growler, you are managing a whole invisible battlefield.
Absolutely. There are two people in a Growler. You have the pilot in the front and the electronic warfare officer, or E W O, in the back. The E W O is the one managing the spectrum. They are looking at screens filled with frequency spikes and signal patterns. They have to decide which threats are the most dangerous and which ones to prioritize for jamming. It is a game of high-stakes chess played at Mach one. In fact, the software has become so complex that the military is now integrating A I to help the E W O sort through the noise. We call it cognitive electronic warfare. The system can actually learn new, unknown radar signals on the fly and figure out how to jam them without a human having to program it beforehand.
So let us get into the cat and mouse game Daniel mentioned. If the U S is deploying these Growlers to Spain to keep an eye on things in the Middle East, what are the counters? If I am a country with a sophisticated integrated air defense system, how do I fight back against a Growler?
This is where it gets really intense. One of the primary counters is something called a home-on-jam missile. Most missiles use their own radar to find a target. But if a Growler is jamming that radar, the missile can be programmed to simply stop looking for a reflection and instead fly directly toward the source of the jamming noise. It is like if you are in a dark room and someone is shining a blinding flashlight at you. You might not be able to see their face, but you know exactly where the light is coming from.
That sounds terrifying. You are basically turning yourself into a giant beacon for every anti-radiation missile in the area.
Exactly. So the Growler has to be able to shut off its jamming instantly or use those deception techniques we talked about to make the missile think the beacon is somewhere else. There is also the move toward low probability of intercept radar, or L P I. Modern radars can hop between frequencies thousands of times per second or use very low power signals that are designed to blend in with the background static of the universe. If the Growler's sensors can't distinguish the radar signal from the background noise, they can't jam it. It is like trying to hear a specific person whispering in a crowded stadium.
So it is a constant race to see who can have the more sensitive receiver versus who can have the more hidden transmitter. I am curious about the move to Spain that Daniel mentioned. Why Spain? If the tensions are in the Middle East, why not base them in the Persian Gulf or somewhere closer?
Well, Spain offers a lot of strategic flexibility. Naval Station Rota is a huge hub for the U S Navy. By having the Growlers there, they can support the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean but also deploy quickly into the Middle East or even Northern Europe if needed. It is also about the range and the support infrastructure. These planes are part of a carrier air wing, so they often move with the aircraft carriers. But having land-based Growlers in Europe provides a layer of persistent electronic overwatch that you don't always get from a carrier that has to move around. Plus, Rota is the gateway to the Mediterranean. If you want to monitor signals coming out of North Africa, the Levant, or even the Black Sea, it is the perfect perch.
It also sends a message, right? Moving these specific assets is a very loud signal in a very quiet way. It tells the other side, we are prepared to blind your defenses if we need to.
Precisely. In military circles, moving a Growler squadron is often seen as a bigger signal than moving a squadron of standard fighters. It is a specialized enabler. It means you are preparing the battlefield for a larger operation. It is the ultimate chess move. If you see Growlers moving, it means the U S is worried about high-end air defenses—the kind of stuff Iran or Russia operates. You don't need a Growler to fight a group that only has shoulder-fired missiles; you need them when you're facing integrated, long-range radar networks.
You know, Daniel's assumption that most modern jets should have this built-in makes sense on the surface. We see everything becoming more integrated. But as you explained the power requirements, it makes me think about the future. Are we going to see this move toward unmanned systems? It seems like a lot of risk to put two humans in a jet that is essentially a giant target.
You are hitting on the exact direction the military is heading. There is a lot of talk about loyal wingman drones, or what the Air Force calls Collaborative Combat Aircraft. Imagine a single Growler or an F thirty-five controlling four or five smaller, cheaper drones that carry the jamming pods. Those drones can fly much closer to the enemy radar, they can be more aggressive, and if one gets shot down by a home-on-jam missile, you haven't lost a multi-million-dollar pilot and a highly trained officer. We are seeing the beginning of this with the X Q fifty-eight Valkyrie and other platforms.
That would also allow you to spread the jamming out over a wider area, creating even more confusion. Instead of one source of noise, you have six.
Exactly. And you can use them to create a bistatic or multistatic radar network. One drone emits a signal, and the other drones just listen for the reflections. It makes it almost impossible for the enemy to find the listeners. We are moving away from the idea of a single platform doing everything and toward a distributed network of sensors and emitters. It is called mosaic warfare. If you break one piece of the mosaic, the overall picture still works.
I want to go back to the history for a second because Daniel mentioned the nineteen forties. It is wild to think that the same basic principles of messing with radio waves have remained the same for eighty years, even as the technology has gone from vacuum tubes to advanced gallium nitride semiconductors.
It really is a battle of physics. Whether it is nineteen forty-four or twenty twenty-six, the goal is to control the information the enemy receives. If you can control what they see on their screens, you control their reality. There is a famous story from the Gulf War in nineteen ninety-one where the electronic warfare was so effective that the Iraqi air defense operators eventually just stopped turning on their radars because they knew that as soon as they did, a HARM missile would be heading their way. That is the ultimate goal of the Growler. Not just to jam, but to create a psychological state where the enemy is afraid to even use their own equipment.
That is the suppression part of S E A D. It is not just about blowing things up; it is about making them useless.
Exactly. And we should talk about the A L Q ninety-nine's replacement in more detail, because that pod is actually quite old—it’s been around since the Vietnam era in various forms. The Navy is currently rolling out the Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band, or N G J M B. This uses AESA technology, which stands for Active Electronically Scanned Array. Instead of just blasting noise in all directions, these new pods can steer multiple beams of energy with incredible precision. They can jam one frequency while simultaneously listening on another, and they can do it with much higher power and efficiency.
So instead of a shotgun, it is more like a group of snipers with laser-guided beams of electromagnetic energy.
That is a perfect analogy. It allows the Growler to be much more surgical. It can jam a specific cell phone network or a specific missile guidance frequency without knocking out the radio communications of the friendly troops on the ground nearby. That has always been a big problem with older jamming technology, which is called fratricide. You end up jamming your own guys because your signal is too broad. In the past, if a Prowler—the Growler's predecessor—turned on its jammers, it would often blind the friendly radars too. The Growler with N G J can carve out a little cone of silence just for the enemy.
That is a huge point. If you are screaming so loud that the enemy can't hear, your friends probably can't hear you either. Being able to carve out little windows of silence for your own side while drowning out the enemy is a massive tactical advantage.
It is the holy grail of electronic warfare. And the Growler is the only platform in the world that can really do this at this scale. The Russians and the Chinese have their own versions, like the J sixteen D, but the Growler has the benefit of decades of operational experience from the E A six B Prowler and the E F one hundred eleven Raven before it. The software and the libraries of signals that the U S has built up are its real secret weapon.
Libraries of signals. That sounds like a digital catalog of every radar in the world.
It basically is. Every radar system has a signature, like a fingerprint. The way the signal pulses, the frequency it uses, the way it scans. The U S intelligence community spends a massive amount of effort collecting these fingerprints through E L I N T, or Electronic Intelligence. When a Growler is in the air, its computers are constantly comparing what they hear against this library. Oh, that is an S three hundred radar. That is a Chinese Type zero five two destroyer. That recognition happens in milliseconds, and it tells the E W O exactly which jamming profile to use.
So when Daniel sees a report about these planes moving to Spain, it is not just about the hardware. It is about moving that entire library and the capability to use it into a specific theater. It is about bringing the most advanced signal processing on the planet to the doorstep of a potential conflict.
Exactly. And it is also a reminder of how vulnerable we are. We rely on the electromagnetic spectrum for everything. Not just for war, but for our phones, our G P S, our power grids. The same technology that a Growler uses to jam a radar could, in theory, be used to disrupt civilian infrastructure. That is why this cat and mouse game is so important. It is not just about who has the biggest bomb; it is about who can keep their lights on and their radios working when the other side is trying to shut them down. Think about G P S jamming. We've seen a massive increase in that over Eastern Europe and the Middle East in the last two years. The Growler is one of the few tools that can help navigate in those denied environments.
That brings up an interesting takeaway for our listeners. We often think of military power in terms of things we can see, like tanks or aircraft carriers. But so much of modern conflict happens in this invisible realm. The next time you see a news report about tensions rising, think about what is happening on the airwaves. There are likely Growlers or similar assets flying right now, mapping out every signal, looking for every weakness, and preparing to dominate the spectrum.
And for the technically minded listeners out there, it is a great reminder of the power of signal processing. If you are interested in software-defined radio or communications, the Growler is basically the ultimate expression of those fields. It is a flying supercomputer that treats radio waves as a battlefield. There is actually a famous story from a training exercise where a Growler "shot down" an F twenty-two Raptor. It wasn't a dogfight; the Growler just managed to jam the Raptor's sensors so effectively that it could get a simulated missile lock. It proves that even the stealthiest, most advanced fighter in the world is vulnerable if it loses the electronic war.
It is also worth noting that this technology eventually trickles down. The advancements in AESA radar and high-power semiconductors that were developed for electronic warfare are now finding their way into things like five G and six G telecommunications and advanced weather satellites. The race to jam a radar today might lead to better internet for everyone tomorrow.
Or at least more robust internet that is harder to interfere with. The cat and mouse game never ends; it just moves to new frequencies. We are even seeing research into using high-power microwaves to physically fry the electronics of drones or missiles. The Growler is the platform that will likely carry those weapons in the future.
Well, I think we have thoroughly explored the world of the Growler today. Daniel, thanks for sending that one in. It is fascinating to realize that while we are sitting here in Jerusalem, there is this whole other layer of reality being contested right above us and across the Mediterranean. It really highlights how much of modern security depends on things that are completely invisible to the naked eye.
It really makes you look at those streaks in the sky a little differently, doesn't it? You see a jet and you think it's just a fast plane, but it might be a flying black hole for radio waves.
It certainly does. Before we wrap up, I want to say that if you are enjoying these deep dives into the weird and the technical, we would really appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your podcast app or on Spotify. It genuinely helps other people find the show and keeps us going. We are aiming for more of these technical deep dives as the world gets more complicated.
Yeah, it makes a huge difference. We love seeing the feedback and knowing which topics are hitting home for you guys. If you have questions about the physics of jamming or the history of the Wild Weasels, send them our way.
You can find all of our past episodes, including our deep dives into other military tech and historical anomalies, at myweirdprompts.com. We have also got a contact form there if you have a prompt you want us to tackle, or you can just find us on Spotify. We will be back next week with another look at the strange and the sophisticated.
This has been My Weird Prompts. Thanks for joining us in the invisible battlefield today. Stay curious and keep your signals clear.
We will see you next time.
Goodbye everyone.
