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The tactical equation in space is a balance between being seen and remaining unseen. This discussion often brings thoughts of one particular electronic warfare technology, the cloaking device, which attempts to completely avoid detection by all sensors. However, this is far from the only available electronic warfare system aboard a modern starship. | The tactical equation in space is a balance between being seen and remaining unseen. This discussion often brings thoughts of one particular electronic warfare technology, the cloaking device, which attempts to completely avoid detection by all sensors. However, this is far from the only available electronic warfare system aboard a modern starship. | ||
Electronic countermeasure systems operate on two general principles. Either they attempt to prevent a starship from being observed or they prevent it from being observed accurately. There is a subtle, but important, difference between the two. Effective ECM | Electronic countermeasure systems operate on two general principles. Either they attempt to prevent a starship from being observed or they prevent it from being observed accurately. There is a subtle, but important, difference between the two. Effective ECM involves a combination of jamming, energy and gravitic emission masking, generating false emission signatures, and the deployment of decoys (see EW drones). | ||
The detailed functioning of electronic warfare systems is complicated, but the results are not. Using electronic warfare systems, a starship is capable of vanishing from a target ship's sensors entirely at long range by reducing emission levels and keeping drive power down. This means that a ship willing to use passive sensors (which means no targeting sensors), low accelerations, and keep its shields down become a virtual hole in space. In the large volume of a system, a starship that does not advertise its presence is very difficult to localize unless it comes very close to a sensor platform. But it also means that a warship can pretend to be something that it is not. A destroyer could pretend to be a battlecruiser in order to dissuade a hostile pirate cruiser from intercepting it and the merchant ship it is escorting. Alternatively, the battlecruiser hunting the same pirate might pretend to be the destroyer or even an unescorted merchant to invite attack and draw an enemy ship in closer to its own optimal attack range. | The detailed functioning of electronic warfare systems is complicated, but the results are not. Using electronic warfare systems, a starship is capable of vanishing from a target ship's sensors entirely at long range by reducing emission levels and keeping drive power down. This means that a ship willing to use passive sensors (which means no targeting sensors), low accelerations, and keep its shields down become a virtual hole in space. In the large volume of a system, a starship that does not advertise its presence is very difficult to localize unless it comes very close to a sensor platform. But it also means that a warship can pretend to be something that it is not. A destroyer could pretend to be a battlecruiser in order to dissuade a hostile pirate cruiser from intercepting it and the merchant ship it is escorting. Alternatively, the battlecruiser hunting the same pirate might pretend to be the destroyer or even an unescorted merchant to invite attack and draw an enemy ship in closer to its own optimal attack range. | ||