How Boeing’s electronic war fighter runs into China’s ‘kill web’ in the South China Sea

Chinese military scientists have given a rare glimpse into the PLA radar system that is beating US fighter jets

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The EA-18G Growler is used by the US Navy to jam the enemy’s electronics, but now a paper by Chinese scientists has shown how the advanced PLA radar can overcome such an attack. Photo: US Pacific Fleet

Stephen Chenin Beijing

Published: 10:00pm, 14 Jul 2024

In December 2023, William Coulter, the commander of US Electronic Attack Squadron 136 (VAQ-136) deployed in the South China Sea on the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, was given the axe by the US Navy “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command”.

A month later, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers and sailors on board a Type 055 destroyer were honoured as a “role model of the times” for their actions against a US aircraft carrier fleet.

Chinese media showed footage of two US jets buzzing the Nanchang destroyer, one of them widely believed to be an EA-18G Growler – the same electronic warfare aircraft that was used by Coulter’s squadron.

Now, for the first time, scientists with the PLA Navy have revealed the tactics and technology used by Chinese warships against the Growler aircraft, giving a glimpse into the invisible battle that is unfolding in the South China Sea between two of the world’s biggest military powers.

In a peer-reviewed paper published last month in the Chinese academic journal Radar & ECM, the scientists said that artificial intelligence (AI) gave the PLA’s radar a critical edge over the Growler.

Manufactured by Boeing, the EA-18G is an electronic warfare aircraft, mostly used for electronic jamming.