Electronic counter-countermeasure

Electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) is a part of electronic warfare which includes a variety of practices which attempt to reduce or eliminate the effect of electronic countermeasures (ECM) on electronic sensors aboard vehicles, ships and aircraft and weapons such as missiles. ECCM is also known as electronic protective measures (EPM), chiefly in Europe. In practice, EPM often means resistance to jamming. A more detailed description defines it as the electronic warfare operations taken by a radar to offset the enemy's countermeasure. Ever since electronics have been used in battle in an attempt to gain superiority over the enemy, effort has been spent on techniques to reduce the effectiveness of those electronics. More recently, sensors and weapons are being modified to deal with this threat. One of the most common types of ECM is radar jamming or spoofing. This originated with the Royal Air Force's use of what they codenamed Window during World War II, which Americans referred to as chaff. It was first used during the Hamburg raid on July 24-25, 1943. The night fighters outfitted with Window had prong antennae stuck out from their noses, allowing their radars a range of four miles in a 70 degree cone. Jamming also may have originated with the British during World War II, when they began jamming German radio communications. These efforts include the successful British disruption of German Luftwaffe navigational radio beams. In perhaps the first example of ECCM, the Germans increased their radio transmitter power in an attempt to 'burn through' or override the British jamming, which by necessity of the jammer being airborne or further away produced weaker signals. This is still one of the primary methods of ECCM today. For example, modern airborne jammers are able to identify incoming radar signals from other aircraft and send them back with random delays and other modifications in an attempt to confuse the opponent's radar set, making the 'blip' jump around wildly and become impossible to range.