Airborne Self-Protection Jammer

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the testing and data now available concerning the operational effectiveness and suitability of the Airborne Self-Protection Jammer (ASPJ).

GAO noted that: (1) test results and operational data now available do not support restarting ASPJ production; (2) reasons for this are the limitations in the scope of recent testing and a lack of demonstrated improvements in test results since the 1992 operational evaluation; (3) although ASPJ systems were deployed on aircraft operating over Bosnia, no quantifiable effectiveness data could be gathered during those operations; (4) furthermore, according to the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation and the Navy's Operational Test and Evaluation Force, neither the recent test results nor operational performance support restarting production; (5) moreover, the Navy's long-term plan is to acquire the Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasure (IDECM) system instead of restarting ASPJ production; (6) in response, the Navy said it had no readily available self-protection alternative to the ASPJ to counter one particular threat missile system, so ASPJ was deployed for operations over Bosnia in June 1995; (7) however, GAO noted that Congress has directed the Navy to report on electronic warfare alternatives not later than February 15, 1997; and (8) as part of a separate, ongoing review, GAO is also looking at potential alternative electronic warfare systems and expects to report the results of its work in early spring 1997.