Electronic Weapons: Risks of Going All Wireless
5th March 2024
As military units increasingly depend on wireless communications in the combat zone, the Ukraine War is providing examples of how patterns of cell phone use can be mapped and provide targets for guided missile attacks. Military field headquarters have long known that they must restrict their use of wireless devices and, if possible, route communications via wire to a location hundreds of meters from the headquarters. From that remote location wireless transmissions can be made. If the enemy locates the wireless transmission site and attacks it with a missile, casualties and damage are minimized. It’s been known that field headquarters using wireless communications, including cell phones, makes the headquarters a missile magnet. The war in Ukraine confirmed that. The Russians were often the target of these missile magnet attacks because the Ukrainians were more careful with their use of cell phones in the field.