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by esseph 106 days ago
Highly unlikely. Highly.
1 comments

Why? Specs for link16 jamming have been circulating since before the invasion of ukraine, there is a whole DoD technical report dedicated to trying to update it knocking around somewhere.

Iran claim to have used it to bring down US drones in the past.(1)

1. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1215/Exclus...

That link is about GPS spoofing, not Link 16 jamming, those are two different radio systems and two different attacks.
Its both.

They claimed

They jammed the control link so the operators couldnt control it, then used gps spoofing to make its "lost communication fly home" protocol land itself in hostile territory.

IFF system uses coded pulses at 1030mhz and 1090mhz. It's a totally different system from Link16.
Jamming the transponder would not be enough, it would also need to at least jam the identification/location messages in

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TADIL-J

And also at least the satellite versions.

And all of which are part of the S300 systems EW package Iran possess, the Cobra V8 has a touted range of 250km.

Also been demonstrated now in Ukraine.

See also

https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2026/iran-dep...

Edge to edge Kuwait to Iran is around 200km.

The launchers weren't on the edge of course, they're deeper in the country. That would be military suicide to have them right on the border, as you lose the layers of protection for close, low range threats like helos.

Except this is not what happened, nor could it over Kuwait at the time, because it was too far away.