The US deployed its once-neglected Growler jets to roar and scramble Venezuela’s defense system, leaving Caracas blind and unable to protect its now-captured leader Nicolas Maduro, according to a new report.
The Boeing EA-18G Growler jets were among the more than 150 US warplanes deployed to assist in the raid on Maduro’s military compound on Jan. 3, with the aircraft playing a key role in crippling Venezuela’s response time, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Growlers — a series of 2008 jets that have seen a resurgence of popularity in the Ukraine war — specialize in electronic warfare, locating enemy radars and jamming them.
The sophisticated jet, which can reach a max speed of 1,381 mph with a crew of two, effectively floods enemy equipment with signals, drowning out the connection between the tech and its operators.
The jet, which carries large pods under its wings and belly to detect enemy signals, also carries anti-radiation missiles that can detect and destroy foreign radars.
Along with taking down communication systems, the Growler is also capable of simulating multiple aircraft on enemy radars, serving as important decoys to hide the real threat’s location.
All this means the Growlers would have had a cake walk blinding Venezuela’s Soviet-era communications system, said Thomas Withington, an electronic-warfare expert at the Royal United Services Institute think tank.
“The Growler forms the mainstay of U.S. air power’s EW (electronic warfare) component and would have located Venezuelan radars, jammed them and performed a similar task with military communications,” he told the WSJ.
Caracas has long relied on aging Russian defense systems for its military, along with older radar systems provided by China, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank and Janes, a defense-intelligence company.
Those systems would stand no chance against the Growler, which has proven itself to be popular in Ukraine, where electronic warfare has been the key to countering Russia’s mass drone bombardments.
With their systems scrambled and false targets filling their radars, Maduro’s military could not properly respond to the US raid, which deployed bombers, fighters and drones to capture the Venezuelan dictator.
