Italy buying new EA-37B electronic warfare package from BAE Systems

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress Monday that Italy intends to purchase the new “Electronic Attack (EA)-37B mission system” for its Air Force, but the details on this purchase are a bit confusing.

The U.S. Air Force describes the EA-37B Compass Call as a “wide-area airborne electromagnetic attack weapon system using a heavily modified version of the General Dynamics’ Gulfstream G550 airframe,” and says it will replace the EC-130H Compass Call, which is based on Lockheed Martin’s C-130 Hercules.

What Italy is actually buying, though, consists of “Network Centric Collaborative Targeting (NCCT) systems; System Control and Monitoring subsystems; Radio Frequency Receiver (RFR) subsystems; Software-defined Radio (SDR) subsystems; Counter Radar Assembly; Array Panels; AN/ARC-210 RT-2036 radios; KG-250 In-line Network Encryptors; KY-100 Narrow/wideband Terminals; KIV-77 Mode 4/5 Identification Friend or Foe (IFF); AN/PYQ-10C Simple Key Loaders” — all the electronic warfare equipment, that is to say, but with no mention of the aircraft that will carry the equipment.

Also curious is that the company named principal contractor on the sale is not General Dynamics, or Lockheed, or L3Harris, which makes the equipment — but Britain’s BAE Systems, which will be paid $680 million.

All in all, a most curious announcement.

Full news release here:
https://www.dsca.mil/press-media/major-arms-sales/italy-electronic-attack-mission-system