In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Western-made smart weapons were heralded as game-changers. Excalibur shells, JDAM kits, HIMARS rockets — all boasting pinpoint accuracy thanks to one shared superpower: GPS.
But that superpower? It’s fading fast. And the battlefield is the brutal proof.
Today, Ukraine is a testing ground for modern warfare. A place where precision-guided munitions (PGMs) go to either prove themselves — or to die quietly in a fog of electronic warfare. It’s in the mud and skies of Ukraine where we’re learning, very painfully, just how fragile our reliance on GPS has become.
The Smart Weapons That Aren’t So Smart Anymore
Let’s get straight to the body count: According to internal Ukrainian military reports, Western-supplied precision weapons like the
The reason? Russian jamming and spoofing.
These weapons depend heavily on satellite signals for mid-flight corrections. But Russian forces, experts say, have “saturated” the frontlines with GPS jamming units every 6 to 9 miles, drowning out GPS signals and replacing them with false coordinates.
The results: shells land off target, bombs don’t detonate, and rockets veer off course — sometimes by miles.
“You fire 19 rounds and maybe one hits,”
… one Ukrainian commander told The Washington Post. That one shot? It could cost $1.9 million — up from $300K when the system worked as advertised.
JDAM, GLSDB, and HIMARS: Spoofed Into Obsolescence
- The
JDAM : A kit that turns dumb bombs into guided weapons. In Ukraine? It’s “not usable” without GPS. One senior Ukrainian officer said they now “mostly sit in storage.” - The GLSDB: Designed for longer-range precision. But it’s no longer used by Ukrainian forces because it keeps missing.
- The
HIMARS : Once the rockstar of the battlefield, HIMARS-guided missiles now often fall prey to spoofing. Even minor tweaks in location data can make a 50-mile missile useless.
Russia’s GPS Death Zone
Russian forces are using low-cost, portable, and often analog GPS jammers and spoofers with remarkable effectiveness. According to Jack Watling of RUSI, their electronic warfare has reached a level of sophistication that not only denies GPS signals but actively manipulates enemy weaponry mid-flight.
They’ve even used spoofing to lure UAVs and PGMs off-course or trigger their failsafe self-destruct mechanisms. Some spoofers are small enough to hide in a backpack. Others are mounted on trucks and spread across the front.
This isn’t just about throwing sand in the gears. This is organized, strategic electromagnetic warfare (EW) — and the West wasn’t ready.
“Dumb” Weapons Making a Comeback
Ironically, the biggest lesson from Ukraine might be this: old-school weapons still work.
Ukrainian forces are increasingly returning to unguided artillery, launching more rounds to achieve the same effect. It’s wasteful. It’s less precise. But it works — because you can’t spoof a cannonball.
As Lt. Gen. Esa Pulkkinen of Finland said: “They are immune to any type of jamming, and they will go to target regardless of what type of electronic warfare capability there may be.”
And in this new theater, “dumb” is smart again.
New Navigation Tech to the Rescue?
It’s not all bad news.
Ukrainian engineers have responded with impressive agility. Eagle Eyes — a new AI-powered drone software — allows UAVs to fly without GPS at all. Instead, drones use visual data to compare terrain with pre-loaded imagery, enabling navigation even when spoofed or jammed.
Other options gaining traction:
- Inertial navigation systems (INS): Measure movement internally, without GPS. Great in theory. But even high-quality INS drifts over time, leading to growing inaccuracy unless frequently reset.
- Terrain contour matching (TERCOM): Used in Tomahawk cruise missiles — compares actual terrain to stored maps.
- Magnetic GPS (M-GPS®): The gold standard - impossible to jam or spoof and works in all environments - relying on Earth’s magnetic field.
- Quantum navigation: Amazing and ultra-accurate innovation, but expensive and not yet battlefield-ready.
These systems are often expensive, experimental, and hard to scale, but Ukraine’s battlefield necessity is accelerating their development in real time.
The GPS Reckoning
The U.S. has long assumed its GPS dominance was untouchable. But that belief is now riddled with holes—some of them bomb craters.
Meanwhile, China’s BeiDou system, with more satellites and better coverage in some regions, is gaining ground, both technically and geopolitically. They’re building strategic PNT independence while the West debates backup systems like eLoran and fiber-based timing.
What Now?
To ensure future smart weapons don’t end up dumber than a shovel, here’s what needs to happen:
- Redesign weapons to use multi-mode navigation — GPS, inertial, visual, magnetic, AI.
- Invest in GPS-independent battlefield systems. This is not a “nice-to-have.”
- Shift tactics: Train for GPS-denied environments, because that’s the new normal.
- Fund AltPNT programs across defense and civilian agencies (looking at you, SpaceWERX).
Final Shot
Ukraine has become the proving ground — and graveyard — of GPS-reliant warfare. In this brutal laboratory, smart weapons are failing fast. But it’s also where the future of navigation is being forged, under fire, in real time.
War has always been a crucible for innovation. This time, it’s forcing us to finally ask: What happens when the signal disappears?
The answer will define the next decade of military, civilian, and commercial technology alike.