chrisl

You don't (and can't without a lot of work) spoof the data, but you can spoof the carrier and put garbage on it - there will be patterns to make the radio sync properly and modulate data bits.  You won't know what the bits are, but you can probably see the patterns in how they're framed and turn the radio signal into garbage by sending appropriate garbage in sync.  Encrypted signals are much more susceptible to noise than unencrypted systems.  They'll have a lot of error checking in them, but it takes a lot less noise to mess up an encrypted signal than an unencrypted one.  It's like the radio equivalent of noise cancelling headphones - you can flip bits without having to interpret the content.
If you had quantum computers for decryption you might actually be able to feed fake data, but that's a ways off.  

Announcing that on April 1st is definitely a kind of meta-humor, given that it is not a joke in any way. Some clarification/ details:
- vehicles will come from PL army stock, and the new-builds will backfill the stripped units in due time
- there was no info about the versions being sent, but the PL milnet seems to agree that it will be the IFV versions mostly. These sport a two-man OTO Melara turret with 30mm Bushmaster. It has thermals, but not a full hunter-killer setup usually  found in more contemporary IFVs. These vehicles were initially purchased as urgent need during GWOT period and were liked so much that finally we got almost a 1000, including 300 IFVs. Unfortunately the initial deal with OTO was, let's say, suboptimal, and the army  beancounters would surely be happy to get rid of them. Rosomaks are still being purchased, but armed with indigenous unmanned ZSSW30 turret.
- given the announced number, it will probably mean equipment for 2 or 3 UA battalions with some support vehicles. I'd love to see a Rak company to be sent with them, to combat prove the whole concept of turreted  120 mm mortar and the PL implementation of it:
 

UKR soldier about YPR-765 and in whole about M113 series
Our "yupik" (YPR) was fu..d, there is a hole near the driver, the engine is burning, crew is alive. It's a big vehicle.
With BMP this, of course, wouldn't have happened. There each fu...g hit was with KIAs. Soviet engineers knew how to care about untilizing of population surplus. 
Its [YPRs] hulls also better. After blowing up by mine, there are no penetrations inside a compartment, when BMP-1 is just teared off. 

You actually need multiple (at least two, more to be more effective) jammers per system being attacked, or more like multiple antennas in a phased array, but the array can be a bunch of drones scattered around if you can sync them up.  You would have multiple drones, each with multiple transmitters on it, and phase them so they mess up the signals at your target locations.  But we have $$$ to impose an asymmetric environment.
Not easy (and harder to do with everything moving), but doesn't violate any laws of physics.  You can do it with a speaker system where you have a bunch of speakers in a space and put a microphone at some point where you want to cancel the sound (where someone's head is in their workspace), then send phased signals from the speakers to cancel all the sound in that small space.  Outside that cone of silence there will be all sorts of crazy noise where the speakers' sounds add up in weird ways.  And with a bunch of speakers you can do it in multiple locations at once if you're careful.  Same thing, but with RF.  

You don't (and can't without a lot of work) spoof the data, but you can spoof the carrier and put garbage on it - there will be patterns to make the radio sync properly and modulate data bits.  You won't know what the bits are, but you can probably see the patterns in how they're framed and turn the radio signal into garbage by sending appropriate garbage in sync.  Encrypted signals are much more susceptible to noise than unencrypted systems.  They'll have a lot of error checking in them, but it takes a lot less noise to mess up an encrypted signal than an unencrypted one.  It's like the radio equivalent of noise cancelling headphones - you can flip bits without having to interpret the content.
If you had quantum computers for decryption you might actually be able to feed fake data, but that's a ways off.  

In a decade or so when this is over and details start leaking out of the UA we're going to find out that someone in a key position in Ukraine was a CM player and it influenced all their post 2014 development.

You actually need multiple (at least two, more to be more effective) jammers per system being attacked, or more like multiple antennas in a phased array, but the array can be a bunch of drones scattered around if you can sync them up.  You would have multiple drones, each with multiple transmitters on it, and phase them so they mess up the signals at your target locations.  But we have $$$ to impose an asymmetric environment.
Not easy (and harder to do with everything moving), but doesn't violate any laws of physics.  You can do it with a speaker system where you have a bunch of speakers in a space and put a microphone at some point where you want to cancel the sound (where someone's head is in their workspace), then send phased signals from the speakers to cancel all the sound in that small space.  Outside that cone of silence there will be all sorts of crazy noise where the speakers' sounds add up in weird ways.  And with a bunch of speakers you can do it in multiple locations at once if you're careful.  Same thing, but with RF.  

There's a mirroring parallel in my industry,  TV Film. By mirror,  I mean direct opposite. 
For years A cinematographer (Director of Photography ") would almost always have their own video Camera, at high cost. This was recouped by rental to Production for shoots. The release of the RED cam, despite its teething woes,  drastically reduced the entry cost and was quickly followed by similar offerings by the usual big players (notable Arriflex). But,  funnily,  it didn't mean that DPs suddenly could have a bunch of personal cameras. Instead, Rental Houses could now have a much larger quantity of bodies available to rent, for much cheaper. DPs didnt have to deal with the headache of maintenance or availability. If a body broke on set the Rental House could easily send out a whole new one, pronto (it would be unlikely a DP would have two bodies). Also,  the sudden rapidity in upgrade cycles and product development meant that DPs couldn't keep up with the newest trend -  but RHs could. Soon there was also a whole lot more "DP"s. 
The parallel here is that the Military are trying to track tech trends that are accelerating,  with procurement systems and mentality that aren't. In Film Tv there was no barrier to DPs shifting their model in response to tech jumps in their equipment.  They faced no beaurocracy, vested interests or politics to stop them Adjusting. They weren't held into a lock-step,  hierarchical organization. 
How can an institution as solid as a Military flow as smoothly as a single operator,  in response to technology jumps? It's oxymoronic but how else can a military adapt and implement as quickly as is going be needed? 
AI,  AI, AI,  sure sure sure. But it's humans working humans, so I'm leery how much impact AI can have on that. 
Interestingly,  now most DPs have their own easy rig, a sort of basic steadicam without the steadi. The rigs are personal to them and are considered defacto requirements. 

The UA experience is that drones only last a few missions and are essentially disposable.  Use the full battery capacity.  

In a decade or so when this is over and details start leaking out of the UA we're going to find out that someone in a key position in Ukraine was a CM player and it influenced all their post 2014 development.

There was a lot of discussion about this a thousand pages ago. My summary, worth what you paid, is two sort of equally matched technically competent militaries in conflict are going to strive to project mostly unmanned ISR bubbles. The highest priority for each side will be whatever they see as the weakest link in the loop between the other sides ISR and fires complexes. If one side wins this contest conclusively, the other side is just a bunch of targets that are running or surrendering if they have any sense. If, and only if, the bubbles defeat each other more or less symmetrically you will get to see how the rest of the opposing forces match up.
This also lays out my optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for the Ukrainian spring offensive, effectively. 

In a decade or so when this is over and details start leaking out of the UA we're going to find out that someone in a key position in Ukraine was a CM player and it influenced all their post 2014 development.

In a decade or so when this is over and details start leaking out of the UA we're going to find out that someone in a key position in Ukraine was a CM player and it influenced all their post 2014 development.

If your EW is good enough you can make your opponent play Iron with multiple players who aren't allowed to talk to each other.

Yeah - you can already buy a lidar to hang on a drone for a few $K (or less) that's suitable for patrolling & mapping an area the size of platoon or company battle area.  The difficult part ends up being how to deal with all the data - either process on board or transmit large volumes back to base to look for things out of place.  Get a bucket of drones and a bunch of different sensor systems that are all co-registered, send their data back to home base and make a near-realtime multispectral map of what's going on in a region and nobody's hiding anything from you.

Concentration of mass will have to happen more like flash mobs on targets than traditional massing and then moving together.  Bunches of uncrewed vehicles will converge from multiple directions to coordinate attacks on focus points and then disperse just as rapidly.
It will depend on extremely good communication and coordination, with a lot of switching between mission command and detailed command on the fly - something like CM with borg spotting, but with hopefully better AI from units that have broken comms, and keeping your units staying farther apart until they converge.

I suspect it was the purchases in ~2014-16 that mattered. 

In a decade or so when this is over and details start leaking out of the UA we're going to find out that someone in a key position in Ukraine was a CM player and it influenced all their post 2014 development.

In a decade or so when this is over and details start leaking out of the UA we're going to find out that someone in a key position in Ukraine was a CM player and it influenced all their post 2014 development.

Yeah - you can already buy a lidar to hang on a drone for a few $K (or less) that's suitable for patrolling & mapping an area the size of platoon or company battle area.  The difficult part ends up being how to deal with all the data - either process on board or transmit large volumes back to base to look for things out of place.  Get a bucket of drones and a bunch of different sensor systems that are all co-registered, send their data back to home base and make a near-realtime multispectral map of what's going on in a region and nobody's hiding anything from you.

The important thing about the iphone example is that it's only possible economically because of enormous production of very small scale microelectronic processes. The development and fab setup costs are huge, and they get amortized across huge numbers of civil and defense production units to become very inexpensive if you're allowed access.

This mismatch between ISR/Hitting capability and ability to develop and conceal effective mass does seem to be fundamental.
It also seems to be a continuation of a long term trend. The latter part of the C19th and early C20th up to and including WW1 saw continuous attempts to square the circle of effective mass attacks against increasingly accurate, long ranged weapons. Breech loading, rifled artillery and magazine rifles may not be precision weapons by our standards but compared to a smoothbore musket they are and, when mass looks like lines of infantry in close formations, they present a real challenge.  Taking this through to WW1 the question for any general was 'how do I deliver an effective massed attack when my troops are spotted by these new-fangled aeroplanes, shelled by accurate artillery miles back behind the front line and can't move forwards in enough numbers to deal with a counter attack?'
In the end the answer (at a very simplified level) was dispersion of assets, concentration of fires, more mobility all around and try to shut down the enemy ISR with your own new-fangled aeroplanes and AA guns. I've no idea how you achieve even more dispersion of assets and concentration of fires, or how to shut down the ubiquitous ISR but the direction of travel seems clear.
 
 

If your EW is good enough you can make your opponent play Iron with multiple players who aren't allowed to talk to each other.

Yeah - you can already buy a lidar to hang on a drone for a few $K (or less) that's suitable for patrolling & mapping an area the size of platoon or company battle area.  The difficult part ends up being how to deal with all the data - either process on board or transmit large volumes back to base to look for things out of place.  Get a bucket of drones and a bunch of different sensor systems that are all co-registered, send their data back to home base and make a near-realtime multispectral map of what's going on in a region and nobody's hiding anything from you.

Game difficulty settings become the battlefield:  I want mine to be Recruit while forcing my opponent to play Veteran.