elint

The practice of ‘electronic intelligence’ gathering, in which one finds out the performance factors of hostile weapons systems by interpreting their electronic emissions. The term is also now used to cover any intelligence gathered by electronic means.

ELINT stands for ELectronic Signals INTelligence, and refers to intelligence-gathering by use of electronic sensors.

ELINT primarily focuses on non-communications signals intelligence. ELINT data is usually highly classified information, and is protected as such.

The data gathered is typically pertinent to a rival's defence network, especially the electronic parts such as radars, surface-to-air missile systems, aircraft, etc.

The primary goal of ELINT is to acquire data which would be valuable in the event of a conflict. Knowing where each surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery system is and its type means that air raids can be plotted to avoid the most heavily defended areas and to fly on a flight profile which will give the aircraft the best chance of evading ground fire and fighter patrols.

ELINT can also acquire data about where the ships, command and control centers, surface-to-air missile systems and other assets of the enemy are so they can be struck in the event of a war. ELINT is an important component of the sensor grid for Network-centric warfare.

Combining other sources of information and ELINT allows traffic analysis to be performed on electronic emissions which contain human encoded messages. The method of analysis differs from SIGINT in that any human encoded message which is in the electronic transmission is not analysed during ELINT. But "Huff-Duff" (High Frequency Direction Finder) was still able to find where the U-Boats were by analysis of radio transmissions and the positions through triangulation from the direction located by two or more Huff-Duff systems.