Left: EA-6B Prowler on the deck; Right: Prowler aircrew patch, courtesy of LCDR Bruce "Bobo" Schneider.

Grumman EA-6B Prowler

The EA-6B Prowler is an electronic warfare aircraft based on the A-6 airframe. Manned by a crew of four -- the pilot and three electronic countermeasures officers (ECMOs) -- the EA-6B's mission is to jam, disrupt, and otherwise confuse enemy electronic defense systems in support of a strike package. While the pilot always flies the airplane from the same seat, ECMOs are responsible for navigation, communication, electronic warfare, and "weaponeering" tasks in the other three seats; they are generally qualified to occupy any of the three non-pilot stations in the aircraft. Prowlers have also been given "shooter" capability with the integration of AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs), and several Iraqi radar sites were destroyed by Prowler-fired HARMs in 1991.

The EA-6B packs a number of extremely sensitive receivers internally, which collect and analyze enemy electromagnetic transmissions. Armed with this data, ECMOs can use the extremely powerful jamming pods -- mounted on five external hardpoints -- to send out powerful disruptive signals that in essence turn the enemy radar scopes to snow. Prowlers can also hunt down radars, using HARMs for the hard kill. Thus blinded, the enemy will find it extremely difficult to defend against an incoming carrier strike package.

Although the A-6E is leaving service, the EA-6B will stay on. With the recent Air Force decision to abandon the tactical jamming mission, Prowlers form the heart of the national electronic warfare capability, and Air Force crews are now being trained for Prowler duty. The first combined Navy-Air Force squadrons are VAQ-133 and VAQ-134, which became operational in late 1995 and early 1996. Carrier-based Prowlers deploy in squadrons of four aircraft, and this is not expected to change.

There was a scheduled upgrade program known as ADVCAP (ADVanced CAPability), which was to provide an upgraded onboard receiver suite, a new jammer, and a new engine, but the program was terminated in 1994. Further avionics upgrades to the "Block 89A" configuration may still take place, with a planned total of 127 aircraft in the inventory by 2003.

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