Defense Daily
May 5, 1999
Pg. 1

Kosovo Use Of EA-6Bs Underlines Need For Replacement Study

By Frank Wolfe

The heavy use of 26 Navy and Marine Corps EA-6B Prowlers to conduct jamming missions in support of allied aircraft in Kosovo has spurred talk on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon about an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) concerning a replacement for the aircraft when they retire in 2015, a Navy official told Defense Daily yesterday.

The military has extensively used Northrop Grumman’s [NOC] Prowler to knock out and suppress enemy air defenses, not only in support of traditional strike aircraft, but Air Force F-117 and B-2 stealth bombers, Pentagon sources said. Such support is not unknown, however. During 1991’s Operation Desert Storm, planners requested electronic warfare support for every F-117 mission and received it for one-third of the missions, according to an article in the Spring 1999 edition of Aircraft Survivability magazine by Paul Berkowitz, executive vice president of Electro-Radiation Inc. in Fairfield, N.J.

That Prowlers are needed to support all kinds of aircraft was highlighted by the recent Serbian downing of an F-117. Radar invisibility is a myth, given that with a big enough radar and a long enough wavelength, the radar can pick up items as small as a golf ball or a dragonfly, the Navy official said.	

"There’s lots of scuttlebutt going around Capitol Hill, the Air Force and the Navy that there aren’t enough EA-6B’s to support all the things we want it to do in the world, which is ironic, given that we’re going to build stealthy Joint Strike Fighters and F-22’s," the Navy official said. But the official said strike aircraft’s mission success is based on a "tripod" of electronic warfare: support jamming, low observability and self-protect jamming, which supplements countermeasures like chaff and flares. "No two of these will guarantee success," the official said of the "tripod."

The EA-6B is vital for support jamming. "As a result of having 24-hour-a-day operations in Kosovo and having 26 EA-6B’s over there and still supporting other worldwide commitments, obviously when the EA-6B goes away in 2015 we’re not going to replace it with stealth and self-protect jamming alone," the Navy official said. "I think there were some who thought that. With the popularity of the EA-6B now and with it proving its worth in Kosovo, the question becomes, ‘What are you going to replace it with?’ There are some on Capitol Hill asking, ‘Navy, what’s your plan?’"

The Navy hopes to begin a thorough two year AoA next year. The Pentagon’s FY ‘00 budget request now before Congress contains some money for the AoA but not enough to fund its full $16 million cost, the Navy official said.

The analysis, likely done by a Federally Funded Research Development Center, would look at all options for a replacement. Such alternatives may include a "G" version of the two seat F/A-18F aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, uninhabited combat aerial vehicles, a miniature air launched decoy-jammer now being developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a modular "pod" system for different strike aircraft and a version of the Common Support Aircraft.

"The biggest problem you’re going to have with a replacement is you need something that’s comparable in range, speed and defensive capabilities to the aircraft it’s protecting," the Navy official said. EA-6B’s, which entered service in 1971, were built to escort A-6 and A-7 aircraft.

"If you’re going to be screening Joint Strike Fighters, F/A-18E/F’s and possibly F-22’s and F-15E’s, then theoretically speaking we need something with the same speed, range, endurance and defensive capabilities of those aircraft," the official said.

If current operational trends continue, the need for a replacement may come sooner than 2015. The retirement last year of the Air Force EF-111 has complicated the management of the Prowlers, now the military’s only tactical electronic warfare aircraft. Of the 19 deployable EA-6B squadrons, 10 are in use now. Seven squadrons are deployed at Aviano Air Base, Italy, and aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) for use in Kosovo, one squadron is aboard the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) for Operation Southern Watch, one is in Incirlik, Turkey, for Operation Northern Watch and one is at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, for Southern Watch.

The Navy goal is to have just six squadrons deployed, while another six are preparing to do so and six are at home. Despite their heavy use in Kosovo, the Prowlers at Aviano are operating at an 88 percent full mission capability rate, significantly above the 66 percent goal. The Navy has devoted considerable resources to spare parts and civilian support staff to sustain those aircraft, the Navy official said. Out of 123 Prowlers service-wide, 91 are available for deployment now, whereas last year 45 were unflyable. By the end of the year, the service wants to have 104 deployable aircraft, while the rest would be in scheduled depot level maintenance.

Personnel, not aircraft, however, is the paramount Prowler issue.

The Joint Staff and Vice Adm. Thomas Fargo, deputy chief of Naval operations for plans, policy and operations, are asking EA-6B operators for ideas on how to reduce operational strain on the Prowler community and ensure morale does not decline and personnel leave.

"If you have 10 of 19 squadrons deployed, there’s a train wreck coming down the road," the Navy official said. "The good news is both the Joint Staff and Vice Adm. Fargo are already looking hard at this issue…The question is how can we maintain our operational commitments to support the Commanders-in-Chief and help the EA-6B community reconstitute and re-charge its batteries?"