Jane's Defence Weekly
June 12, 2002

USA Studies Options For EA-6B Successor

By Andrew Koch, JDW Washington Bureau Chief, Washington DC

The US Department of Defense's options for replacing its ageing EA-6B Prowler jamming aircraft have been narrowed, after the navy and air force received informal approval to pursue independent but related strategies from Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Pete Aldridge.

The US Navy, the lead service for the EA-6B, wants to build an electronic attack variant of its Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, dubbed the EA-18 'Growler'. It prefers to have an escort jammer that can keep up with its strike aircraft during operations, a role it believes the Growler can fulfil.

The navy plans to buy up to 100 EA-18s, which would provide cost savings in procurement and maintenance because of its commonality with the Super Hornet. Moreover, navy officials said, additional orders for the Growler would replace the 90 Super Hornets the navy cut from procurement plans under a strategy to increase integration with US Marine Corps tactical aviation assets (Jane's Defence Weekly 3 April). Developing the Growler is also attractive if the navy is to meet its goal of beginning to replace the EA-6B in 2010.

The US Air Force (USAF), more reliant on stealth than the navy, still prefers a mix of long-range stand-off jammers that can stay on-station for longer and small, possibly expendable, systems that can move near the enemy. Options for the standoff jammer include retrofitting existing B-52 bombers or C-130 transport aircraft. Such platforms could be paired in a 'system of systems' with F-22 Raptor and/or F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft equipped with advanced electronically scanned-array synthetic-aperture radars to conduct point jamming.

For the electronic jamming system, the navy wants to leverage work carried out under its EA-6B Improved Capability III programme over the short term, while the USAF is working on a longer-term solution. The latter includes developing the Lightweight Modular Support Jammer (LMSJ) that is intended to be scaleable in size from small UAVs to external pods carried under fighter aircraft.

The USAF eventually wants to include small extendable jammers and decoys such as UAVs carrying the LMSJ, as well as a version of the Miniature Air-Launched Decoy in its jamming architecture.