Use of Growler to protect the carrier group

[DWReese]

For those who might know......Is it realistic to use OECM a/c (like a Growler) to fly around your own CSG for defensive purposes, such as in an effort to keep the enemy from locating your ships? Is this something that is usually done in times of conflict? Or, as a regular routine? Or, at all?

I know that OECM means "offensive", but as electronically powerful as a Growler is, and the fact that many of these attacking weapons rely on precise detection, it would seem like it might be a good idea to keep a Growler along the axis of a known threat to protect the CSG.

Thoughts?

Doug

[Joelsi]

The Growler is useful but it will reveal the location of the CSG. So it's a tradeoff that should be considered. But if the CSG is located by the enemy I don't see a reason why it wouldn't be used in a defensive role.


-Joelsi

[DWReese]

Thank.

I seem to remember something about that a long time ago. Of course, it was probably Prowlers back then. <lol>

It would seem that if the enemy has a general idea of where the CSG is, and an attack is expected at some point, then the Growler might just be able to keep some of the radars from acquiring their targets.

I haven't seen any of the scenario designers including that in any of their scenarios, so I was wondering if that is something that just isn't done, or is it an actual practice.

Doug

[FTBSS]

The OECM planes have no effect on surface radars that detect ships. Yes the Prowler was used to do this in the past in fact it's electronics suite could give many false contacts on an enemy radar screen. I would only assume a growler with NGJ setup would be even more effective, yet testing this in game yielded no benefit, I brought this up a couple years ago and got no official response.

[DWReese]

Since you've done the research,....you said that it had no effect on "surface radars", would that also include the radars used by the various missiles attempting to locate and attack the CSG in the terminal phase? While this could apply to any missiles of this type, I was specifically thinking of ballistic missiles (such as the DF-21) which would need to locate its target in the final phase of its attack. I'm just curious.

Doug

[FTBSS]

I never tried against DF-21 specifically, The ships defensive countermeasures (automated) are the only thing that can be used to seduce missiles from their target From my experience. They actually work like another short range defensive armament if you look at the log during an attack you will see attack rolls prior to weapon impact. jammer and chaff and flares, the effectiveness is generally based on era of weapons compared to era (advanced) of the countermeasure, usually range between 5-25% from what I have seen. I think these values are probably lower than what they are in real world due to the numbers of these systems installed on modern navies. This however is just my educsated guess as I have been out of the Navy for over 25 years.

[DWReese]

Like you, I have not witnessed an OECM effect on missiles that have already been fired at their targets. (I was hoping that someone would say that they had.) But, I have seen that a Growler, protecting targets, can make identifying and isolating the target difficult for the shooter of other missiles. I haven't tried the DF-21, but its target is always located by other means anyway.

Doug