The EF-111A has been by design targeted at the high density central European air/land battle and three classes of mission are envisaged.
In Stand-Off Jamming missions, the EF-111As would operate at altitude 200 to 400 nm from the battle front from where they would snow Warpac long-range surveillance radars probing for Allied AWACS, JSTARS, TR-1 surveillance/recce aircraft, EC-130H Compass Call communications jammers and tankers. These valuable but slow moving aircraft are vulnerable to long range SAMs such as the SA-5 (range cca 160 nm) recently deployed in central Europe, while it also appears that the Flanker and new AS-11 ARM firing defence suppression Foxbat F would be employed to dash through the NATO fighter/SAM screen on dedicated AWACS killing sorties.
Operating in pairs the EF-111As would blind surveillance radars and attempt to confuse ground based direction finding systems thus preventing the Warpac from locating and destroying some very important assets.
In Close-in Jam missions the EF-111A would approach the forward battle area and blind the Long Track, Flat Face, Clam Shell and Land Roll mobile surveillance/acquisition radars to approaching NATO A-10, Jaguar and Harrier Close Air Support (CAS) aircraft. This leaves the CAS aircraft only up against the Warpac's terminal defences and allows ingress well above 500 ft while over friendly airspace thus saving a considerable amount of precious fuel.
On Primary Jamming missions, the EF-111As fly as escort jammers with deep penetration strike aircraft such as the F-111 E/F. Typically the aircraft all penetrate using TFR at very low level and hopefully undetected. As the strike aircraft approach the radar horizon of the target's area defences, the EF-111A would pop up to several thousand feet and jam any radars which would be considered a threat, while the strike aircraft pound the target from tree top altitude. These tactics were employed against the Libyans in 1986 quite successfully with no SAM hits reported.