Prowler

You may also be looking for the Jiralhanae Prowler by a similar name.

Template:Ship The UNSC Prowler is a stealth Corvette classification within the United Nations Space Command. They were used exclusively by the Office of Naval Intelligence, and were often crewed by select ONI crews.

This is the UNSC equivalent of the Covenant Stealth Corvette.

Role

In a similar role to its namesake, it is used to gather electronic intelligence, and its primary role is to stay hidden while safely gathering such intelligence, not to charge into battle, as that would invariably be an irreversibly fatal tactic. Because of its tactical value and potential to change the outcome of any given combat situation, every UNSC battlegroup has at least one Prowler assigned to its ranks.

The Prowler's only combat role, beside active combat monitoring and recording, is discreetly laying minefields of stealthed nuclear HORNET mines in orbital regions. Enemy ships that unknowingly enter these minefields can be destroyed by a single Prowler, allowing the remainder of the UNSC forces to move in and finish off the survivors with MAC strikes and Archer missiles. This stratagem allowed Battle Group Stalingrad to wage a short but devastating battle against the Covenant at Onyx, destroying significantly more ships than their own number, an extremely rare outcome among UNSC-Covenant engagements.

Stealth Systems

• Ablative baffles
• Counter-electronic systems
• Stealth Ablative Coating
• Texture buffers

Known ships

• UNSC Apocalypso
• UNSC Applebee
• UNSC Circumference - destroyed
• UNSC Dusk
• UNSC Edge of Umbra
• UNSC Lark
• UNSC Point of No Return (Stealth Cruiser)
• UNSC Razor's Edge
• UNSC Red Horse
• UNSC Tokyo Rules
• UNSC Wink of an Eye

Trivia

• There is a Brute land vehicle with the same name.
• Spartan Gray Team could pilot a prowler, meaning a prowler could be piloted by a crew of only three people.
• Beside the Prowler, another type of UNSC stealth ship exists. Not classified as a Prowler, this vessel appears to be significantly larger and possess more advanced stealth "cloaking" systems.
• In Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, a Prowler is used to lay a mine field of nukes, which helped Admiral Patterson's fleet nearly destroy a larger Covenant fleet.
• The UNSC Wink of an Eye is said to have active camouflage systems, a feat not previously known among both UNSC and Covenant starships. The technology is most likely experimental, since the camouflage cannot keep up with the constantly-changing atmosphere of the gas giant Viperidae.