CAOC theory tested

By Andrew Stackpool

AIRCDRE John Quaife (seated) and WGCDR Robert Drinkwater control Exercise Pitch Black from the Combined Air Operations Centre at RAAF Base Glenbrook.

Photo by WOFF Bruce Homewood

TAKE an area of a few hundred square metres, 128 personnel and room for up to 50 or so more. Give them exciting new hardware and software, the latter also providing a log of all their decisions. Task them to prepare the Air Force for combat and give them 72 hours to do so. What you have is the Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC), situated within HQ Air Command at RAAF Base Glenbrook.

Using the facilities of the Air Operations Centre, which handles normal operational activities, the CAOC stood up early this year. It also operated throughout Exercise Pitch Black 04 as the operational headquarters for the Blue forces.

Under the overall command of Air Commander Australia Air Vice-Marshal Geoff Shepherd, Joint Force Air Component Commander Air Commodore John Quaife was the Officer Conducing the Exercise and the Blue Force Commander. The COAC demonstrated its flexibility by providing both real world and overarching operational exercise support to him in his roles.

The CAOC concept has evolved because of the changing nature of the application of air power in recent decades.

In a briefing provided to visitors during PB04, Group Captain Dave Richards, the Director Operational Capability, said the Vietnam War was a watershed: new technologies, public support and an enemy not clearly identified were some of the many factors that would bedevil defence planners up to Desert Storm and Desert Thunder in the 1990s.

GPCAPT Richards and Wing Commander Mark Hinchcliffe, of the Air Commander’s staff, said the operations in the first Gulf War revealed there were several factors in orchestrating a modern air campaign. Chief among these were interoperability, speed, targeting – including collateral damage management – and the implication of time-sensitive targeting, mission complexity and the size of the campaign.

WGCDR Hinchcliffe stressed that, most importantly, these campaigns resulted in a revolution in targeting management. No longer would targeting drive the campaign: in future the campaign would determine the targeting effort.

“A lot of effort is now being put on one aircraft assigned to one target, rather than waves of bombers piecemeal. Effectively, it is a new way of waging war,” WGCDR Hinchcliffe said.

GPCAPT Richards said the CAOC provided the answer to how best to wage an air campaign today. The CAOC comprises common procedures and structure, supported by unique hardware and software and driven by trained and dedicated staff. A major component of the new world of a networked ADF, it will be interoperable and supported by proven doctrine. It is a weapons system in its own right.

The project for the CAOC was established in 1996. It is deliberately based upon similar CAOCs established by the US and, to a lesser extent, the UK, to ensure interoperability. Four RAF officers were attached to the CAOC for PB04.

Its 128 personnel, augmented for PB04 by another 40, include a small group of Army staff members.

The CAOC controls the operational management of an air campaign and is focussed on operations 72 hours in advance. To achieve this it has a number of strategic, operational, planning and intelligence tasking teams.

The process includes a team focussed on replanning in response to any adjustments and time critical targets or similar advice received after the issue of the orders as well as a post-mission battle damage assessment capability. They have routine duties but these are put on hold when exercises or operations are ramped up.

“We then coordinate chaos,” said Wing Commander Bob Drinkwater, the Deputy Director Operations.

The nub is the operations room, which doubles as the air operations centre for routine activities. In this guise, it features a small staff of day members and watchkeepers. However, there are 40 workstations in two sections for the various groups supporting an operation and it is capable of manning to higher levels as necessary. To the outsider, it might appear chaotic, but it is well coordinated.

Three large plasma screens provide input from a range of resources, including a linear representation of the Theatre Battlespace Management Control System, graphical representation of the Air Commander’s requirements and vision of the air campaign operational area via real-time feed from Nos 41 and 44 Wing assets.

This is vital, as it also provides the CAOC command with the ability to communicate directly with any aircraft involved in the mission, providing even greater flexibility to a changing and evolving mission. In future, real-time information from Wedgetail and UAVs will also be fed into the COAC.

The CAOC is the spear point of current thinking and processes, capable of delivering the Air Commander’s directives to meet any threat our Air Force or coalition partner may confront.

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