Red
hot
Future ops concept success
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CPL
Adam Downes, a No.1 Squadron aircraft technician, checks
the engine exhaust of an F-111 during Exercise Red Flag.
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Photo
by LAC Rob Mitchell |
THE
first overseas deployment of a combined Air Combat Group (ACG)
force to a multinational combat training exercise has convinced
ACG that this is the way of future operations.
About 250 personnel, six F/A-18s and four F-111s from Nos 1 and
77 Squadrons deployed to Nevada where the concept was successfully
tested during Exercise Red Flag alongside US, UK and Canadian
forces.
The lessons from the exercise will help formalise the concept
of operations for precision-strike tactics and develop maintenance
crews’ integration, according to the OC of the Red Flag
Australian detachment, Group Captain Bill Henman. He said that
personnel experienced situations they would not get in Australia.
Sergeant Peter Bailey, of No. 1 Squadron, said the ramp at the
air base was an amazing place to work, where two missions were
flown every 24 hours.
“Each Red Flag sortie required between 50 and 80 aircraft
at a time,” SGT Bailey said.
“Taxiways were choked as incredible kilometre-long queues
of armed aircraft waited to use the two parallel runways. Aircraft
launches continued for 40 minutes or more with roar after roar
of afterburners crackling into the distance, shaking the air and
ground alike. Such sights and sounds are simply not seen on flightlines
at home.”
Flight Lieutenant Paul Bowes, of No. 77 Squadron, said 77SQN did
“very well” to generate three waves for a total of eight
sorties before cargo and maintenance equipment arrived. Flight
Lieutenant Malcolm Campbell, a pilot with No. 1 Squadron, said
only 10 to 15 per cent of the Australian aircrew had been to the
exercise before.
“There
was a real distinction between the day and night flying and the
tactics that worked during the day didn’t necessarily work
during the night because of the limitations of not being able
to manoeuvre as aggressively,” FLTLT Campbell said.
He learnt “heaps” from the planning involved “because
there were so many different support assets that we normally would
not have in exercises like Jabiru or Crocodile”.
“The big thing that we get from Red Flag that we don’t
get anywhere else is the ground threat,” FLTLT Campbell said.
“We can get air threats anywhere in the world, but we can’t
get that surface to air missile threat anywhere else. “I
think it will really help us when we are running large force exercises
like Pitch Black.
The good things will validate some of our tactics for things like
weapons delivery and integrating with other packages as well.”
FLTLT Bowes said the US Air Force was much more adept and experienced
at operating a Maintenance Operations Centre.
“The flip-side is that their organisation is so large, it
is rare for a USAF technician to be multi-skilled or cross-trained
and thus you have to deal with many more people than you would
normally if you were operating with another RAAF unit or a RAAF
ECSS or Base Support Wing,” he said.
“We also now better understand the capabilities of their
Ground Support Equipment and have brought back some procedural
publications that we can reference prior to a coalition deployment
in future so that we go better prepared.”
Four mission commander opportunities were given to F/A-18 and
F-111 crew members. GPCAPT Henman said this responsibility was
only offered to the most competent crews and only a relative few
participants on any given Red Flag were given the chance.
Mission commanders had difficult coordination and deconfliction
challenges in a hostile electronic warfare and surface to air
missile (SAM) target area. Mission planning was always done at
a high-risk level, which meant crews had to plan to press on to
the target despite significant remaining threats. Targets included
trains, armoured vehicles, industrial complexes, radars, SAM sites,
convoys, railways, bridges and airfields.
Aircrew could practise all sorts of tactical warfare – offensive
counter-air, interdiction, suppression of enemy air defences,
command and control, combat search and rescue, tactical airlift
and air-to-air refuelling.
They dropped laser-guided training rounds and practice bombs and
could watch a video “through the eyes” of the SAM site
that had engaged them less than an hour before, then talk to an
F16 pilot that had tried to target them.
FLTLT Campbell said the hairs on his neck stood up when he saw
the radar warning system light up about an SA-2 threat and flew
close enough to the systems to see them outside.
“It’s a huge difference and it means you have to prioritise
what you do,” he said. “It’s all well and good
to pretend you have something out there looking at you, but it’s
a completely different thing to have it locking you up and to
see if your tactics works against it.
It was awesome because you could see how if you were very aggressive,
you might defeat the missile, but miss the target.”
GPCAPT Henman was proud to see maintenance and operations from
two different ACG flying squadrons combine to present a professional
and highly effective fast-jet presence.
He said the Australians fitted seamlessly into a highly complex
and challenging exercise with UK and US forces “as though
we had been doing it regularly for years”.
He said the F/A-18s – making their debut at Red Flag –
and the F-111s performed “very well”.
