Photo By Senior Master Sgt. William Buchanan | Tech. Sgt. Michell Coates, Staff Sgt. Benjamin Hodin and Senior Airman John Lester,...... read more read more
Subscribe
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Long before the sun broke the horizon Monday morning, hours before the average citizen hit snooze on their alarm clocks, dozens of Airmen scrambled across the spotlit flightline of the 125th Fighter Wing at Jacksonville International Airport to prepare F-15s for battle.
Armed with intel that enemy pilots were approaching the nearby border, these Airmen inspected and prepared the aircraft for combat on two fronts against simulated ISIL and Russian threats. This was the stage for Eagle Claw 2016 – a continuous 48-hour training exercise designed to prepare Airmen for current real-world contingencies.
“This is fairly close to what we would actually experience if we were over in an [Area of Responsibility] somewhere,” said 1st Lt. Corey Clark, Team Chief for Eagle Claw 2016. “We’re fighting two battles simultaneously in one region and operating to our rules of engagement and law of armed conflict.”
This was a break from the more traditional exercise mentality where two opposing forces launch aircraft into battle and see who comes out the other side.
Instead, Eagle Claw 2016 kicked off with peacetime rules of engagement to practice constant presence on land and sky. Then, the conflict escalated into wartime conditions, forcing our Airmen to adapt on the fly.
Initially, friendly pilots patrolled the simulated border where they could see the enemy flying nearby, but were restricted from engaging them because the rules of engagement allowed the enemy forces to fly safely in their own protected air space.
“We’re used a much clearer process and a much easier process,” said Maj. Jonathan Kassebaum, Inspector General of Inspections. “That’s how we normally train. So, this allowed us to engage that command and control structure.”
To enhance realism, leadership drew simulated borders overlaying Turkey, Syria and the Mediterranean Sea to scale onto the typical flight map. This created boundaries for friendly forces, the blue team, as well as enemy forces, the red team. With these boundaries in place, missions depended on flight patterns and whether or not enemy forces invaded protected territory or attacked friendly fighters.
Kassebaum said the slow escalation put the blue team pilots in an awkward position. Their nerves were constantly on edge, which increases stress. Kassebaum said this real-world stress can push even the more vigilant Airmen to break under pressure and make mistakes.
“We have to immediately adapt from peace to war, and that transitions is not going to be fun for whoever happens to be there,” Kassebaum said.
An array of both military and civilian units outside of the 125th Fighter Wing provided tankers, fighters and naval vessels to enrich the training environment of Eagle Claw 2016, including Grissom Air Reserve Base, MacDill Air Force Base, Tyndall Air Force Base, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, Shaw Air Force Base, Birmingham Air National Guard Base, Hunter Army Airfield, Naval Air Station Jacksonville, the Civil Air Patrol, Discovery Air specialized aviation company and the Canadian Navy.
These units provided F-22 Raptors, KC-135 Stratotankers, Alpha Jets, F-16s, P-8s, T-38s, Cessna 182s and Westwind jet aircraft, as well as naval Destroyers and the manpower to provide communication and control of all forces.
Clark said he spent about four months working with the different units and squadrons to plan the exercise. To ensure every unit benefits from the training, Clark combined the objectives each commander wanted to see in their respective units, put them all together with official Air Force requirements and created a plan to execute throughout the wing.
“Everybody has different requirements that we have to exercise annually,” Clark said. “This gives us a chance to exercise all those pieces to make sure that we are able to do our wartime mission, and the only way we know that is by practicing.”
Preparing Airmen for a wartime mission included operating in contested and degraded conditions, which was the running theme for Eagle Claw 2016. Units all over base had to overcome lack of planning, broken communications and enemy attacks including chemical warfare.
Kassebaum said pilots typically know what their mission is going to be 12 hours in advance. During the exercise, however, pilots had less than 12 minutes to make a call. Plus, they had to fly with jammed communications and broken data links that normally enable them to identify nearby aircraft with onboard computers.
Likewise, cyber warfare attacks knocked out communications including both secure and nonsecure internet, limiting every unit’s ability to communicate both internally and externally. Kassebaum said this challenged Airmen base-wide to find alternate means to accomplish their missions without the luxury systems that process our data.
“The flow of information and the decision making processes were very muddy,” Clark said. “That definitely makes for a degraded environment.”
In addition to simulated attacks, one element that added to the contested and degraded environment was the base-wide change in manpower.
“I think what makes this particular exercise so unique is a lot of big change in leadership,” said Maj. Dave Robertson, Inspector General of Inspections. “There’s a lot of new faces.”
Robertson said there are a lot of new Airmen in new positions across the base, from entry level to leadership, who had to adapt to their roles and responsibilities in real-time. He said this exercise gave them an idea of our operations tempo and a solid foundation to build upon.
“You fight like you train,” Robertson said.
Long after the sun set on Tuesday, hours after the average citizen had turned off the lights and gone to sleep, Eagle Claw 2016 ended. Airmen base-wide took off their Kevlar helmets and chemical warfare gear as they left the base for a few brief hours of rest.
At least for the night, the battle was over. The real-world mission, however, continues. Nearly half of the 125th Fighter Wing is currently deployed in support of continuing missions worldwide. Exercises like this help prepare these Airmen for what many of them will one-day face.
“In the long run, what we really want to see is those Airmen just understanding that no matter if you put the uniform on one weekend a month or every day of your life, you’re an Airman first and you always need to be prepared to answer the call,” Robertson said.
| Date Taken: | 03.11.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 03.11.2016 09:12 |
| Story ID: | 192034 |
| Location: | JACKSONVILLE, FL, US |
| Web Views: | 165 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Guardsmen train for combat with innovative war games, by SMSgt William Buchanan, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT