UK Ministry of Defence,
Crews from the three RAF Lossiemouth front line squadrons took their Tornado GR4s to Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, USA, in January, for an intense two weeks of training in preparation for a deployment to Afghanistan.
The detachment, engineered and led by personnel from 14 Squadron RAF, was in support of Exercise Green Flag East (GF-E), a large Joint exercise involving over 4,000 US Army personnel – most of whom are soon to deploy to Afghanistan.
As well as being a full mission rehearsal exercise for the US personnel, the exercise provided excellent training for the RAF GR4 crews, some of whom will also deploy to Afghanistan later in the year when a Tornado force relieves Joint Force Harrier, which has been based at Kandahar airfield since November 2004.
Exercise Green Flag East aimed to replicate current operations in the Middle East to the finest detail, and utilised a range complex which features mock towns and villages, as well as several of the nearby towns to conduct urban close air support. Locally employed civilians were used to further enhance the reality of the many and varied scenarios by acting as villagers, local officials, UN troops and the media, who even gave broadcasts during the exercise.
Lieutenant Colonel Cherry, Commander of the US 548th Combat Training Squadron, said:
“When airmen and soldiers now have boots on the ground in a war zone, their situational awareness is fresh, relevant and intense. The training was built to imitate in two weeks what airmen and soldiers would normally see in a year of combat.”
Outside the exercise scenario there are a number of academic scenarios which have been specifically developed for training aircrew, US Air Force Joint Tactical Air Controllers (JTACs) and US Army Joint Fire Observers (JFOs) in the close air support role.
The missions focus on Counter Insurgency and Counter Improvised Explosive Device (IED) roles, convoy support and route sweep which will form a significant part of the tasking during future deployments to Afghanistan.
Urban close air support (CAS) was conducted both in the mock settlements and also in nearby towns such as Deridder and Oakdale, where local officials granted permission for both troops and aircraft to conduct this important training.
Further scenarios are constructed at the CAS town, where each day a different US Army patrol is given a mission similar to what they can expect to encounter on operations. This might involve moving into a village to take control from insurgents known to be operating in the area, to meeting local civilians to discuss reconstruction progress.
Participants frequently met with stiff opposition from the simulated insurgents (played by exercise staff and pyrotechnics technicians) and the scenarios developed to require intervention by the Tornado GR4 and escalatory action. This could be anything from noise overhead to a show of force, to employing munitions to achieve the desired effect. This undoubtedly provided some of the best close air support training in the world.
Many weapon delivery profiles were practised during the exercise, including the use of Enhanced Paveway 2, 1,000lb (450kg) free fall and retarded bombs, and strafe with the Tornado's 27mm Mauser cannon.
All of these profiles are representative of what the aircraft has recently been required to do on operations and will in all likelihood be required to do on future operations. Strafing a moving target is a difficult skill, and one that aircrew can rarely practise elsewhere.
During the exercise crews were able to practise moving target strafe with training rounds against two different targets at Fort Polk. The targets, which are remotely controlled and move up and down on rails, have a pop-up aiming panel and simulate a car-sized target.
Throughout the exercise, when crews were not engaged in flying duties they were able to travel to the range and take part in the scenarios, playing the role of insurgent forces.
This saw crew members involved in such activities as setting off mortar rounds, emplacing IEDs and setting off pyrotechnics to simulate weapon impacts and strafe attacks.These visits were not only a fun day out for the air and ground crew, they served to further develop understanding of Air Land Integration and provided a valuable opportunity to talk to land forces.
During the visits, crews observed the JTACs and JFOs at work and were able to share with them the capabilities of the aircraft and discuss how best to utilise air assets to maximise the effect the Ground Commander requires. A number of Detachment Support Party and Engineering personnel also attended these visits in order to get a better understanding of the nature of the job that they are directly supporting, on both this exercise and on operations.
The 165-strong detachment from the RAF included support personnel from RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Marham and the wider RAF community. including RAF Kinloss, Halton and Akrotiri. UK JTACs from both the RAF and British Army also took part in the exercise to continue their training and further broaden the training for US forces.
Despite the challenging conditions the sortie success rate was extremely high. Of note, the training enabled six aircrew from across the wing to achieve combat ready status. This was testament to the engineering and support personnel whose hard work during the exercise enabled so much valuable training for both the Tornado GR4 aircrew and Joint land forces.
Wing Commander Steve Reeves, Officer Commanding 14 Squadron, said:
“This has been a fantastic exercise that has enabled crews to train in a realistic joint environment for the full range of airpower tasks – from presence right through to lethal force – that we face on current operations. GF-E has provided the best CAS training facility I have seen. It sets the benchmark for others to follow and given our current op focus I very much hope it will remain part of the UK's exercise programme.”
