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This article appeared in the Fourth Quarter 2001 issue of Code One Magazine.
 Spangdahlem Air Base sits atop one of the many rolling hills in the middle of the picturesque Eifel region in southeast Germany. The Eifel—with its rugged terrain, volcanic lakes, abundant castles, and sloping vineyards of the Mosel, Ahr, and Rhine river valleys—provides postcard-perfect backdrops for the A-10 Thunderbolts and F-16 Fighting Falcons based at Spangdahlem, home to the 52nd Fighter Wing of US Air Forces Europe.
The 52nd, one of only six USAF wings remaining in Europe, consists of two F-16 squadrons (the 22nd FS Stingers and the 23rd FS Fighting Hawks), one A-10 squadron (the 81st FS Panthers), and an air control squadron (the 606th ACS). “The 52nd functions much like a composite wing,” says Col. Greg Ihde, commander of the wing. “Granted, we are not a dedicated composite wing like you find at Mountain Home and Seymour Johnson, which have a built-in command and control structure, but our air control squadron provides a lot of that command and control capability. Our A-10 squadron performs ground attack and combat search and rescue missions. Our two Block 50 F-16 squadrons perform offensive and defensive counter-air and suppression of enemy air defenses, or SEAD, missions.”
Ihde, a former RF-4 pilot with over 2,500 hours accumulated in the F-16, notes that recent improvements in the Block 50 F-16 fleet will expand those capabilities. “As we incorporate precision J-weapons, we will be that much more effective,” he explains. “We have a huge capability although the Air Force does not have much presence left in Europe. North of the Swiss Alps is the 48th Fighter Wing at Lakenheath, England, a pure F-15 wing. South of the Alps is the 555th at Aviano, Italy. That’s it. This diminished presence of USAF forces in Europe heightens the importance of our mission.”
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| Col. Greg Ihde |
The J-weapons Ihde mentions are air-to-ground munitions guided by a satellite-based global positioning system, or GPS. J-weapons include the Joint Direct Attack Munition and Joint Standoff Weapon, also known as JDAM and JSOW. JDAM is a dumb bomb educated by a GPS-based guidance system in the form of a tail kit. JSOW is a family of newly designed GPS-guided glide bombs that can be launched from fifteen to forty miles away from a target, depending on the launch altitude. The latest F-16 software update, called Tape 50T5, allows the F-16 Block 50 to drop J-weapons as well as the wind-corrected munitions dispenser, or WCMD, another dumb bomb made smarter by an inertial guidance system placed in a tail kit. The WCMD inertial guidance system corrects for wind effects and other errors during the bomb’s ballistic fall.
Even after these new smart weapons become part of the 52nd’s arsenal, the Block 50 F-16s of the 22nd and 23rd Fighter Squadrons will continue to use the AGM-88 high-speed antiradiation missile, or HARM, as the weapon of choice for their primary mission—suppression of enemy air defenses.
SEAD BACKGROUND
The AGM-88 HARM suppresses enemy air defenses by detecting radar emissions associated with surface-to-air missile, or SAM, sites, propelling itself at supersonic speeds at the emitters, and destroying the emitters with a small warhead. Block 30, 50, and 52 F-16s are the only USAF aircraft equipped to carry HARMs. (EA-6B and F-18s fly SEAD missions with HARM for the US Navy. Tornados carry HARMs for the German and Italian air forces.)
F-16s have been involved with the SEAD mission even before the Block 50 was introduced. In the Gulf War, Block 30 F-16s loaded with HARMs accompanied F-4G Wild Weasels in what was called mixed pairs. The F-4Gs located SAM sites and passed targeting information to the F-16s, which helped destroy the sites. The advanced capabilities of the F-16 Block 50/52 allowed USAF F-16s to take over the SEAD role from the F-4G Wild Weasel shortly after the Gulf War when F-4s were phased out of USAF inventory. Block 50 F-16s performed the SEAD mission extensively during Operation Allied Force.
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| Capt. Todd Seger |
The Block 50/52 HARM capability was refined by the HARM targeting system in the early 1990s. The system, represented by a small pod on the right chin of the inlet, consists of specialized software and a super sensitive receiver that detects, classifies, and ranges threats and then passes the information to the HARM and to display screens in the cockpit.
The proliferation of SAMs around the globe has accentuated the need for SEAD. Before any allied strike aircraft crosses into hostile territory, odds are that an aircraft carrying HARMs is clearing the way. In many respects, SEAD has become prerequisite for air superiority. The SEAD mission for the US Air Force falls entirely on the shoulders of Block 50 and 52 F-16 squadrons located at Spangdahlem and at four other bases—Misawa in Japan, Mountain Home in Idaho, and Shaw and McEntire in South Carolina.
 SEAD missions fall into two categories, A and C. In SEAD A, SAM sites and their associated radars are detected and targeted to prevent them from operating. In SEAD C, SAM sites are destroyed with a HARM shot or with other munitions, including Maverick missiles and bombs. Hostile SAM batteries, once thought of as relatively fixed installations, have turned into dynamic threats that move from day to day.
“Our mission planning leans heavily on intelligence about SAMs and their tactics,” explains Capt. Todd Seger of the 23rd FS. “Our ability to react immediately to ground threats in the air is one reason why no one will go on a strike mission without a Block 50 around.”
TRANSITIONING TO SEAD
Given the nature of the SEAD mission, transitioning to the Block 50 from another version of the F-16 can be a challenge for pilots. “Many newcomers to the Block 50 and the SEAD mission have a hard time getting used to the fact that we operate as support assets and not as mission commanders,” says Seger. “We defend strike packages from surface-to-air threats. Block 40 F-16 pilots usually command the mission. To transition to a Block 50 SEAD mission, Block 40 pilots have to spend considerable time learning all of the sensor information available in this airplane. They also have to spend considerable time planning the mission itself. Learning to prioritize tasks in the air is also more challenging on the Block 50 than it is on other airplanes. Even with those preparations, the success of the mission is often determined on the ground.”
“I came here having flown at Osan as an experienced Block 40 instructor pilot in the F-16,” adds Lt. Col. Steve Kempf, who commands the 23rd FS at Spangdahlem. “The Block 50 is very different from a Block 40. It took me a while to become comfortable with the new cockpit and all the new systems. Furthermore, the depth of knowledge needed to attack threat systems is significantly greater than it was ten years ago. We really have to know these systems.”
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| Lt. Col. Steve Kempf |
OP TEMPO AND TRAINING
The operational necessity for SEAD assets and their limited availability increases the duration of Aerospace Expeditionary Force rotations for the pilots and ground crews of the 23rd from the standard ninety days to 120 days. “We conduct these 120-day rotations every fifteen months,” notes Seger. Those rotations have involved deployments to Turkey and the Middle East for Operations Northern and Southern Watch.
The Block 50 units at Spangdahlem keep very busy even when they are not flying combat missions over Iraq. “This is the highest ops tempo I’ve experienced in my F-16 career,” says Kempf, who flew with F-16 units at Kunsan, Torrejon, Hill, and Osan before coming to Spangdahlem. “We deploy a lot more often than other units. For example, this year we’ve been to Spain. Next month, we are going to Denmark. Later this year, we are conducting an operational readiness review at Lakenheath as well as a NATO TacEval. I may have been in Germany twelve months of the last two years I’ve been with the 52nd.”
 The central European location of the 52nd FW encourages greater international cooperation. The wing is more frequently involved in composite force operations than most stateside F-16 units. “We flew practice missions last week in Slovakia, and we are flying in the Czech Republic this week,” notes Ihde. “The Czechs are using their SA-6 SAM batteries, which are now part of NATO. So we can look at former threats that are still current threats in some countries. We fly composite air operations all the time. We put forty- to fifty-aircraft international packages together about once a month. We have forces taking off from Belgium, France, and the Netherlands and joining us at some rendezvous point. Everyone involved is communicating with NATO AWACS. Everyone is using the same radio frequencies. German MiG-29s provide dissimilar adversaries. German Tornados provide jamming support. Dutch F-16s, Belgian F-16s, and German F-4s fly escort and drop bombs. That is how we train, and that is how we will fight.”
Local training for the 52nd occurs over the Polygone range in southwestern Germany. The range consists of several threat emitters dispersed throughout the area. The F-16s are equipped with a GPS-based instrumentation system called URITS (short for USAFE Rangeless Interim Training System), which monitors and records aircraft position over time. “The system eliminates the need for any ground-based transceivers,” explains Col. Michael Beard, the Operations Group Commander at the 52nd FW. “URITS may soon integrate missile flyout information to provide the outcome of a simulated missile shot in realtime. We are also trying to apply the system to A-10 operations by incorporating air-to-ground data.”
 FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS
While software upgrades allow Spangdahlem’s F-16s to carry new weapons, the Common Configuration Implementation Program, CCIP, will soon expand the capabilities of its Block 50s even further. CCIP, which is planned for all USAF Block 40 and 50 aircraft, includes a modular mission computer, color cockpit displays, electronic interrogator/transponder, a high-speed datalink, and a helmet-mounted cueing system.
Like most other USAF F-16 pilots, Lt. Col. Kempf is most enthusiastic about the autonomous beyond-visual-range air-intercept capability provided by the interrogator/transponder—a capability that many international F-16 operators already enjoy. “The ability to identify threat aircraft from friendly aircraft is important to us,” he says. “Though we have an air-to-air commitment, we are handcuffed to offboard identification unless we go to a visual merge with another aircraft. Visual merges should happen by accident only; they aren’t something we want to plan. The interrogator will definitely increase our lethality.”
 Kempf expects the color displays to reduce workload in the cockpit significantly. “Keeping track of all the data needed for the SEAD mission on a monochrome display can be a monumental task,” he explains. “Discriminating between monochromatic shapes becomes difficult when we use them to track so many items, such as preplanned threats, surface-to-air threats, air-to-air threats, datalinked threats, good guys, bad guys, and unknown guys. The problem is magnified as the situation becomes more complex and cluttered. Color makes the picture of the threat much clearer. Red, blue, green, and yellow will supplement the shapes we use on our threat displays now.”
By standardizing the Air Force’s Block 40 and Block 50 fleet, CCIP adds LANTIRN capability to Block 50. The ability to precisely target a ground threat with a LANTIRN targeting pod alone represents a significant enhancement to the SEAD mission. “HARM is a suppression weapon,” notes Kempf. “It makes ground treats turn off their radar, which makes our mission effective. But those same threats might be able to turn on their radar the next day. A targeting pod allows us to destroy the sites more effectively. With a targeting pod, we will be able to drop laser-guided munitions from our platform and designate targets for other aircraft.”
READY TO DEPLOY
Even though rotations to Operations Northern and Southern Watch have become somewhat routine, the men and women of the 52nd FW know they could be deployed to an unfamiliar theater on short notice. “When I was a young fighter pilot, I would have never guessed that we would go to war in Iraq,” says Beard. “We were focused on Korea and the Fulda Gap. Who would have imagined that the Fulda Gap would amount to little more than a footnote in the history books? The next hot spot will be someplace we’re not even thinking about today. Our job is to be ready to go there and counter whatever threats come our way.”
Eric Hehs is the editor of Code One.
Katsuhiko Tokunaga is an aviation photographer based in Japan.
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