Good and bad guys filled the airspace and covered the ground in the Midwestern United States last June in a joint force exercise hosted by Volk Field Combat Readiness Training Center in central Wisconsin. Six Air National Guard F-16 units, ANG and Air Force Reserve Command A-10 units, command and control operators flying in E-3 AWACS and E-8 Joint STARS aircraft, a B-52 bomber unit, Army National Guard UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter units, and ANG KC-135 tanker units participated in realistic warfare scenarios in the exercise dubbed Northern Lightning '04.
"Many of the participants will be deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan as part of Air Expeditionary Force rotations," explains Maj. Bryan Cook, the air combat training system weapons and tactics officer at Volk Field. "Our major objective was to create a war scenario with missions and tactics similar to what they may encounter overseas. We included realistic time-sensitive targeting and combat search and rescue missions."
"Northern Lightning presented a tremendous opportunity for airborne controllers in AWACS and JSTARS to work with actual fighters, not with computer simulations of fighters," adds Lt. Col. Ray Peterson, the director of training at the training center. "They assumed the role of air mission commander for some of the CSAR missions in this exercise — a role they rarely practice in their standard training."
The Wisconsin ANG operates the Volk Field Combat Readiness Training Center. Northern Lightning '04 was their response to requests from many Midwestern tactical air units for a more intensive, realistic, and relevant training experience. Most of the participating units took part in the exercise from their home bases, using tanker support as well asmidday turns at Volk Field. The Iowa Army National Guard and 132nd Fighter Wing, the Iowa ANG unit based in Des Moines, actually deployed, as did the Wisconsin's own 147th Army Aviation Battalion.
Realistic scenarios form a foundation for effective training, and training center personnel relied on their close ties to local units to pump up the realism for Northern Lightning. "We have an outstanding relationship with the Army just down the road at Fort McCoy," notes Lt. Col. Brendan Smith, director of operations at Volk Field. "We can use the Army's ranges as well as our own. The support we get from the Army really makes the difference. Instead of a Joint STARS aircraft tracking a simulated convoy or telling an F-16 pilot to visualize a convoy, the Army runs a heavy truck convoy down a dirt road on a hostile part of the range. JSTARS operators benefit by detecting an actual truck convoy, and the F-16 and A-10 pilots they are directing benefit by having to find an actual convoy."
Other assets and relationships increased the realism of the training as well. Replica mobile Scud missile launchers dotted hostile territory as did multiple radar threat emitters, which accurately simulated radar-guided surface-to-air missile sites. The Federal Aviation Administration provided airspace coordination. Even local landowners contributed to the training. "Farmers offered the use of their land for the combat search and rescue exercises," adds Smith. "They love to watch the Army helicopters. Their interest opened up a lot of territory for us to insert downed pilots. Every CSAR mission we practiced took place at a different location."
Combat Search And Rescue
One of the major training objectives for Northern Lightning was to qualify selected F-16 and A-10 pilots to be on-scene commanders for combat search and rescue missions. CSAR, also called Sandy mission, is one of the more complex missions flown by F-16 and A-10 pilots. "During a CSAR mission, the situation can go from bad to worse in a heartbeat," explains Lt. Col. Mark Hammond, the operations group commander of the 132 FW. "Ground threats may be involved in the area. For example, bad guys might be driving down a road to get your downed pilot because they saw his parachute.
"Sandys have many responsibilities from authenticating the survivor, establishing visual contact with the downed pilot, taking inventory of available air assets and munitions to neutralize threats, and judging whether those munitions may put the downed aircrew or rescue helicopters in jeopardy," Hammond continues. "When that CSAR call comes in, the responding pilot has only one chance to do it right the first time. That's why we select our most competent and most capable pilots to be Sandys."
Northern Lightning also gave pilots already qualified for the Sandy mission an opportunity to practice their skills. CSAR is primarily an Air Force mission that involves specialized HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters tailored for the CSAR environment. The nature of Army aviation often requires its UH-60 Blackhawk drivers to be jacks-of-all trades, but their missions did not include CSAR until very recently.
"The Air Force HH-60 is a very specialized platform, while Army UH-60s perform more general support missions" says CWO3 Troy Bittner, an Army Guard pilot with the 147th Aviation Battalion. "Our proximity to the front lines raises the odds of extracting a coalition pilot before the enemy can locate him or organize coordinated opposition. CSAR is really not an Army mission. The changing nature of warfare, however, has made it a mission that the Army needs to develop.
"The best part of the exercise was the opportunity to work closely with Air Force F-16 and A-10 assets," Bittner adds. "The two services speak different languages on a lot of things. Working with the Air Force Sandys and training in this realistic environment were invaluable."
Time-Sensitive Targeting
Another major objective of the exercise was to practice time-sensitive targeting, a relatively new joint force tactic. "Typically, an F-16 strike mission involves several hours of planning, intelligence briefings, targeting information, and threat analysis. The mission is then flown according to this carefully laid out plan," explains Lt. Col. George Stillman, the operations officer of the 124 Fighter Squadron for Iowa's 132nd FW. "Time-sensitive targeting, however, usually involves being retasked to a higher priority target during a planned mission. The target can run the gamut from a convoy to an enemy column or a terrorist threat. We have to hit that target before it can seek refuge in a bunker, scatter, or hide in a cave. We may have as little as thirty minutes to put the bombs on target." Intelligence plays a very large role in TST in that the targeting information can come from a variety of sources such as a Joint STARS aircraft, unmanned air vehicles, ground-based Special Forces units, Air Force forward controllers, or local Army/Marine commanders.
"Real-time intelligence coordination expands our offensive capability over what we had just a few years ago," Stillman continues. "Time-sensitive targeting represents a cross-service capability because we may be employed by Army or Marine ground forces as well as JSTARS or Air Force forward controllers. This is a huge capability, not just for the F-16 community. It has also been used with B-52 and B-1 aircraft as well."
Another related objective of Northern Lightning was the integration of Air Force tactical air control parties, called TAC-Ps, with forward Army ground forces. In one scenario, TAC-Ps would communicate with Army ground forces to halt artillery and small arms fire so the TAC-Ps could call in and direct close-air support strikes from various aircraft. Of the two TAC-P units involved in Northern Lightning, one had recently returned from Afghanistan and the other was due to deploy to Afghanistan shortly after the training.
"We tend to practice the basics from our home base," Stillman says. "We go to the local range with a four-ship and drop some bombs. Those training missions don't allow for the many variables we can encounter in actual combat. Large-scale exercises give us the opportunity to work other aircraft, such as A-10s, into strike packages. Northern Lightning is absolutely relevant to what we will do when we deploy overseas. We cannot get this sort of training anywhere else in the country except perhaps at Red Flag or in Canada at Maple Flag. Even then, we are not dealing with the elaborate command and control structures we have here.
"I would like to see this exercise occur twice a year," Stillman notes. "This training is hugely beneficial for the young pilots heading overseas and about to perform these same missions for real. We need the support of the Guard Bureau and the Air Combat Command to turn Northern Lightning into something even bigger than it is now."
Joe Oliva is a photojournalist based in Wisconsin.
