A dozen US Air Force maintainers and pilots gather around a television monitor in a briefing room at Hill AFB, Utah. On the screen, a remote-controlled tank trundles down a gravel road pulling an armored personnel carrier with a 200-foot tether. The perspective shifts occasionally from an overall shot of both tank and APC, to the tank looking back at the APC, to the tank driver's position looking forward to stay on course.
The two-vehicle parade is nothing spectacular and certainly no candidate for prime time. Still, the live feed captivates the audience. In the blink of an eye, though, a dark object enters screen right, kicking up a small cloud of dirt and dust about three feet beside the APC. The audience reacts knowingly, "Ooh. Aah."
Capt. Tom Seymour, an F-16 pilot from the 55th Fighter Squadron at Shaw AFB, South Carolina, provides immediate commentary: "If that were a live bomb," he says, "the APC would be out of commission." What the audience witnessed was a 500-pound bomb, filled with cement instead of explosives, homing in on a laser spot generated from a targeting pod mounted to one of the 55th's Block 50 F-16s. "We started flying with targeting pods about three weeks ago," adds Seymour. "The pilots dropping laser-guided bombs today have never dropped an LGB before."
Defining The Hammer
Such first-time experiences are part and parcel for Combat Hammer, the US Air Force's formal program for evaluating the operational effectiveness of precision guided munitions. These highly scrutinized bomb dropping and missile firing sessions, also known as air-to-ground Weapon System Evaluation Program, or WSEP, are conducted at two locations: the Utah Test and Training Range near Hill AFB and the range complex surrounding Eglin AFB, Florida.
Responsibility for Combat Hammer falls under the 86th Fighter Weapons Squadron at Eglin. "We provide a cradle-to-grave assessment of all of the precision guided weapons in the Air Force," explains Lt. Col. Dave Lujan, director of operations for the 86th. "We assess the effectiveness and suitability of these weapons through realistic and tactical scenarios — from the time the bomb is built through the moment it impacts."
The Air Force conducts five WSEP sessions every year, three in Utah and two in Florida. Each session lasts two or three weeks, with units rotating in one week at a time. The duration for each unit will be expanded in 2005 to two weeks, which is the same amount of time now allotted for Combat Archer, Combat Hammer's air-to-air equivalent. Participating units usually send eight aircraft and about twice as many pilots. "We try to make sure units who have not been here in the last three years get invited," explains Lujan, who is in charge of selecting candidates.
This WSEP is scheduled for two weeks with five units. Pilots flying Block 50 F-16s from Shaw and F-15E crews from Lakenheath AB, England, come the first week. RQ-1A Predators from Indian Springs Auxiliary Field in Nevada come the second week, the first time for these unmanned aerial vehicles at Combat Hammer. They will be joined by A-10 pilots from the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis AFB, Nevada, and F-15E crews from Mountain Home AFB, Idaho.
Keeping track of weapon performance can stress the smartest statistician, given the variety and complexity of precision weapons and the airframes that drop and fire them. The Air Force has more than fifty possible weapon/airframe combinations. The airframe side of the roster includes the A-10, B-1, B-2, B-52, F-15E, F-117, three versions of the F-16, and the RQ-1A. And weapons consist of the AGM-65 Maverick Missile; AGM-86 Air-Launched CruiseMissile; AGM-88 High Speed Antiradiation Missile, or HARM; AGM-114 Hellfire missile (fired from the Predator); AGM-130 (a rocket-powered version of the GBU-15); AGM-154A Joint Standoff Weapon; AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile; CBU-103 and -105cluster munitions; GBU-10, -12, -24, and -28 laser-guided bombs; GBU-31 and -38 GPS-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions (2,000 and 500 pounds, respectively); and the EGBU-15, which can be guided by laser designation or GPS.
Those involved with WSEP don't attempt to evaluate all fifty-plus possible weapon/airframe combinations every year; however, they do assess overall weapon performance and provide statistically significant findings to commanders at the highest levels of the Defense Department. The choice of weapons and weapon platforms for a given combat situation is directly influenced by the results measured and tabulated at Combat Hammer.
While not every airframe can carry every type of weapon, some airframes do carry a greater variety than others. The F-16 can claim about twenty-nine of those possible combinations. The F-16 Block 50/52 alone accounts for twelve (the most of any single aircraft in USAF inventory). "Current versions of the Block 50/52 F-16 can employ an incredible array of air-to-ground weapons," notes Lujan. "The Block 50/52 is best known for carrying the AGM-88 HARM. More recently it has employed GPS-guided weapons, such as the JDAM and CBU-103 and -105. With the latest upgrades, the Block 50 and 52 can now employ laser-guided munitions, including the GBU-12, -31, and -38, as well as the JSOW and JASSM."
Shaw's 55th FS participation in Combat Hammer marked the first time that several of these weapons as well as some targeting systems were used on an F-16 in an operational evaluation. Some of these firsts included using targeting pods to direct LGBs against moving targets (a first for a Block 50 squadron), employing the AGM-154 JSOW, delivering the CBU-105 sensor-fuzed weapon from the new BRU-57 bomb rack, and using the Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System in an operational evaluation.
"Improvements on the F-16 are software-driven," explains Lujan. "The latest software for the Block 50, called M3.3, supports color displays, helmet-mounted cueing systems, and targeting pods. The upgrade was fielded operationally in June. So these Block 50 F-16s are completely different airplanes from what they were only a year ago. The 55th is the first unit to take a look at a lot of these new capabilities. These drops form our initial database."
Preparation And Execution
Personnel from Shaw began preparing for Combat Hammer about a month before trekking to Hill. "The commander chose ten pilots he wanted to spin up on the targeting pod," explains Lt. Col. Scott Manning, director of operations for the 55th FS. "Before coming to Utah, they flew training missions with the pods at Shaw to prepare to drop real laser-guided bombs here in Utah. We didn't have to train on GPS-guided weapons because we drop CBU-103 and JDAM all the time. Even though we get several of those munitions periodically at home, we focused on them more for about a month before coming here. We had Mavericks delivered to Shaw before we came here, for example. We even requested a representative from Raytheon brief us on the Maverick."
Pilots from the 55th made the most of their deployment by loading their jets with inert JDAMs at Shaw and dropping the bombs at a range near Nellis AFB on their way to Hill. The deployment was supported by two KC-10s from the 60th Air Mobility Wing at Travis AFB, California
"We loaded the tankers with our gear and our people, and everything and everyone took off cross-country to Hill," says Seymour. "The plan worked like a champ."
Weeks before the group deployed, Shaw sent six technicians to Hill to assemble the bombs. "We built thirty-seven weapons," explains MSgt. William Teneyek, who was in charge of the contingent from Shaw. "We built the ones we were familiar with first, such as the JDAM, HARM, and Maverick. We built the CBU-105, GBU-12, and the JSOW with the help of WSEP, Mountain Home, and Lakenheath technicians. We also helped other units deployed build the bombs they were not used to building. But weapons technicians don't specialize in weapons just for F-16s. They have to know how to build weapons for every airframe. Thanks to the WSEP guys, we were transformed into experts on the newer weapons. When we get back to Shaw, we'll teach others how to build them."
WSEP evaluators monitor and grade the work performed by the ammo troops, according to Seymour, who was assigned to the 86th FWS at Eglin before coming to Shaw. "They make sure the weapons are built according to the technical orders. They evaluate how the weapons are transported to the flight line, how they are handed off to the weapon loaders, and how they are loaded onto the aircraft. For many of these weapons, these evaluations are the first time the tech orders have been used as procedures in the field. They can even catch deficiencies in the technical orders."
All munitions employed at Combat Hammer have inert warheads to preserve the target arrays on the training range as well as to measure the weapon impacts accurately. Maverick missiles and cluster munitions are two exceptions. Mavericks have no inert versions, and the limited numbers of inert versions of cluster munitions are used primarily for profiling aircraft/weapon flight characteristics. Most of the weapons carry expensive instrumentation packages that monitor the condition, speed, and location of the weapon. A variety of video cameras record the impacts. This data is collected at a mission control center at Hill. "They can tell us the angle of the bomb, its speed, and its proximity to the laser spot or to the intended target," Lujan explains
"Expensive instrumentation packages and peer pressure can contribute to the usual stress levels," says Manning. "As our drops are videotaped, everyone back in the briefing room is glued to the monitor watching the results of our drops."
Pilots must also employ the weapons in realistic tactical scenarios. "We give them the scenario and environment, but they employ the weapons according to their tactical standards," adds Lujan. "For example, we may need them to fly a specific profile, but they have to fly that profile in a tactical environment of adversary aircraft and surface-to-air threats."
"I was impressed with the air-to-ground threat," says Capt. Travis Peterson from Shaw. "Range personnel fired rockets called Smoky SAMs to simulate surface-to-air missile shots. Those rockets leave a telltale corkscrew that we had to defend against while lasing a bomb into a target. They also have threat radar emitters out there to distract us. The Utah Test and Training Range itself is great. It's huge with a lot of geographical features, and we don't have to burn a lot of gas to get there. And, most importantly, we can drop live weapons."
"Most of what we learn here gets pushed into our plans for employing these weapons," says Maj. Ian Phillips, who dropped a CBU-105 from a BRU-57 rack (one of the firsts for Shaw). "We get to see how our decisions affect what actually happens in a target area. The CBU-105, for example, is affected by surface winds because the bomblets float down on small parachutes. So we need to factor in the strength and the direction of the prevailing winds before we drop. We have to balance a number of such factors to optimize the performance of every weapon. We would rather discover these effects at a WSEP than in combat."
Just experiencing the sensations of a weapon coming off the airplane can be important. "A HARM shot and a Maverick shot are the two most sensational experiences an F-16 pilot can savor at a Combat Hammer," Phillips continues. "They feel like a freight train leaving the airplane. We see smoke, fire, and a big missile shooting out in front of us. It's impressive. We would rather experience those sensations for the first time in a training environment rather than in actual combat. The experience and the data collected here allow us to make smarter decisions."
CCIP Primer
The improvements to Shaw's Block 50 F-16s fall under the Common Configuration Implementation Program, or CCIP (pronounced C-sip). The program is an extensive upgrade to USAF Block 40/42 and Block 50/52 F-16s. The modifications significantly enhance the cockpit, avionics, and combat capability, merging many features that formerly distinguished Block 40 F-16s from Block 50 F-16s. The resulting hardware and software commonality between the two F-16 versions simplifies logistics support and reduces the cost of future improvements. In addition, the modifications provide a high degree of commonality with earlier model F-16s being upgraded by five European NATO countries and advanced F-16 versions being developed for several other countries.
CCIP adds a modular mission computer, color multifunction displays, advanced interrogator/transponder (APX-113), and software provisions for a targeting pod and BRU-57 bomb rack. The new computer replaces three large avionic units; provides increased processing power and room needed for new capabilities; reduces the overall weight, volume, and cooling requirements for the avionics system; and im-proves maintainability and reliability. The color displays enhance situational awareness. Pilots can discriminate threats, friendly forces, and unknowns at a glance. The interrogator/ transponder also improves the pilot's situational awareness, especially when employing beyond visual range missiles, namely the AIM-120 AMRAAM. The targeting pod adds a precision strike capability to Block 50/52 F-16s. The BRU-57 allows the F-16 to carry four (instead of two) inertially aided munitions, including the JDAM, JSOW (Joint Standoff Weapon), and WCMD (Wind-Corrected Munitions Dispenser).
The upgrades radically alter the character of the Block 50/52 F-16, which usually operates as a HARM shooter in the suppression of enemy air defense mission, called SEAD. USAF Block 50/52 F-16s could not carry target-ing pods before CCIP. Targeting pods — normally associated with Block 40/42 and, more recently, with Block 30 F-16s — transform USAF Block 50/52 F-16s' SEAD capability into a destruction of enemy air defense capability. Soon, all Block 50/52 pilots will be able to locate radar-guided surface-to-air missile sites with their HARM Targeting System, suppress the site with a HARM shot, target the site with the targeting pod, and then use the targeting pod to direct a laser-guided bomb to destroy the site. The targeting pods also improve the flexibility of GPS-guided munitions, such as JDAM and WCMD.
CCIP also includes an advanced datalink capability called Link-16, a helmet-mounted cueing system, and an electronic horizontal situation indicator. Link-16 improves situational awareness by allowing the F-16 to exchange data with other air and ground assets. Link-16 — a jam-resistant, secure, high-capacity communication system — has been designated by the Department of Defense as its primary tactical datalink and will be common across many military platforms.
The helmet-mounted cueing system directs weapons and sensors to the pilot's line of sight. The system can be used to mark aerial targets for off-boresight missiles, like the AIM-9X, or to locate and identify ground targets visually from transmitted or stored GPS/inertial coordinates. The electronic horizontal situation indicator replaces the current electromechanical HSI. The electronic display, which is more reliable, offers more operating modes. It is also compatible with night vision goggles.
The Sniper XR (XR for extended range) pod is built by Lockheed Martin in Orlando, Florida. The pod, with its faceted nose, incorporates a third-generation targeting FLIR that allows pilots to identify tactical targets at greatly improved standoff ranges over current targeting systems. The modular, two-level maintenance design simplifies upkeep and lowers operating costs.
Eric Hehs is the editor of Code One.
