<i>Joint US Marines-BAF air exercise </i>
A joint exercise between US Marines and the Bangladesh Air force (BAF) commenced from Wednesday last and continued for a week. This is by far, the largest joint exercise with US defence forces since starting of such operations in 1990. The exercise will provide valuable training for aircrew and maintenance personnel. Such operation will enable the US Marines and BAF participants to sharpen air combat skills, improve procedures for sustained operations, as well as promote closer relations and enhance interoperability. It complements a number of other exchanges and exercises intended to develop closer defense ties between the US and Bangladesh. One of the aims of this type of operations is to optimize and develop necessary standardized procedures for the interoperability - that is to say, the possibility for common, trouble free deployment. Air-to-air combat is an extremely complex and dynamic undertaking. The combination of speed and the ability to maneuver in three dimensions creates an environment that is constantly changing and rarely allows any of the participants to see and understand the entire picture at once. In order to be successful in this environment, participants must be highly skilled, (reasonably) intelligent individuals. This type of military cooperation provide the most realistic and applicable military aviation training in the world by utilizing a fleet of adversary aircraft that an air force would encounter in a true combat situation, simulating the roles of potential enemies of the US and allied militaries by using real world tactics of enemy air forces. The control of the air has always been a primary mission of any Air Force and is the key to victory in any conflict. Yet the ability to perform an air superiority mission via air-to-air combat has not received the continuous emphasis it deserves in terms of pilots and aircraft until recently. However, we need to look closely at the basic fighter and operational training to determine if the pilots are adequately trained to exploit the capabilities of these aircraft and accomplish the mission. Fighter pilots from countries all over the world are expected to use hardware purchased with national treasure to defend their homeland against attackers or attack others as directed by their leaders. In order to effectively accomplish those missions, pilots must regularly train for air combat. Air combat skills are perishable and even the best pilots are not as keen as they might be if they have not flown in a while, especially when flying in large force exercises where one decision may be the difference between success and failure. Air Combat Training (ACT) is a term used to describe a battle between similar aircraft. To illustrate the point, if 2 F-7 fighters are fighting against 2 other F-7s, this would be a similar air combat training, whereas 2 F-7s fighting 2 F-18s would be termed Dissimilar Air Combat Training (DACT). When planning a DACT exercise, planners typically will build an Offensive Counter-air (OCA) strike package and Defensive Counter-air (DCA) package with appropriate aircraft. Besides designating types of aircraft and missions, planners will also draw up objectives for the exercise. These objectives can be very specific or quite broad depending on the situation. A broad objective may be stated as building trust between countries or familiarize pilots with other air forces. More specific objectives may be effectively integrating air forces for lane defense. In order to accomplish these objectives, rules of engagement (ROE) will also be set. ROE consist of weapons load, identification criteria, maneuvering limitations, tactics restrictions, and just about anything else you can think of. ROE can be pretty liberal or very restrictive, depending on the objectives, experience level of the pilots, or number and type of aircraft involved. If the objective is to build trust between nations, the rules are going to be restrictive to try to ensure there will be no accidents, dangerous or stupid stunts that would embarrass one side or the other or result in needless loss of life. In most exercises there will be a threat aircraft and weapons designated as the training aid for the other side. It would, in all probability, be fair if the on-board AI equipmenmt of the F-18s could be temporarily disconnected in order to balance both sides on equal keel so that the pilots could fight "within visual range" rather than only the Americans with highly advanced "beyond visual range" sensing equipment. One option for the BAF pilots could be in the form of a sharp upwards by the lead aircraft, the lead BAF aircraft that had Alternately, BAF fighters could sneak in from deck level from a reciprocal heading or from 90 degrees astern but under positive GCI control. When the raid aircraft would reach a suitable position, the defending BAF fighter would have to make a afterburner climb and positioned suitably until a visual contact is established. However, gone are the days of fighters screaming in at deck level, acting as a piece of extended artillery. The air defence environment of today's battlefield just does not permit such employment of air power any more. However, considering that for an F-18 pilot, a typical air defense mission would start off as a long-range patrol under control of an AWACS that is looking deep into enemy territory. The AWACS will not be deployed in Bangladesh; as such the American pilots will be restricted with their AI equipment which will have maximum 30 nm pick up range. To even out certain obvious disadvantage of the BAF aircraft, it would be proper for them to stay under positive ground radar coverage. It would guide the F-18 to an intercept, feeding them positional data over telemetry. Around a hundred miles or so from the enemy fighters the F-18s would switch on their own individual radars, acquire the enemy aircraft and launch their long-range air-to-air missiles. In Bangladesh scenario such dissimilar air defence environment would be totally impractical. When participating in an international exercise, both sides are probably going to hold some information back. It should be noted that these types of exercises are planned many months in advance. A key part of the training syllabus is to agree on the types of scenarios to be performed during initial planning. Most of the learning experience occurs on the ground, not in the air. The evolution from Air Tasking Order to Mission Planning, asset Coordination to Aircraft Generation is where air battles are won or lost. As the ability of our pilots improve, due to the better training and education available in basic fighter maneuvers and air combat tactics, we must seek every possible advantage. We must fly our aircraft to the limit of its performance capabilities. More importantly, in dissimilar aircraft engagements, we must fly in a way that maximizes the strengths of our aircraft while exploiting the weaknesses of our opponent's aircraft. A pilot will be able to compare the flying characteristics of an F-7 to those of a F-18 and thus identify which regions of the flight envelope are most advantageous or dangerous to him. The spectrum of air surveillance task is expanding (parallel to the individual responsibility for controlling one's own air sovereignty) in a transnational co-operation in order to match new threats from the air successfully. This requires modern, compatible passive air surveillance as well as active components capable of fulfilling the necessary tasks. Air transport exercises are aimed at ensuring better interoperability among the air forces of and their partners in landing, deployment, rescue and evacuation efforts using air transport. Since the US forces operate more flexible airlift assets, simple airlift of emergency supplies will not suffice during multi-national operations. Expeditionary and emergency response airlift requires intelligence and linguist support. Owing to rapid advances in technology, forces on land, at sea and in the air reinforce and complement each other. Therefore synergized application of military power at the theatre, operational and tactical levels is the essence of winning wars. The BAF transport pilots will be on equal footing with the US Marines because of the use of same equipment; both being C-130 aircraft but they would have lot to learn from such operations. It is obvious that the BAF planners, aircrew and maintenance personnel will be able to derive tremendous benefits from such exercises even though they are held infrequently and for a limited duration. The author is a freelancer.
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