Douglas Barrie/RAF LEUCHARS
The target is a power station in the Hebrides, Scotland, with the aim being to disable its generating capability for four to six weeks. A strike force of Panavia Tornado GR1s is tasked with the mission - following devolution, relations between Scotland and England have taken a turn for the worse.
Well, not quite. The aircraft in question are being flown out of RAF Leuchars on the east coast of Scotland on a training mission as part of the operations phase of the Royal Air Force's Combined Qualified Weapons Instructor (CQWI) course.
The CQWI is managed by the RAF's Air Warfare Centre - the first course was implemented in June 1996 and two Tornado F3 and GR1 courses are run each year, along with one Sepecat Jaguar GR1B and a British Aerospace Harrier GR7 course.
The CQWI course emerged as a result of the RAF determining that "QWIs need more tactically oriented training, with less emphasis on academic instruction and more on air weapons ranges".
Previous QWI courses had been run only by the type operational conversion unit (OCU) on an in-house basis. The emphasis within the OCU was on instruction, with not enough on the weaponry, says one Air Warfare Centre (AWC) senior officer.
The role of the QWI is to provide at squadron level the specialist knowledge of weapons and tactics upon which the unit commander can draw in response to specific mission tasking orders.
Overhauling the approach to QWI training got under way as far back as 1993, with all the OCU courses coming under scrutiny to determine elements common to them. To those within the AWC it became apparent that the Tornado and Jaguar strike aircraft ground and operational phases could be brought together.
The CQWI effectively reflects the impact on RAF training doctrine of the end of the Nato-Warsaw Pact confrontation, combined with the lessons drawn from the Gulf War.
COMFORTING FAMILIARITY
If the Cold War provided any kind of reassurance, however bleak, it was, as one senior officer of the then Department of Air Warfare put it, the "comforting familiarity with the [European] Central Region".
Throughout the East-West confrontation the UK air defence and Central European front regions provided the RAF with the paradigm upon which its operational doctrine was based. The welcome end of the Cold War left the RAF having to reflect a radically changed environment in its operational art - the Gulf War was to highlight many areas which the air force needed to address.
The Tornado GR1 had been designed to meet low-level requirements in Central Europe, with the associated operational and flightcrew training syllabus similarly driven. The Gulf War, and subsequent low intensity operations, have shown the need for a more flexible tactical approach.
The CQWI course draws students from aircrew who are finishing their first or second tour. One Air Warfare Centre officer says: "The students are all air combat leaders, with all two ship, and many cleared to lead four ship, formations." The course covers a combined ground school, bringing together Tornado GR1, Harrier GR7 and Jaguar GR1B aircrew.
Pooling together the RAF's various strike aircraft types within the CQWI course also reflects the likelihood that, for many future operations, the units will at least be working in consort, if not in mixed packages.
Unlike the previous OCU approach, the AWC draws heavily on external support in broadening the scope of the course. Students receive as many as 30 external lectures, with contributions from defence aerospace manufacturers, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, and weapons and threat specialists from the UK Ministry of Defence.
Areas covered include the characteristics of penetrating warheads, as well as that of warhead fuzing.
While at first glance these might seem arcane areas of study, even for combat aircrew, each can have a clear effect on tactics. During the 1992 Gulf War, for instance, it became apparent that, at certain impact angles, laser guided bombs were skipping off Iraqi hardened aircraft shelters.
With hardened and buried shelters, command and control centres and their ilk likely to form at least part of any future target set, understanding the basics of penetrating warheads as related to their successful utilisation has a clear value for mission planning and execution.
Following the ground school, the class participants are then brought together for the operational phase of the course. The AWC sees its role as one which "- provides a framework within which the individual QWI staffs can provide courses with better tactically oriented training".
The operational phase of the course covers a one day tactical ground school, followed by nine combined air operations sorties at the rate of one a day. XV(R), 20(R), and 56(R) squadrons provide the QWI course aircraft , while numerous other RAF units also pitch in as part of the operational training.
The operational phase of the training course in November 1997 included some 47 aircraft, with four US Air Force F-15Es from the 494th Fighter Sqn at RAF Lakenheath providing hostile air defence forces alongside four Royal Navy Sea Harrier F/A2s from 899 Naval Air Sqn.
The tasking orders and target sets included in the CQWI course are intended to reflect possible real-world requirements - if not the exact geographical location.
Both the offensive and defensive forces were operating out of Leuchars during the November 1997 CQWI course. The "mission" against the power station also included targeting a ground control intercept station. Reflecting an increasingly broad spectrum of potential conflicts, the tasking order required that the power station's generating capability be removed for four to six weeks, rather than merely calling for its destruction. This demanded that the mission planners address a targeting approach to rendering the power station inoperational for a limited period only.
The Blue attacking force for the day included eight Harrier GR7s, four Tornado GR1s, two GR1As, and two GR1s dedicated to the suppression of enemy air defence (SEAD) role. Blue fighter assets were four Tornado F3s.
READY FOR ACTION
The strike aircraft were carrying 454kg (1,000lb) iron bombs, with the SEAD aircraft equipped with the Matra BAe Dynamics ALARM anti-radiation missile.
The "Red" defending counter air was provided by the four Boeing F-15s, and four Sea Harrier F/A2s, while ground-based Red surface-to-air missile (SAM) assets included the SA-8 Gecko and SA-13 Gopher mobile low altitude air defence SAMs, as well as man portable SAMs and air defence artillery.
A NATO E-3 airborne warning and control system from Geilenkirchken also provided support - although the Blue force F3s were under the control of a ground-based fighter controller at one of the control centres for the RAF's Improved UK Air Defence Ground Environment at Buchan, in the north of Scotland.
Along with the aircrew, a command and control(C2) cell from RAF Strike Command was deployed as part of the CQWI course for the first time. A fully deployable Command Air Operations Centre (CAOC) is being procured by the Ministry of Defence, with an in-service date of 2002 scheduled. In the meantime, "small parts" of the existing system have been ruggedised to allow for deployed operations. The Strike Command staff taking part were using the CQWI course to "-exercise their interim planning and C2 capabilities."
AIR CAMPAIGN PLANNING
The ruggedised PC based system allows mission planners access to the Air Campaign Planning software along with on-screen imagery of the target and transit areas, over which ingress and egress routes for the strike and support packages can be displayed. A satellite link was being used for mission reporting as part of procedures proving, despite the physical proximity of the Strike Command staff and the Blue force.
Infra-red line scan imagery from 2Sqn GR1As was also fed into the system to allow for improved battle damage assessment (BDA). Timely BDA remains one of the critical requirements in any air campaign, as became apparent during the Gulf War.
As one RAF officer points out: "Tactical reconnaissance is a scarce resource," so anything that can be done therefore to improve the efficiency with which this valuable asset is used can only be welcome.
Following the mission, Blue and Red forces meet for their individual debriefs. Often the most contentious area , however, is that of the air-to-air engagements that have taken place during the exercise. A combination of E-3 data, along with video images from the launch aircraft, is used to try and determine the success, or not, of a missile engagement.
The final sweep-up is an all-participants debrief in which any lessons to be drawn from the day's mission can be brought up - with all those taking part having the opportunity to have their say. The AWC sees its role within this as "-letting the students get to the right answers themselves".
These lessons can be myriad - even down to what's in a name, or callsign, as one participant found out. Having been declared shot down in an air-to-air engagement one participant piped up: "Well, with a call-sign like Potato, you deserved to get mashed."
Source: Flight International
