Despite opposition, there is strong support in the UK for air-combat- tactics training for helicopter pilots.
Douglas Barrie/LONDON
TRAINING FOR rotary-wing air-combat tactics (ACT) is a contentious issue: some argue that the dangers outweigh the rewards.
Those critical of ACT should try explaining their opposition to the UK Westland Lynx pilots who had to evade US Air Force Fairchild A-10s during Operation Warden in northern Iraq in 1992. The A-10 pilots had mis-identified two Lynx as hostile, and were trying to carry out a gun engagement on the helicopters. Thankfully for all involved, they were unsuccessful.
Like many of the most effective training ideas, ACT in the UK grew from the grass roots up. The 3 Commando Brigade Air Squadron (3 BAS), Royal Marines, has an exchange programme with the US Marine Corps. Since 1987, USMC pilots have been involved in running a two-week intensive ACT course dubbed "Atlantic Bandit". One week is spent in the classroom, the other in the cockpit.
Supplementing the USMC pilot on a two-year exchange with 3 BAS is a second USMC pilot and, if funding allows, a third, drawn from the US Marine Corps Weapons and Tactics Training Squadron (MAWTS-1). As the name would suggest, MAWTS-1 is the USMC's helicopter combat school.
The MAWTS-1 runs the USMC's Weapons and Tactics Instructors course, and it is considered by many as the premier school for helicopter tactics. Pilots from the 3 BAS have in the past attended part of the course over two-week period as observers, although, for the first time, a 3 BAS pilot attended the whole eight-week course earlier this year. Unlike the 3 BAS course, the MAWTS-1 training also includes helicopter versus fixed-wing aircraft engagements.
While the USMC has the Bell AH-1W helicopter which, despite its venerable ancestry, remains a capable attack platform, the 3 BAS has to make do with the Westland Lynx AH Mk7. In total, it has six Lynx and eight Aerospatiale Gazelle helicopters with which to carry out its role of providing organic anti-tank helicopter support to the 3 Commando Brigade.
Great demand
While the Lynx is an excellent utility helicopter, it has had thrust upon it the attack role, which makes demands of the type beyond its original design capabilities.
This will change for the British Army Air Corps (AAC) when Staff Target (Air) 428, the UK's long-running attack-helicopter programme, is eventually settled.
The 3 BAS' interest in ST(A) 428 is, for the moment at least, purely academic. The unit 1994 will become a naval air squadron, and is not due to receive whatever eventually enters service with the AAC in the attack role.
Instead, when it returns its Lynx 7s to the AAC in 2001, it will then receive ex-Royal Navy Lynxes, following their conversion to meet the anti-armour role.
It is possible, however, that whatever the AAC receives may eventually find its way into the 3 BAS inventory, although two out of the three contenders would need to be converted to maritime use almost from scratch.
Neither the Eurocopter Tiger, nor the McDonnell Douglas AH-64D, as offered, has been qualified for shipboard operations. The GEC/Bell Cobra Venom, with its marine heritage, is qualified.
One of the critical areas for shipborne operations is electromagnetic (EM) compatibility. This is intended to ensure that weapons on board the helicopter are not fired accidentally because of EM emissions from ship systems such as radars.
While the 3 BAS may be stuck with the Lynx, at least for the moment, the AAC still stands to gain from its experience in implementing the ACT course.
Alongside the concern over the value of ACT training, there may also be a sneaking resentment over training helicopter crews for air-to-air combat. The attack helicopter is, after all, primarily an extended-range, direct-fire platform for the army. Engaging other helicopters is merely a distraction, its opponents might say, from the real task - that of supporting friendly ground forces, and disrupting the operations of the enemy deep into the rear.
Those holding this view might be surprised to find support from Capt Mike Rocco, the USMC Cobra pilot now on a two- year secondment to the 3 BAS. Rocco stresses that ACT training is not intended to detract from the primary support role. Rather, it is intended to complement this by allowing the unit to carry out operations, even if it should encounter hostile air activity before it has completed its primary mission.
As 3 BAS C Sgt Damien Irving points out: "The goal of ACT is to give helicopter pilots the skills to survive a chance encounter with an aerial adversary. Opponents see ACT training as dangerous: the flying of multiple aircraft in a very small piece of airspace, at the aircraft's limit, is demanding. However, the reward is a pilot who has the knowledge and ability to survive that chance encounter."
Flying for the course is carried out over ranges in Dartmoor from the Okehampton, Devonshire, camp in the UK. The proximity of the camp to the flying area has the benefit of cutting down the transit flight time, allowing the crews to maximise the amount of time spent flying "engagements".
Perceived opposition
The baseline perceived opposition during ACT training missions, for which the 3 BAS has put together the syllabus, remains the Russian Mil Mi-24 Hind. The Hind is in widespread service with former Soviet Union client states, and late-model aircraft, in particular, represent a considerable threat.
Rocco says that, initially, the USMC had to model the flight parameters of the Hind on computer, although it now has actual flight experience of the Mil helicopter. Other potential opponents include the Mil Mi-8/17 family, along with some Western-designed helicopters which are now included in the inventories of states which could pose a military threat.
With Russia continuing to develop both the Mil Mi-28 Havoc and Kamov Ka-50 Hokum (although funding shortages have hampered the projects), the likelihood is that there will be continuing availability of secondhand Hinds on the export market. Both the Havoc and the Hokum will also be available for export, and mark a considerable improvement in combat capability over the Hind. The Hind remains a combat-support helicopter, rather than a dedicated attack platform.
In the case of Atlantic Bandit, both the Gazelle and Lynx are used as the opposition for the ACT engagements, with each of the types being flown to the limiting parameters of the helicopter being simulated.
Both one-versus-one and two-versus-one engagements are flown during ACT training. In terms of safety, a minimum separation of 100m (330ft) is maintained, while the minimum altitude is 100ft. During an engagement, the "tail-chase" aircraft crew is obliged to monitor the height of both aircraft. As with fixed-wing visual air-to-air combat tactics, energy and height remain critical elements of any engagement.
As Rocco points out, when a "bandit" is identified in the rear-hemisphere sector of the "friendly" aircraft, then the basic manoeuvre is to "...turn aggressively and get into the classic head-to-head".
The Hind's primary offensive armament is one of a variety of chin- or fuselage-mounted cannon, depending on the model, along with anti-armour missiles, which have a secondary air-to air role.
Late-model Hinds have also been fitted with the Vympel R-60 (AA-8 Aphid), while the Ka-50 has been shown with a mock-up of an R-73 (AA-11 Archer) on one of its wing hardpoints.
The R-73, coupled with a helmet-mounted sight, would provide a high off-boresight- engagement capability for the user. It is in the light of this kind of development that the AAC is keen to get a capable anti-air weapon of its own for its attack helicopter.
The tactics
In terms of a two-versus-one defensive engagement, where a two-ship formation of "friendly" helicopters is attacked by a single "bandit", the basic manoeuvre is termed a "dig and a pinch". This manoeuvre is intended to get the "aggressor" to divide attention between the two-ship during the head-to-head phase of the engagement. Following this manoeuvre, either one of the two-ship may try to get on to the bandit's "six" (six o'clock, or tail, position) before the aggressor is drawn into a tail-chase engagement on one of the two friendly aircraft. In this case, the role of the free friendly aircraft is, as is aptly put by one 3 BAS pilot, "...to sort out the problem for the one that's already engaged".
Once the tail chase has developed into what is known as a "fur ball", with both combatants effectively manoeuvring in a tight engagement box, then the aggressor aircraft is allowed to make a maximum of three 360¡ turns before the crew must break out of the fight. This is primarily intended for safety.
The Lynx is not an ideal dedicated combat helicopter, and was never designed as such. In terms of defensive armament, it can be fitted with door-mounted 7.62mm general-purpose machine guns, while its TOW anti-tank missiles can also be used against an airborne target within certain parameters.
One of the critical issues in airborne combat is seeing the opponent early. There is, after all, little chance of a fur ball developing if a Hind has managed to tag on to the helicopter's "six", without the crew noticing.
The side-by-side crew configuration in the Lynx, along with the forward fuselage-section design, does not make for the easiest "eyes out" of the cockpit environment. Rocco, while admitting that he likes the handling qualities of the Lynx and its semi-rigid rotor, would rather fight in a Cobra.
Westland is understood to have looked at a tandem-seat Lynx configuration during the 1980s as part of an earlier iteration of the UK's seemingly interminable attack-helicopter procurement, although this came to nothing.
This is another advantage of flying the Lynx or the Gazelle in a simulated air-to-air combat engagement. It throws into stark relief the limitations of each of the designs, while also revealing their strengths within a flight regime with which the pilot would otherwise have little familiarity.
The Lynx' basic speed and agility actually prove to be powerful allies in an air-combat environment. In taking part in an ACT training engagement, the Lynx crews are given the opportunity to fly the aircraft in a fashion which is considerably more strenuous than that of its traditional anti-armour role.
ACT training is not only demanding of the airframe's capability: it is also demanding for the aircrews. As one pilot says of an ACT exercise, "...after an hour with your eyes out on stalks, you'll probably be glad to call it quits".
If ACT is "in part" about getting the most out a helicopter in a given combat situation, it is also about getting crews to work together as a team, both in single- and two-ship formations, where they operate as a section.
Air-combat engagements present a different set of problems to a crew whose primary task is to provide anti-armour support using the Lynx's wire-guided TOW missile and roof-mounted infra-red/television sight. The demands of defeating a Mi-24, or a Mi-17, in the air are considerably different to those of carrying out an attack against armour on the ground.
Vital communication
In a two-ship section, communication between the two crew is of paramount importance, both in terms of simulating an actual engagement, and in terms of safety. Telling your wingman where you are, and what you are about to do as second nature is one of the aims of ACT training. Similarly important is the ability of the wingman to talk to the leader, and to have the confidence to take "pole position" should the wingman have the better engagement opportunity against the aggressor.
Communications routines are tightly worked out for all ACT training sorties, with a given set-off call and responses, such as "fight on" and "knock it off" for both friendlies and aggressors. These serve the dual purpose of inculcating the habit of talking, particularly when operating in a section, and of trying to maintain the safety of the exercise by ensuring that all participants are aware of what is going on, or about to start.
To ease the crew-communications workload during the exercise, personalised call-signs are attributed to the participants, which are deemed easy to remember. They are picked on the basis of reflecting something of the character of that particular unit member. Names such as "Pigpen" and "Flames" provide food for the over-active imagination.
There is little doubt in the minds of 3 BAS pilots as to the efficiency of the ACT training which the course provides. In their view, it allows them to get the maximum combat capability out the aircraft with which they have to operate, even if this is beyond the platform's originally intended role. It is also familiarising them with combat techniques which will improve their chances of carrying out a given mission successfully, even should they meet with rotary-wing opposition during the course of the sortie.
While the course, and in particular the flying segment of the exercise, is demanding, the results are clearly considered to be worthwhile - as the Lynx pilots operating in northern Iraq will testify.
Source: Flight International
