Photo By Master Sgt. Matthew Mccoy | Soldiers, Marines and Airmen monitor battlefield airspace and control air traffic....... read more read more
WICHITA, Kan. - Most coaches adopt a “practice how you play” philosophy when building a team. The goal is to develop a strong, unified force during practice, so there’s no question of how the team will perform during the game. That’s exactly what the 134th Air Control Squadron did in December 2014 during a two-week joint exercise at McConnell Air Force Base called Operation Brimstone.
The exercise brought U.S. and coalition forces together in a scenario aimed at deterring and countering the actions of a simulated enemy. The primary goal of the mission was to work with the U.S. Navy’s USS Theodore Roosevelt Strike Group as they prepare for a combat tour.
“The Navy has a whole series of exercises that they do throughout a 14-month period to build up for this strike group prior to their deployment cycle,” said Capt. Naomi Hume, operations officer, 134th ACS.
This particular exercise, referred to as a fleet synthetic training - group commander, was designed to train a strike group to rapidly establish air, maritime and ground superiority while maintaining the strength of coalition ground and air forces.
The ships were located close to the East Coast during the exercise.
“They’re actually playing from different ships,” said Hume. “Each ship has a simulator on it and everybody’s connected through a big virtual simulator called the Distributed Mission Operations Center, which is at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico.”
The 134th ACS served as the command and reporting center, which maintained constant communication with U.S. military forces, including airborne platforms from the Air Force, air defense artillery components from the Army and maritime air control crews from the Marine Corps. Allied forces from the United Kingdom and Germany also participated.
“It was a very real exercise for us because it’s exactly how we operate when we’re overseas. We saw real scenarios that we would see when we’re deployed,” said Hume.
In addition to prepping the Navy for their deployment, the 134th ACS took advantage of a rare opportunity to train directly with Air Defense Artillery Fire Control Officers, Army officers who are in charge of firing PATRIOT missiles. They sit with senior directors and work with mission crew commanders to properly identify, and acquire the authority to engage a threat.
“Our surveillance section identifies all the aircraft and it’s our job to determine who the friendlies are and who the enemies are,” said Hume. “We put the ADAFCOs with the command and reporting center. The ADAFCOs don’t fire unless our mission crew commander says it’s clear to engage that target.”
The checks were put in place to avoid accidentally engaging friendly forces.
Managing battlefield airspace is a specialty of the 134th ACS. The operations section normally carries out the bulk of the mission once all of the equipment is assembled. However, setting up and keeping the equipment running properly falls on the shoulders of the maintenance section.
During this mission, the data shop provided the core services required to operate the command and operating center.
“Our data shop got a lot of really good training since this kind of exercise isn’t something that we’ve ever done at home,” said Hume.
Most of the first week of the exercise was dedicated to setting up the communications piece at McConnell. The Air Force’s Combat Communications Squadron and members from the 133rd Test Squadron, Iowa ANG, helped assemble and maintain critical IT equipment.
“We were having a lot of issues with the equipment during the first week, but everything that popped up, they were able to troubleshoot it,” said Hume. “We definitely couldn’t have done our jobs without those guys.”
| Date Taken: | 04.03.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 05.02.2015 15:00 |
| Story ID: | 162060 |
| Location: | WICHITA, KANSAS, US |
| Web Views: | 103 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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