Photo By Bailey Hittle | Three 184 CES heavy equipment operators, TSgt Matthew Williams, SSgt Troy Foster, and...... read more read more
Being ready to deter adversaries, defend our nation, and support civil authorities is the embodiment of the minuteman spirit that drives each member of the National Guard.
The last six months, a core group of 184th Wing exercise planners designed Exercise Jayhawk Talon with that minuteman spirit in mind. The focus was to challenge the wing and its Airmen’s ability to deploy and accomplish their mission-essential tasks in a contested, time-constrained environment, something that leaders suggest could take place with a near-peer adversary.
One goal of the exercise was to test integrated deterrence by resilience measures that enable the National Guard and communities to withstand, fight through, and recover quickly from disruption. Deterrence by resilience includes supporting state, local, and tribal authorities with mitigating vulnerabilities in cyber networks; maintaining NG chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear response enterprise forces to meet future threats; protecting critical infrastructure; and modernizing the mobilization enterprise and NG physical infrastructure to withstand man-made and natural disasters. These actions enhance the ability to remain responsive to local communities, and reduce the enemy’s perception of the benefits of aggression.
As part of the wing’s Air Combat Command Unit Effectiveness Inspection cycle, the wing is required to demonstrate that assigned units can accomplish wartime taskings under challenging, rigorous and austere conditions at least once. Using partners and relationships with the Kansas Army National Guard, the Illinois Air National Guard, the 22nd Air Refueling Wing at McConnell Air Force Base, and Armenian partners through the Kansas State Partnership Program, a large-scale readiness exercise took place over several days in late May and early June.
“This was a true joint and coalition expeditionary exercise providing a realistic scenario/threat scenario to participants,” said Lt. Col. Herman Norwood, director of staff and lead exercise planner, 184th Wing,
“everything from a contested, degraded environment to asymmetrical threats with rigor not seen before in a 184th Wing readiness exercise.”
The lead-up to mobilizing and deploying more than 245 personnel to three separate locations involved months of deliberate planning that included intelligence briefings from the 184th Wing’s 161st Intelligence Squadron. The intelligence briefings provided the reasoning and urgency behind the eventual warning order and order to deploy.
The 177th Information Aggressor Squadron was tasked to play an adversarial role throughout the planning and build-up to deployment, including attempts to disrupt the deployment process on the day of troop movement. The 177th IAS used multiple tactics to disrupt, delay, and deny the mobilizing forces and their leadership from meeting mission objectives.
“Having to fight through disruptions that could have been prevented through better operational security makes exercise participants better prepared to protect critical information and movements in the future,” said Lt. Col. Dave Carpenter, commander, 177th IAS.
In keeping with emerging doctrine of future distributed small footprint warfare away from major installations, the 184th Civil Engineering Squadron was first to mobilize for an assigned tasking in late May. Forty-nine Airmen deployed to a site at Fort Smith, Arkansas, designed to train civil engineers on rapid runway repair. The 184th CES successfully conducted the first phase of the exercise while testing the unit’s core wartime capabilities. This precursor action enabled follow-on forces to sustain the air base.
The exercise lasted 24 hours and was intended to measure and observe five civil engineer mission-essential tasks for 12 different career fields within the unit. The exercise resulted in the engineers recovering the air base by constructing a “bare base” and using rapid airfield damage repair techniques to land and launch aircraft sorties in a heavily contested environment. Inputs were added to drive a robust tempo to measure the unit’s ability under stress. Tasks were observed in several chemical and biological attack conditions. The day concluded with a final test that required the engineers “catch” a simulated inbound aircraft with a Mobile Aircraft Arresting System.
“The training under these simulated field conditions prepared our engineers to be able to think on their feet and accomplish their tasks with great confidence, should they find themselves in an austere location supporting air operations,” said Maj. Joseph Correia, deputy base civil engineer, 184th CES.
On June 1, 194 Airmen assigned to units tasked to deploy during the exercise main body were informed of their tasking and short-notice requirement to mobilize. Many wing support functions facilitated the deployment process as unit deployment managers were provided tasking lines to fill with qualified personnel.
“The short timelines to identify personnel and get them out the door to support global contingency operations is a fantastic opportunity to challenge our processes,” said 2nd Lt. Matthew Benoit, installation deployment officer, 184th Logistics Readiness Squadron. “We have been used to deployment timelines that give us several months lead time to get to the fight. In this exercise, we had limited time from our order to deploy to movement of cargo and personnel.”
The 190th Air Refueling Wing, stationed at Forbes Field, Topeka, Kansas, added realism when two of their KC-135 Stratotankers arrived at McConnell Air Force Base to transport deploying exercise personnel. The aircraft took 52 personnel to a location, identified as Base X, on the grounds of the Kansas Army National Guard Regional Training Center near the Smoky Hill Air National Guard Range, Salina.
At Base X, the Airmen were met by an advance party that consisted of the 134th Air Control Squadron, Kansas Air National Guard, and the 264th Combat Communications Squadron, Illinois National Guard, who arrived the day prior to set up a field deployable tactical radar and to provide networking support.
Other personnel deployed to a location, identified as Base Y, on the grounds of McConnell Air Force Base. This location was a reach-back support base that allowed participation from units that had no field deployable capabilities. Units at this location also had requirements to test mission-essential tasks in a supporting role.
During a 72-hour period June 3-5, exercise participants at Base X and Base Y were required to complete core tasks despite chemical attacks, security breaches, and exercise injects that made players think on their feet to solve problems, recover equipment, and return to the fight.
At Base X, exercise injects included active shooter and severe weather scenarios. Local riots tested the participants’ ability to remain calm and complete their mission.
The active shooter scenario drove a mass casualty event which allowed the 184th Medical Group and participating State Partnership Program officials from the Armenia Central Clinical Military Hospital to test their triage and treatment skills. Volunteers from the 184th Wing and the 22nd Air Refueling Wing bearing simulated wounds portrayed event casualties.
“Being able to participate in a mass-casualty exercise allowed us to send out our triage team in a controlled environment and train our younger Airmen on what a real event would look and feel like,” said Capt. Kaitlyn Short, nurse, 184th MDG.
Simulating the true feel of a combat environment can be difficult in a controlled exercise scenario. To add realism for medical scenarios, the Kansas Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 108th Aviation Regiment provided medical evacuation training with their UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters for participants and flew 18 sorties during patient evacuation scenarios.
"The medevac training in a chaotic but controlled scenario provided an opportunity to tie together triage, stabilization and patient movement that required a true sense of urgency," said Lt. Col. Keri Kavouras, nurse, 184th MDG.
The main mission of the 134th Air Control Squadron is to provide a tactical air picture and identify adversary threats. One exercise inject forced the team to lose primary power to their radar platform. The Power Production team was able to move all cabling and communications to a backup power source and restore a critical radar system in less than half the time required to meet the objective.
“We do this deployed all the time,” said Tech. Sgt. Justin Light, 134th ACS. “This was not something we had not faced before. You cannot get this kind of training sitting in a hangar.”
The Kansas Army National Guard’s 35th Military Police Company, Topeka, provided riot control training, conducted building clearing drills, and participated in multiple exercise injects, including a large village riot near the end of day three.
“Jayhawk Talon put Airmen into situations which realistically could happen both domestically and abroad,” said Norwood. “With Army counterparts, the exercise replicated a hostile environment that put Airmen outside their comfort zone in support of riot control.”
The 184th Force Support Services Flight was charged with providing subsistence, lodging operations, and morale, welfare, and recreation activities. For the entire exercise, participants on the ground at Base X were provided prepackaged Meals Ready to Eat and hot meals from the specialized expeditionary kitchen, which gave Airmen a chance to operate and become familiar with this palletized contingency equipment.
“This is a great opportunity,” said Senior Airman Zena Hall, 184th Services Technician. “This is what I signed up to do!” Hall earned the nickname of “Bingo Hall” for providing high quality evening activities to keep people engaged throughout the week.
The results of the exercise will be used to identify training and equipment needs, validate existing processes and help Airmen build on their experiences and skills.
“The inspection requirement measuring if we are able to meet our mission essential tasks is only part of the reason that we do such exercises,” said Col. Steven Smart, commander, 184th Wing. “We are expected to know our wartime taskings and be able to perform our missions when called upon in a time of need.
“The only way to really test our people, processes, and equipment is to train like we plan to fight with the same sense of urgency and tenacity.”
| Date Taken: | 06.14.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 06.14.2023 15:00 |
| Story ID: | 447160 |
| Location: | SALINA, KANSAS, US |
| Web Views: | 381 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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