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The U.S. Air Force Warfare Center completed Air Combat Command’s latest round of high-end readiness exercises - Red Flag, Agile Flag, and Bamboo Eagle - from January through February 2025. The exercises took place throughout the western U.S. and eastern Pacific.
In recent years, the command has focused on planning and executing exercises that are increasingly more challenging, and representative of the toughest threats Airmen might face.
“The requirements to succeed in modern warfare are constantly evolving, which is why we must not only train to the threats of today, but also to the threats of tomorrow,” said Gen. Ken Wilsbach, commander of Air Combat Command. “ACC will be at the forefront of that training, providing complex, dynamic, and combat-representative opportunities to sharpen our force’s warfighting capabilities.”
At the heart of this transformation is a series of interconnected exercises – Red Flag, Agile Flag, and Bamboo Eagle – each building upon the last with increasing complexity to create the most realistic and challenging training environment possible.
This series starts with Red Flag-Nellis, challenging aircrews with complex aerial scenarios. Red Flag-Nellis focuses on tactics and pushes participants to rapidly integrate air, space, and cyber capabilities as they confront simulated, advanced threats in contested and degraded environments, honing their decision-making and teamwork under pressure.
But modern warfare demands more than just air superiority. It requires a seamless fusion of air and ground operations. This is where Bamboo Eagle takes center stage. Building upon the aerial combat skills honed during Red Flag-Nellis, Bamboo Eagle plunges participants into a full-spectrum conflict. Combining complex aerial environments with contested ground operations and logistics, airmen must maintain operations while also establishing and defending air bases in austere locations and ensuring the uninterrupted flow of logistics in a high-threat environment. BE stresses adaptability, resilience, and the critical importance of joint operations.
“We have had the luxury of operating from safe haven bases for many decades, and modern threats have fundamentally changed that reality,” said Maj. Gen. Christopher Niemi, USAFWC commander. “Bamboo Eagle is a big part of helping us figure out how to manage those threats, and training together with our allies improves our ability to face those threats as a unified team.”
During exercise Bamboo Eagle, exercise Agile Flag takes place within the scenario as the certification-to-deploy event for an Air Combat Command unit in their Air Force Force Generation cycle. Agile Flag is the ultimate test of expeditionary warfare, challenging wings to sustain an air base in austere conditions while providing critical command and control capabilities to the units participating in Bamboo Eagle. The certifying wing faces not only the challenges of operating in a hostile environment, but also the complexities of commanding and controlling unfamiliar units, often drawn from other bases, mirroring the unpredictable nature of real-world deployments. Agile Flag is where the Air Force evaluates its ability to project power globally and operate seamlessly with joint and allied partners.
Creating exercises as complex as these requires creativity during planning and execution. With these exercises taking place in more than 15 locations throughout the Western U.S. and Eastern Pacific, the ability to command and manipulate the exercise scenario is its own challenge. This year, members of the 13th Air Task Force Combat Airbase Squadron contributed to a unique aspect of BE 25-1.
With the exercise taking place at a mix of active airfields around the West Coast, practicing flight operations in a contested environment can become cumbersome to the daily operations of those airfields. To better simulate a combat-representative environment, the USAFWC partnered with Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida to utilize the Silver Flag site to simulate a missile-strike on a runway and the subsequent rapid runway repair. While repairs were underway by the 13 ATF/CABS, flying operations on the West Coast were paused to create the realistic timelines needed in practicing Agile Combat Employment maneuvers.
Together, Red Flag, Agile Flag and Bamboo Eagle are forging a new generation of airmen who are ready to confront the challenges of a rapidly changing world. They represent the Air Force's commitment to realistic, challenging training, integrated with the joint and combined force, that executes across multiple domains to ensure it remains the most lethal and effective air force in the world.
| Date Taken: | 02.21.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 02.21.2025 14:22 |
| Story ID: | 491254 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 34 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Air Combat Command Pushes the Boundaries of Readiness, by 1st Lt. Michael Caggiano Jr, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
