Red Flag’s forces defending friendly nation from aggressor

Ed Koch and Jace Radke

Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2003 | 11:18 a.m.

Facing imminent attack from the aggressive and highly militarized nation of Tulare, the tiny United States ally Colusa has asked the United Nations for military coalition force assistance.

And so today began the Red Flag combat training exercise above the two "countries" on the 2.9-million-acre Nevada Test Site and Training Range -- a 120-mile-by-100-mile high desert terrain mock battlefield the size of Connecticut just north of Nellis Air Force Base.

However, for the first time in its 28-year-history, the Red Flag exercises that run through Oct. 31 will utilize a specialized operations group that will test its skills in coordinating the air war to shield a U.S. ally from the threat of its unfriendly neighbors to the west, which actually is composed of American Air Force pilots and personnel trained in former Soviet Union air combat technology.

The exercise is to utilize 97 total aircraft flying 70 daily missions and 60 nightly sortees, and about 2,300 pilots, crew members and other military personnel are involved, said Nellis Lt. Col. Steve Satava, a veteran of 15 Red Flag exercises that are conducted four times a year at Nellis.

"With our forces scattered around the world, Red Flag gives us the opportunity to bring it all to Nellis to train and maximize our combat capability," Satava said this morning.

"We try to recreate combat in a safe environment, utilizing a free exchange of ideas to learn from each other."

The exercise utilizes the Blue Force defending Colusa from the eastern end of the test range against the invading Red Force that also defends Tulare. There is to be air-to-air combat, air-to-ground combat and search-and-rescue operations. Red Flag participants are also challenged with simulated anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles and targets.

The mission for the Blue Force, which Satava says generally achieves its military objective during Red Flag, is to: establish air superiority, knock out enemy fighters, jam Red Force radar and communications, punch holes in their defenses, drop live bombs on wooden and concrete targests, rescue downed crews in the desert and resupply troops trapped behind enemy lines.

The mission also includes hitting "time-sensitive targets" -- those that pop up suddenly and become an immediate priority -- in less than 10 minutes, breaking the existing record of 13 minutes, and utilizing Army special operations on the ground to gather intelligence and call in air strikes, Satava said.

To pull all of that togeter, a crew of about 90 airmen from the Air Force's 32nd Air Operations Group in Europe will be working in an air operations center. They will practice their skills in developing and executing air campaign plans.

"This is the first time we will get hands-on experience using new equipment and software," Col. Steve DePalmer, an F-15 pilot from the wars in Iraq and Kosovo who represented the 32nd at today's briefing. "We've already experienced some friction. We've seen that communications are not as smooth as they are at home."

He said a simulated war environment such as Red Flag is essential in getting all phases of military operations ready in case the real thing comes suddenly.

"We learned from Kosovo that ait operations cannot come together at the last instance. We need to be at mission-ready status because the operations center has a role in the successes and failures."

The 32nd airmen are part of a Falconer squadron that can be deployed to run air wars, squadron commander Lt. Col. Robert Evans said.

"Red Flag allows us to train in a dynamic and challenging environment, which is typical of today's expeditionary air operations," Evans said. "This is something we can't typically do (in Europe) because of the intensity. The realism that Red Flag provides is a tremendous opportunity we just can't duplicate."

Normally there are four Red Flags every year, two involving only U.S. forces and two involving U.S. and foreign forces. This year two of the exercises were canceled due to the war in Iraq and troop deployments. This month's Red Flag is for U.S. forces only.

Among the aircraft being used are the F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-15E Strike Eagle, the Navy's F-18 Hornet, C-130 Hercules and several types of bombers.

More than 10,000 sorties are flown using 750 aircraft at Red Flag exercises every year. Twenty-four countries have participated in Red Flag exercises, and more than 400,000 people have participated since it started in 1975.