The accompli-shments of carrier-based aviation during Operation
Enduring Freedom, naval aviators say, prove that the fundamentals
of flying strike missions don’t change. But the air campaign
over Afghanistan also accentuated some weak spots—such as
the difficulties in locating and striking mobile targets.
According to unofficial reports, Navy aircrews had a 70-80 percent
success rate in hitting or damaging their intended targets.
Naval aviation tactics, training and procedures traditionally have
focused on fixed-target strike missions. The early days of Operation
Enduring Freedom were “pre-planned events,” said Rear
Adm. Matthew G. Moffit, who is in charge of Navy aviation plans
and requirements for air warfare. Later in the campaign, however,
target assignments frequently changed. It became more of a “free-flowing
event,” he noted.
Those “free-flowing events” proved to be challenging,
Moffit said. Notwithstanding the success achieved in the war, he
asserted, the Navy must work to improve its ability to locate and
strike targets on short notice. In military parlance, this is called
“time-critical strike.” Essentially, Moffit said, “We
need to shorten the timeline” associated with time-critical
strikes.
Lt. Cmdr. Scott Harrill, an F/A-18C Hornet pilot, flew seven missions
over Afghanistan during a period of two weeks last October. He shared
with National Defense some insights about what worked and didn’t
work. He also offered a first-hand account of what it takes to hit
those time-critical targets.
Harrill, whose call sign is “Beeker,” was heading home
on the USS Enterprise on September 11, after a six-month tour with
air wing CVW-8 (made up of two F/A-18 and two F-14 Tomcat squadrons).
The carrier quickly was ordered to turn around and go back to the
Arabian Sea. Before the Enterprise crew heard about the attacks
on the United States, “We thought we were going to South Africa
for a port visit,” Harrill said. “We didn’t get
far out of the Arabian Gulf.”
The Enterprise was the first carrier on the scene. It launched
its first strikes on October 7. Harrill considers himself among
the fortunate aviators who got to participate in the early, heavy
bombing, part of the campaign. By late December and early January,
the pace had slowed down dramatically. A Tomcat pilot from the USS
Roosevelt said it best, in an e-mail to his family in late January:
“Our mission now is equivalent to that of a relief pitcher
hanging out in the bullpen, warming up, ready to go on a moment’s
notice. If he gets the call, his mission is singular—deliver
the bean ball. It was much more fun being the starter, but such
is war. [Our flights now] are a far cry from all of the action pre-Christmas.”
The missions launched from the Enterprise were “both pre-planned
and time-critical strikes,” Harrill said. “Whenever
possible, we like to have a target already figured out before we
go.” But that was not always the case. In two out of his seven
missions, Harrill’s targets were changed after he was airborne.
The re-targeting orders typically were communicated to him from
an Air Force AWACS or a Navy Hawkeye command-and-control aircraft.
Later in the campaign, target changes became more commonplace, because
most of the fixed targets already had been destroyed. “We
had the luxury of being able to do multiple runs, because there
wasn’t much of a threat,” he said. “We could do
practice runs first and then drop the weapon in the second or third
run.”
Time-Critical Strike
But the sheer length of the missions meant that pre-planned target
assignments were likely to change. “From the time we were
briefed the mission, to the time we got there, it was eight to nine
hours,” Harrill said. “A lot of things can change in
eight to nine hours.”
Finding and killing targets on the spot requires a combination
of skills, and the right kind of equipment and munitions, he explained.
Satellite-guided weapons—like the Joint Direct Attack Munition—don’t
require a picture of the target, just its geo-coordinates. But they
are not ideally suited for time-critical strikes. The process of
getting the GPS-guided bombs ready for firing takes longer than
it would take for an aviator to spot a target with his sensor pod,
beam a laser and release a laser-guided bomb.
For the pre-planned targets, GPS-guided weapons “work very
well,” said Moffit. “For the time-critical targets,
we needed a weapon that we could actively place on the target in
real time.” The mechanics of employing JDAM cause delays,
he said, because the pilot has to get the coordinates, make sure
they are correct, input them in the system and finally release the
weapon. “It’s much easier to use laser-guided bombs,
get eyes on target, track the target, [beam it with the] laser,
drop the weapon,” Moffit added.
For the Hornet pilots on the Enterprise, however, getting “eyes”
on a target that was not part of a planned mission was problematic,
because they were flying with a poor-quality FLIR (forward-looking
infrared) sensor, Harrill explained. He agreed that laser-guided
bombs are more suitable for time-critical strikes, even though they
can’t see through clouds or bad weather, and are more labor
intensive. To guide the weapon, the pilot has to keep the laser
spot on the target the whole time until it hits. Having someone
on the ground beaming the target is useful, but it’s not the
ideal scenario, Harrill said. “The preferable way to do it
is to guide it ourselves.”
Another technique for guiding laser bombs is to have a wingman
beam the target from his or her aircraft. It’s called “buddy-lasing.”
Getting laser-based weapons on target is much easier, obviously,
when the pilot has had an opportunity to study the maps in advance.
In that case, Harrill said, “I know what to look for. I don’t
have to look with my naked eyes. I will just plug in the coordinates
for the target, then point the FLIR at the target and designate
that target.”
Finding targets on the spot is “difficult, but not impossible,”
he added. In Enduring Freedom, “for the first time in my career,
I did drop a laser-guided bomb successfully with this FLIR, without
having studied the target beforehand.”
During that mission, he explained, his assigned target had been
changed. An AWACS operator called with the coordinates of the new
target. But at the time, Harrill’s aircraft only was carrying
laser-guided bombs, not JDAMs. The AWACS operator gave him a detailed
description of the target and the location of friendly forces in
the area, to avoid fratricide. “It was daytime, so I could
look with my naked eyes and see it,” said Harrill. Nevertheless,
“The only reason I felt confident dropping the bomb was that
my wingman had studied that target area before, so he knew about
it. He helped my confidence that we were dropping in the right target
area.”
Poor-Quality Sensor
The FLIR in the F/A-18C targeting pod—called the NiteHawk—is
“not a good system,” Harrill said. Its biggest drawback
is the poor magnification. “If we want to find targets and
identify targets adequately, we have to be too close or too low
or both, which puts us in more danger,” he said.
The NiteHawk also breaks downs quite frequently, Harrill said.
“Sometimes it works at the beginning of the mission and then
stops working half way through. It makes it very difficult.”
More importantly, though, many Navy pilots don’t get to train
properly with the NiteHawk, because there aren’t enough of
them around, he stressed. “Our training is not good.”
After a deployment, as soon as the carrier gets to port, the pilots
fly the airplanes off the ship to their home base. That same day,
said Harrill, “they download those FLIRs, take them off the
airplanes and give them to another squadron.”
During deployments, there are on average nine FLIRs for a 12-airplane
squadron. “That’s OK,” Harrill said, “because
only six or seven of the 12 airplanes typically are on the flight
deck. ... But when we get back, if we are lucky, we get one FLIR
for the entire squadron. A lot of times, during the first six months,
we have none.
“This means that if we get new pilots, they can’t train.”
The wear and tear also takes a toll on that equipment. While at
sea, he added, “those FLIRs get worked very hard. When we
get back, the FLIRs go back out on another deployment. The pods
get shuffled around, from airplane to airplane. Every time you take
them out of an airplane and loaded on another one, they get damaged.”
Harrill compared the targeting pods to a rental car fleet. “Would
you like to drive a rental car that has 60,000 miles on it?”
he asked.
Surprisingly, the F-14 Tomcats, which are older than the Hornets,
have better FLIRs. The Tomcat squadrons “did a very smart
thing,” Harrill said, by going with the Low Altitude Navigation
and Targeting Infrared for Night, or LANTIRN, which also is used
by the U.S. Air Force. The LANTIRN is a generation ahead of the
NiteHawk and provides a clearer picture.
Harrill picked up a useful tip from the Air Force A-10 aviators:
he bought a pair of $600 binoculars, made by Cannon, which have
an image stabilization feature. “You push a button and it
stabilizes the image. You can make out buildings and vehicles from
20,000 feet.” Many A-10 pilots—who specialize in close
air-support missions—receive these binoculars as part of the
standard flight equipment. That is not the case in the Navy. Pilots
often choose to buy the binoculars with their own money.
Another shortfall that Hornet pilots experienced during strike
missions in Enduring Freedom was the lack of real-time intelligence
in the cockpit. “One of the biggest challenges we have is
trying to attack mobile, relocatable targets,” Harrill said.
“In Afghanistan, there were times when I wished I had a little
bit more intelligence.”
In cases, for example, when a pilot has to drop a laser-guided
bomb with his own FLIR and does not have a picture of the target
to study beforehand, “it would be very nice if a picture of
the target could be transmitted to the cockpit.”
Pilots tend to accumulate pictures of various target areas and
store them in the cockpit. After a couple of weeks, Harrill said,
the stack of pictures gets pretty thick. “Sometimes, I would
have to study a target while airborne. It’s not ideal. But
anything is better than to not have any pictures,” especially
when the mission involves laser-guided bombs.
Need for Data Link
Harrill said he is looking forward to the next-generation targeting
pod, the AT-FLIR, which has a much higher quality picture and more
advanced features than the NiteHawk. But the AT FLIR won’t
be in the fleet for some time. The manufacturer, the Raytheon Co.,
is just beginning low-rate production. The Navy said it will buy
574 AT-FLIR systems. The plan is to have 10 for each 12-aircraft
squadron, plus extra ones for training and spares. David Goold,
the company’s program manager, said the first six pods will
be delivered this summer for the deployment of the first F/A-18
E/F Super Hornet squadron. He said there are plans to retrofit the
Hornet C/D models with the AT FLIR, but it’s not clear when
that will happen. According to Goold, the AT-FLIR should experience
less wear and tear than the NiteHawk, because “the design
took into the account the harsh environment aboard the carrier.”
One piece of technology that Harrill also would like to see in
the Hornet is the Multifunctional Information Distribution System
(MIDS), or Link-16. Aircraft equipped with the MIDS terminal get
a real-time tactical picture of the airspace, such as the location
of friendly and enemy aircraft. In Afghanistan, he said, “We
didn’t have Link 16. I wish we’d had it.” Only
one airplane on the Enterprise had Link 16, the E-2C Hawkeye, but
not the fighters.
If he had to choose between having real-time video in the cockpit
or MIDS, Harrill was unequivocal that, “in the overall scheme
of priorities,” Link 16 is more beneficial. “Video is
useful. But how often will I use it? Out of seven missions that
I did in Afghanistan, I only needed it once.” The priorities,
however, could change in the future, he said.
The Air Force’s Predator unmanned aircraft generated a lot
of video for the commanders of Operation Enduring Freedom and the
generals at the Pentagon, but that video was not accessible to the
trigger-pullers in flight. The Predator was not useful to pilots
on the Enterprise, simply because the Navy did not control it and
because there weren’t enough Predators to satisfy everyone’s
requests for imagery.
“When we fight the war, there are times when we only have
a short period of time [to find and hit a target], when I only have
so much gas before I have to go home,” Harrill said. “If
we could get the Predator video into my cockpit, I could find that
target [more quickly].”
Video is helpful to find moving targets and Link 16 is “important,
so we know where all the airborne good guys are,” said Harrill.
The MIDS can simplify the targeting process for GPS weapons and,
indirectly, avoid making mistakes that can result in fratricide.
“Instead of the AWACS having to talk to me on the radio and
read coordinates and me having to read it back, once we have MIDS,
the AWACS can transmit that target to me over the data link. I don’t
have to talk. In 5 to10 seconds, it’s done,” Harrill
said.
Assuming that the MIDS terminal had a data transmission capability,
it would make a handy tool for pilots who want to transmit back
to the carrier an image of a target they just bombed.
“Right now, we can’t transmit the picture out of our
cockpit,” Harrill said. In Enduring Freedom, the Tomcats,
but not the Hornets, were able to send pictures back to the carrier.
The F-14s have what is known as FTI (fast tactical imagery), a
capability that allows the pilots to take a snapshot picture from
their LANTIRN FLIR and send it over the radio, back to the carrier.
Aviators use a removable PC card to upload target images and maps
before takeoff. The same card stores digital images of their bombing
missions, for downloading to PCs after landing.
Another advantage of Link 16 is its voice radio feature, Harrill
said. “I have two radios in the cockpit. But sometimes, two
radios isn’t enough,” and they only work in the line
of sight. In Afghanistan, the Hornets were flying 600-800 miles
away from the carrier. “When I blow up a target, I can’t
talk to the carrier and even tell them that I did it. I have to
wait until I get closer.” With Link 16, “I can talk
and relay my voice communications across many aircraft in the network.
... I could drop my weapon, hit the target, get on the radio, 30
seconds later, I could talk to the air wing commander on the carrier
and say, ‘Yes, sir, we blew up the target.’”
The manufacturer of MIDS, Rockwell Collins Corp., has started delivering
terminals for the F/A-18 fleet, said the company’s business
development manager, Tom Schamberger. But there are no specific
timelines to equip the entire fleet. He said that the MIDS radio
would be capable of transmitting still images to the cockpit, but
not streaming video.
In addition to the AT-FLIR and the Link 16, another technology
that Harrill said would greatly enhance Navy aviation capabilities
against mobile targets is a next-generation radar called AESA (advanced
electronically scanned array).
Only the Super Hornets will get the AESA, in about a decade. The
current Hornet radar, the APG-65, is “old,” said Harrill.
An upgraded version, the APG-73, only offers marginal improvements
over the 65.
“With AESA, I would be able to see targets on the ground
much farther away and with better clarity,” he said. Right
now, “my radar is only good enough to help me find the basic
target area. If there are moving vehicles, I can detect them, but
can’t identify what type of vehicle it is. ... With the AESA
radar, I may be able to figure out what kind of vehicle it is. And
get coordinates that are good enough so I can drop my own GPS-guided
weapons.” With the current technology, he added, “if
I find a target with my own FLIR, eyeballs or radar, I can’t
generate coordinates in an absolute reference that are good enough
for JDAM.” The AESA radar will allow Super Hornet pilots to
self-target their GPS guided weapons and not have to rely on other
sources for target coordinates. “That would cut down on the
time it takes to hit time-critical targets,” Harrill said.
The ultimate killing machine will be the two-seater version of
the Super Hornet, the F/A-18F, said Harrill. “The F will be
a very important airplane, once we get that AESA radar,” he
added. “It’s going to be able to do so much, so quickly,
that you will need two people. ... It will be too much for one guy
to do.”
For Harrill, the Enduring Freedom campaign reinforced his conviction
that the Navy needs the Super Hornet in the fleet, especially because
in most missions, not every bomb is dropped on targets. A bigger
aircraft than the Hornet, the E/F can land on the carrier with more
weight (and more unused bombs). With the Hornet, “we may not
be able to bring all the weapons back, because of weight limitations,”
Harrill said. “I can take off with a lot more weight than
I can bring back. So if I can’t drop the bombs on the target,
I have to drop them in the water.”
He said he was disappointed that after one of his missions over
Afghanistan, he had to release an unused 2,000 pound JDAM in the
water. “We waste a good weapon, simply because I can’t
bring it back to the carrier.”
In addition to all the “equipment lessons learned”
from Operation Enduring Freedom, Harrill said, the war proved that
the basic fundamentals of training don’t change. As in every
other conflict, “You stay together with your wingman, you
standardize weapon dropping tactics.” But Navy aviators quickly
learn to adjust, he added. In Afghanistan, as in other conflicts,
“We modified our tactics for the situation at hand.”