Red Flag 2019: First Great Power Air War Test In Years

[Lyneham Lad]

On Breaking Defense:-

Snippets from the article -

After refueling at night over a southern-Nevada dust bowl called Texas Lake, scores of U.S. and coalition warplanes crossed into contested air space on a mission to suppress state-of-the-art enemy air defenses. The formation was soon bombarded with warning signals as radars of advanced surface-to-air (SAM) missile batteries with the reach of Russia’s S-300 and S-400 air defense systems switched on.

Electronic jammers struck as fighter pilots tried to communicate with an E-8 Joint STARS command-and-control aircraft; rear-area command cells had satellite linkages disrupted by cyberattacks. Starbursts of surface-to-air missile launchesflashed on the ground below, and cockpit alarms warned that the formation was being painted with multiple radars from enemy aircraft with paint schemes and capabilities designed to replicate the likes of the advanced Sukhoi Su-30 Flanker fighters in the arsenals of both Russia and China.

Because this was the final mission in a three-week Red Flag exercise, however, the “Blue Force” pilots did not panic when confronted with a coordinated attack by Red Force Aggressor Squadrons operating in all domains – air, ground, space and cyberspace. Working in tandem, fifth generation F-22 Raptors and F-35 Lightning aircraft escorting the Blue Force formation exploited their stealth and speed to close quickly with the most immediate threats. The F-35s used their unprecedented sensor suites to gather, fuse data and distribute a common picture of the threat array to other aircraft. Fourth generation F-15s, F-16s, F-18s and British Eurofighters used that targeting data to launch beyond-visual range missiles and bomb strikes on SAM sites as strike aircraft proceeded successfully to other enemy targets. The simulated warfare felt surprisingly real in the cockpits of warplanes traveling at supersonic speeds.

The last mission of the 19-1 Red Flag was an advanced suppression of enemy air defenses at night. By the third week, the Blue Force had solved the puzzle of weapons system integration, designing a strike force echelon able to exploit the strengths and mask the weaknesses of each individual aircraft. The biggest learning curve in that process was understanding how fifth generation aircraft can use their unmatched stealth, speed and sensor capabilities to increase the effectiveness and survivability of the entire strike package.

“The F-22s and F-35s were able to use our stealth and speed to get closer to the threats and soften them up, collect a lot of information about the battlespace, and then use the F-35’s data link in particular to communicate that picture to the rest of the strike package so that fourth generation aircraft like the F-15s and F-16s could attack those targets with their missiles and bombs,” said Lt. Col. Yosef Morris, commander of the 4th Fighter Squadron of F-35s. “While we struggled at that mission in the first week, by the last week we broke down the biggest integrated air defense system the Aggressors could field, and allowed our strike aircraft to successfully get through to their targets. So we left Red Flag highly confident in our ability to operate in a high-threat environment against a near-peer competitor, both in terms of operating our own aircraft and in integrating them into a larger strike package. You can’t get a confidence boost like that anywhere else in the world other than actual combat.”

The combat edge of stealthy fifth-gen aircraft in high-intensity air combat, and their force multiplying effect when carefully integrated in a “high-low” mix with fourth generation fighters that may have superior endurance and weapons carrying capacity, is one of the prime lessons of recent Red Flag exercises. In last year’s simulations, F-35s have reportedly achieved a kill ratio against Aggressors as high as 15 to 1.

So all's well that ends well...