In September, about 100 military personnel will "deploy"
to Southwest Asia as command-and-control element of a massive
1,000-sortie-per-day air campaign. The effort will be undertaken
in defense of an American ally that has been "attacked"
by a rogue state, and the task will be to swiftly and decisively
halt the heavily armed invading force.
That's the scenario USAF will use as the basis of EFX 98,
first in a new breed of Air Force warfighting experiments. EFX
98 will be the opening act of the Expeditionary Force Experiment
series that the Air Force approved last year when it established
Air and Space Command and Control Agency under Air Combat Command.
The setting is Southwest Asia in or around the year 2005.
However, all of the action will take place within the continental
United States, unfolding during the period Sept. 14-26. The Eglin
AFB/Hurlburt Field complex in northern Florida will represent
the territory of a threatened ally. Langley AFB, Va., will serve
as a rear air operations hub. The mobile command element will
deploy to Florida and direct operations of assets from around
the United States. The forward element will stay in constant
contact with the larger element at Langley.
The postulated threat is a nine-division force in a state
adjacent to the American ally. The aggressor will use 2.5 of
the nine divisions as the initial invasion force. The Air Force,
in response, will deploy an AEF to break down and then halt that
invasion.
With each annual exercise, the Air Force will explore new
technologies, procedures, and requirements that affect its operations
and systems. EFX is the service's way of dealing with a critical
DoD-wide issue: how to harness the Revolution in Military Affairs
and advances in information technology to improve the way the
US armed forces fight wars.
The EFX series differs greatly from traditional exercises
conducted in the past. In Green Flag exercises, for example,
the Air Force hones the tactics and procedures of existing command,
control, and intelligence assets. EFX, on the other hand, is
experimental and therefore serves a different purpose. It looks
at the new, unproven, and futuristic.
The impact will be felt mostly on the operational Air Force
of tomorrow, not that of today.
EFX will have some common themes. These include live-fly missions,
simulations, and insertions of advanced technologies in a specified
and controlled war environment. The overarching goal is to integrate
emerging capabilities with existing ones in an Air Expeditionary
Force concept, said the Air Force in an EFX paper.
EFX 98, for its part, will focus on command and control, viewed
as the brains of any major air campaign. The Air Force presents
the EFX 98 hypothesis this way: If command centers and platforms
are connected to a robust "global area network" that
moves information rapidly and efficiently, then a rapid halt
of an invading force can be achieved sooner, with less risk to
friendly forces.
Right, Right, Right, Right
The object is to incorporate improved command-and-control
systems and procedures into a given Air Expeditionary Force.
Maj. Gen. John W. Hawley, the ASC2A commander who oversees EFX
98, said, "It is about providing commanders the right information,
at the right time, so they attack just the right targets, in
the right way, at the right time. No more, and no less."
For Gen. Michael E. Ryan, Air Force Chief of Staff, the entire
EFX initiative is part of an effort to become an expeditionary
aerospace force that can decisively halt an enemy early in a
conflict.
"Part of the expeditionary mode is the ability to command
and control whatever forces you have forward," said Ryan.
"Part of that is to get the show on the road quickly."
EFX 98 will focus sharply on the crucial first 15 days of
the war and include the demands of the critical logistics buildup
that is often overlooked when campaigns are simulated.
The live-fly portion of EFX 98 will include a variety of combat
and special operations aircraft-F-15 and
F-16 fighters, B-1B and B-2 bombers, AC-130 gunships, MC-130
Combat Talons, and an MH-53 special operations helicopter. Also
playing a critical role will be reconnaissance assets such as
E-3 AWACS, E-8 Joint
STARS, and RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft, which will provide
data on the air, ground, and signals environments, respectively
and in combination.
These assets will generate up to 60 actual combat and combat-support
sorties per day. In addition, assets at Hurlburt will generate
upwards of 900 simulated sorties per day, bringing the total
to about 1,000 daily sorties.
In the final weeks before EFX 98, USAF is conducting a series
of workups to try to ensure the experiment runs smoothly. Three
so-called "spirals" will take place before EFX 98 begins.
Each covers an increasingly large part of the experiment, culminating
in a large dry run scheduled to run from late August through
early September.
During each spiral, the Air Force is able to work through
the kinks that arise when someone puts together a very large
command-and-control architecture. The goal is to eliminate any
technical hiccups that later could bedevil the experiment.
Shrinking the "Brain"
One key element in September will be experimentation with
a small, 100-person Joint Air Operations Center. Plans call for
the unit to be "forward deployed" on the Eglin range
complex, hard by the "theater of conflict" in this
simulated war.
This is a major departure from the Air Force norm. In late
1990, the Joint Air Operations Center responsible for activity
in Operation Desert Shield required more than 1,500 people. Getting
all the troops and materiel in place cost $4 million, took two
weeks, and required 25 C-17sized aircraft loads. A lean
JAOC with only 100 people would cost $200,000, deploy in a day,
and take only one or two C-17s for transport.
What's the significance of conducting an air war with a forward
deployed element of only 100 people? The obvious operational
benefit is being able to put bombs on target much earlier and
stifle the aggressor's ground offensive before it can be fully
unleashed.
Moreover, Hawley pointed out, a small JAOC is much more flexible.
"We don't really know where we have to fight next,"
he said, so the ability to deploy at a moment's notice anywhere
in the world is increasingly important.
Hawley further noted that, with the smaller unit, "95
percent fewer people are at risk on the front lines-with no change
in capability." That's particularly important given the
lack of a robust theater missile defense system to protect those
troops.
In EFX 98, all staff will be joint-service, the better to
make the forward JAOC establishment realistic. Also, an element
of the Army's 82d Airborne Division will be air-dropped into
the Florida range from C-17s to secure an area where the operations
center can be set up. As would be the case in a regular operation,
the Army paratroopers will then go on to other missions, and
USAF security forces will come in to protect the JAOC.
Air Force officials said they are able to reduce the size
of the forward ops center because they also are establishing
a rearward JAOC comprising about 300 people. This larger unit
exists to provide critical support and depth to the personnel
deployed to the theater. Hawley said the rear JAOC is a "1-800
Help Desk" for the forward deployed commander and staff.
The two centers will stay in constant touch by using the military's
global communications channels.
The rear JAOC can call on subject matter experts located anywhere
in the world and then funnel their input to the forward center.
For example, the rear JAOC might lean heavily on experts at Air
Mobility Command, Scott AFB, Ill., to help deal with theater
transportation difficulties. One key advantage of operating through
this distributed network is that subject matter experts are left
in their familiar environments to work most efficiently with
the best tools of the trade.
All communications will take place over a global area network
connecting different facilities and information databases in
the US and overseas. One of the main means of providing data
to forward deployed forces will be the Global Broadcast System.
Unlike other communications "pipes," GBS is relatively
rich in bandwidth. The system already is in use today, supporting
military forces in Bosnia.
Situational Awareness
A second major USAF initiative focuses on improving the situational
awareness of the Joint Forces Air Component Commander-usually
the top Air Force official on scene.
Heretofore, JFACCs have had to wait to get into a theater
before they could begin to put together all the intelligence
needed to get a clear picture of the battlefield. But that time
delay wastes critical hours, possibly days, during which air
operations may not be running at their optimum.
If the exercise unfolds as planned, the JFACC will be kept
in constant touch with developments in the combat zone. Plans
call for connecting the rear and forward JAOCs and JFACC's transport
aircraft via the global area network that links all the dispersed
Air Force elements.
The most critical aspect may be keeping the JFACC in touch
with theater forces while he is en route to theater, since the
combat theater changes by the minute.
"With a better, faster, and constant flow of information,
the JFACC will make better and more timely decisions which will,
in turn, shorten conflicts," Hawley said.
The initiative also seeks to keep the air component commander
fully connected even when he is on the move in the combat zone.
By keeping the JFACC fully informed at all times, he can more
rapidly react to changes, swiftly directing attacks or counterattacks.
Fast reaction is a dominant theme that invariably crops up
in the 30 or so initiatives the Air Force will be looking at
during EFX 98. In the past, air campaigns have been slowed by
the need for detailed, lengthy target planning before missions
could be flown. EFX 98 hopes to show that this no longer is the
case.
Heavy bombers that take off from the US or from forward bases
such as Guam or Diego Garcia will be launched much faster and
sent on their way with incomplete mission plans. All the planning
activity that used to be done before an aircraft launched will
now take place while the bombers are en route to targets. Flight
crews will either conduct their own planning using onboard tools
that provide access to time-critical battlefield intelligence
or they will receive mission plans from the JAOC as they approach
the combat zone. USAF has already done much work toward this
end under various Real-Time Information to the Cockpit efforts.
Smaller Footprint
The numerous EFX 98 initiatives will try to find answers to
a host of other questions. One concerns how to reduce the on-ground
footprint of an AEF, while another focuses on the issue of speeding
up the deployment of such a force.
Though the operational initiatives are new, some of them depend
on technologies that are considered relatively mature. Some have
been proposed and are being conducted by different USAF or Defense
Department organizations, including the National Reconnaissance
Office, while others are under study in some areas of industry.
The success of EFX 98 isn't going to be measured by how the
simulated campaign turns out but by how much insight has been
gained from the different initiatives. Reviewers are going to
examine each initiative and decide whether the system or tactic
should be integrated into the combat force, further developed,
shelved for a while, or simply discarded. The Air Force hopes
that, with early user involvement in the development of technologies,
it will be able to identify systems with true operational promise
and also what changes might be needed as a system enters the
regular acquisition path.
EFX 98 operators will encounter at least one self-induced
challenge: attacks on computers throughout the exercise. The
Air Force does not want to fall into the trap of assuming that
all systems will operate in a benign environment.
"We'll be aggressively testing our ability to protect
our information systems," Hawley said.
How exactly the systems will be challenged is closely guarded,
but different forms of hacking will be employed. USAF operators
know that the only way to get robust command-and-control systems
is to have good system design up front. Hawley said EFX 98 will
show whether that in fact was accomplished.
USAF is putting $40 million in the first edition of EFX. Hawley
said it's a worthwhile investment. "If we learn something
from this experiment that allows us to make just one better budget
decision, we'll likely save the American taxpayers the cost of
this experiment and much, much more."
Another payoff from the investment is the creation of "leave
behind" capabilities. USAF estimates that $16 million, or
some 40 percent of the total investment, will go to equipment
that will be available long after the completion of EFX 98. For
example, the service will have acquired hardware at Langley for
a rear JAOC, as well as the hardware package for a small forward
ops center that could be used to support any Air Expeditionary
Force deployment.
Budget pressures already have taken their toll. Some EFX technology
initiatives had to be dropped from the experiment due to lack
of funds. One of those is a promising experiment using an Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle for the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses. The
UAV would carry a payload capable of detecting and providing
targeting information on enemy radars, jamming those radars,
and acting as a fighter or bomber decoy. That experiment will
now take place as a stand-alone effort early next year.
