Monday, May 11, 2020

BVR*

A comment in Bean's post from Saturday, got me to thinking.

I know, Sarge, that's always dangerous, but I've got to post something.

Anyhow that comment was:

"I remember in Desert Storm an Airforce Air Jockey got an Air metal for refused to fire a missile at a target that an AWAC had designated as a "bad guy" because his gut told him that the profile didn't match an enemy helicopter and he flat out refused and went and closed for a visual and it was a pair of black hawks,and the pilot was really pissed he went up the chain of command raising hell pissed. I heard about the initial drama from the air liasion attached to my unit because he was getting stuff from the Airforce side of the house. The Airforce back then had always denigrated Army aviation as "unworthy" in their eyes, it was a cultural thing. After the shoot down in 1994, it forced the changes of protocols and procedures to prevent future "blue on blue" accidents."

And I'll get back to it shortly.

When I received my wings in '79, the Air Force (Two words, Mr G ;-) ) had just brought the F-15 to operational status.  Most Fighters in it were Vietnam era and the F-4 was, by far, the most prevalent one in the inventory.  It's weapons, while formidable, had some growing pains and, to be honest, still were not particularly reliable until the AIM-7F (Radar guided) and the AIM-9P (heat seeker) became operational.  I remember one of my IP's at Luke telling me as I got ready for an Air to Air Ride, to shoot off the missiles to scare the bad guy, then close for guns.

He was serious.

Back in my formative years, I'd read stories about WWI Fighter Pilots who, on losing a wingman, would have their crew chief rearm their airplane and fly over the enemy base dropping a wrench with a message attached inviting the adversary to come up and "duel".  Evidently that was still a mindset, of sorts when I got to the Phantom.

At least among some.

But, as I said, the F-15 came along and while it did have some growing pains, weapons wise, it was head over heals better than anything we had in the inventory for the Air to Air mission.  However, most of that capability was classified.  So, I'm out on my graduation ride, I'm a wingman on a low level ground attack on an enemy airfield on the ranges south of Phoenix.  It's hot and bumpy and were going 540 K (9 miles per minute) at "500'" above the ground.  I didn't have time to look inside.  I, like everyone else, "eyeballed" it.
Yep, 500' on the nose!
Source

Eagles were our adversary.  As I'm approaching the target area on my lead's right side, I hear a call on the common frequency of "kill right hand F-4" over the point I was.  I'm thinking BS, but we're still got to drop the bombs for training.  Come back to the squadron after the mission, board a helicopter and ride down to Gila Bend to be the shot down pilot who's the object of the afternoon rescue mission.

It was kinda fun, given that it was training, and I may detail it a bit later.

The point of the BS thought was that was the mindset at the time.  Low and fast might get you shot down by AAA, but NO F'in WAY by SAM or Air to Air!

Fast forward a few years and a couple thousand hours of flying time.  I report back to Luke AFB to transition to the Eagle (Thank you Col Jim "Vegas" Cox.  Bless you and RIP Sir.) and on my very first sortie, we're out in an area burning down fuel to get to landing weight to practice, well, landings.  But, we're out in a low level area because that was all that was available.  My IP doesn't want me, on my first sortie in the jet (Solo by the way, loved it) to be at low altitude and working the radar.  PK of the ground being very nearly 100%.  So, I'm at the top of the altitude block and he's the target at the bottom near the ground.

Clean Eagle Loaded for Bear
Source

I had no problem detecting him, locking on to him, getting missile tracking indications and taking the shot.  That would have been next to impossible in the F-4 even with a good WSO.  Ground return would have blanked out the target return.

So.  Long intro to my point.  The Air Force had with the F-15 and F-16 made a giant leap into the future in air to air lethality.

Unfortunately, the rules did not keep up with that drive.  New rules would have to be developed such that targets could be engaged at the distances that the new weapons could handle.  A head on AIM 7M shot taken at 20NM was heart of the envelope, even if the target turned and ran, the missile had a decent chance of chasing him down.  The AIM-9M while shorter ranged was even more deadly.

So...Closing on a target to visually ID it was no longer a good idea.  The situation might require it, but your life insurance premiums should be up to speed.

This change in circumstance made the requirement for Beyond Visual Range Identification methods crucial.  One of the first attempts was called Eagle Eye.  A rifle scope mounted to the side of the gunsight.

No....I'm not kidding.  I'm supposed to be looking through a rifle scope while piloting a fighter at well above the speed of sound against a target coming at me also well above the speed of sound and who might not be alone.

RIIIIIIIIGGGGGHHHHHHTTTTT!  Somebody made General with that idea!

I flew with it once, tried it on one intercept and finally caught site of the other guy as he swung my 3/9 line.  (He was turning behind me.)  Went back to eyeballs outside the cockpit and did better.

Other methods included something called Non-Cooperative Target Recognition (NCTR).  Not going to go into detail on that, as, when I was flying even saying those letters would get you in trouble. However, evidently times have changed.  But even that had some limitations.

So, what did it take to shoot BVR?  Well, it would depend on the Rules of Engagement.  But generally if a radar, your onboard radar, Ground Controlled Intercept (GCI) Radar or AWACS, had maintained continuous tracking of the target after detecting it launching from a known bad guy base AND it wasn't squawking a Friendly Transponder code (those things they show on TV when they show a radar screen Numbers and such), they could declare it hostile.

Another way to shoot BVR was to hold friendly forces on the ground until the airspace had been searched and no aircraft were airborne in front of the sweepers squawking friendly squawks.

And finally we get to the point.

These rule changes require the cooperation of all involved.  While they had been developed, tested  practiced and modified as determined in very large exercises  (e.g. Red Flag) for years, Desert Storm was the first time they were actually used for "realsies".

But this requires a change in mindset for others also.  The Army and the Air Force had a bitter divorce after WWII. (IMHO both sides were wrong. but that's suitable for several years of later posting and the comments might get a bit "robust".)

From the Air Force's point of view, somebody needed to know who, where, and when, everybody flying in the airspace was to deconflict, protect if necessary and not kill the wrong folks.   Sounds Reasonable.

The Army's point of view was, "we need to be able to use our air assets to supply, insert, evacuate, protect our ground forces as required".  Also sounds reasonable.

Now, I'm buttoning up my flak jacket as I've been down this road many times before.  While I was at Army Command and Staff, I had to learn about, explain and defend the Joint Forces Air Combat Commander (JFACC) more times than I can count.

The concept is to have one person that handles the Air portion of the war, coordinating, deconflicting, moving assets to support various missions according to the overall commander's plan and priorities.

My Marine Lt Col thesis advisor from School for Advanced Military Studies (the Jedi Knights of Desert Storm were graduates thereof) was very adamant that this was just a power play to "Take Marine Air away".

Suffice it to say, we had "Interesting" discussions.  After Graduation, I was assigned to USCincPac as the lead of their Joint Task Force Augmentation Cell.  Part of my job was training 7th Fleet, 3rd MEF and I Corps Officers and Enlisted procedures for Joint Task Force operations.  Part of that training was  JFACC procedures if the JTF mission required one.  I spent a lot of time reassuring people that the JFACC was not necessarily an Air Force officer but it needed to be someone familiar with Air Operations and what would be needed to support whatever mission that particular JTF was stood up to perform.

That was in 1992.  After many spectacular discussions between myself and the 3 star JTF commanders to be (fortunately I was well defended by my O-6 Army boss and his O-10 Navy boss), we worked out the details.

Blackhawk
Source

Hind.  Easy to see the difference, right? Now try it at 450 K a couple of hundred feet off the ground.
Source

And then in 1993, Billy Jeff was elected and promptly started cutting the military.  Training was cut significantly.  Flying time also. Tragically, this perfect storm came to a head in 1994.  The specifics of the Blackhawk shootdown can be read here.  But as a result of and in addition to the training and flying time cuts, were  poor procedure compliance inside the AWACS, squawking the wrong IFF codes and using a different radio frequency in the Blackhawks.  On the Eagle Side, poor communication procedures by the Eagle Drivers (LtCol May should have communicated that he was unsure of the helicopters ID, "Tally Two" means I see and confirm two Bandits".  "Visual two bogeys" would have been the correct call in the circumstance.) That combination of all those circumstances, I believe, caused the shootdown, and not a feeling that Army Aviation was "unworthy".

So, Mr G.  The guy in Desert Storm did the right thing, because he sensed something was wrong and he had the courage to question it.  The shoot down in 1994 did, in fact,  force "...changes of protocols and procedures to prevent future "blue on blue" accidents.".  Most of those changes involved requiring aviation units to follow the requirements of the Air Tasking Orders and other procedures as outlined by the JFACC, whichever uniform that officer wears.

Train how you want to fight because you'll fight like you trained.




*Beyond Visual Range. The shot was fired before you can see the target.

47 comments:

  1. A mini-history lesson before breakfast and a very interesting one juvat. Eagle Eye?!? Oh my! Ya, I could see a promotion coming out of that.

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    1. That really was an extremely bad idea. Talk about tunnel vision and loss of Situational Awareness! I think they were in the Squadron for about a week, before nobody signed one out again.

      Thanks

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  2. I now have more knowledge, and I'm sure that you have barely skimmed the surface of explaining BVR.

    Your mention of the guy in Desert Storm who had the courage to do the right thing sparked a memory of an instance during my active duty time when I said, "No."

    And that thought spiraled into some more thinking about the conflict between following orders, and knowing when not to follow orders.

    I'm thinking that in the modern day, all ship to air shooting is BVR and that sent me to freshen my memory of the USS Vincennes and Iran Air Flight 655.

    Very good post. Thank you.


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    1. Yep. I did it a few times in my career. I've got a few "woulda, coulda, shoulda" moments in my memory of it. None of them involve saying "No" when it was the right thing to do.

      My pleasure. Thanks

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  3. I don't like "inside baseball". I don't care what bat they use above 1500' or how they tie their shoes. BUT THIS kind of inside baseball, is important. It really helps me clarify misconceptions and poor information that I've gotten in the past. Or verifies what I've learned as correct.

    Thank you for going into great detail about this, to include the prequel, warm up, and introduction. It made sense. Finally.

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    1. Yeah, it was bad enough to have flown the aircraft involved, worse to personally know one of the guys. Mistakes were made by virtually all concerned, except the folks in the back of the Blackhawks. One hopes that the high priced lessons learned are still being heeded today.

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  4. A most excellent post juvat. I remember the shootdown in '94 and wrote about it back in 2014 here. That post concerned the problems of getting a visual ID, especially considering that we humans often see what we want to see, it's how we're built and it takes training to overcome that.

    As to that NCRT thing, who thought that name up, "Non-Cooperative Target"? Are there targets who willingly go to the slaughter? Ya know, "Cooperative Targets." I often get annoyed with some of the names DoD gives things. Oxymoronic in a way.

    Engaging BVR became a problem as soon as mankind developed weapons that can reach out and touch something on the other side of the hill, so to speak. The measures you've outlined above to make sure the airspace is clear of friendlies only works if everyone is playing from the same sheet of music, you know how that goes, there's always that one guy who didn't get the word.

    Complex problems in a complicated battlespace, there aren't always simple solutions. (Seriously? A rifle scope in the cockpit? What shoe clerk came up with that?)

    Great post.

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    1. "What shoe clerk came up with that?"

      One who was embarrassed by the VID capability shown from the F-14 using the TCS at ACEVAL.

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    2. Well, "cooperative" bogeys will identify themselves, by squawking the correct codes. That basically IDs them as friendly. But now, you are forced to use some other method of IDing the unknown blips. Tracking them from a known bad guy base, and or knowing that you are the first guy airborne and therefore anybody in front of you is bad are other methods of BVR, but as shown, there are risks of mistakes. NCTR technologies could at least provide another chance to sort that out... sometimes.

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  5. Hey Juvat,

    I wasn't bashing the Air Force, I Like the Air Force, Especially the A-10 and B52's, remember I saw what those guys did to the Republican Guard. but I remember the Army guys trying to file flight plans for their operations and the airforce Air Traffic guys blowing them off, I did see that happen, hence the "Cultural" comment. Our assets used Mohawks and we had a heck of a time dealing with the AWAC guys, I don't know if it was the crowded skies or what, but we had to change out tracks a lot, and we had to fly straight for our stuff to work properly. You did a good post btw.

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    1. I know, MrG. As I've said before, shoe clerks gotta shoe clerk, and some of them flew fighters. And yes, I do know about Mohawks and their mission. Spent a lot of time at Osan AB Korea sitting 5 minute ParPro alert, just in case Uncle Kim wanted to go and harass them and others on similar missions. Scrambling in the dead of night is always fun (or maybe I should say....exciting). We always had AWACS at Kadena, so did a lot of work with them. That was good for both us and them. I encouraged my guys to ride with them whenever possible, I think we both gained from that. Again, good folks and not so good folks, but after a while you knew who it was by the voice and you knew which ones to trust and which ones you needed to double check.
      Which is what prompted my posting. I think that edge was lost in the days of the Peace Dividend and I think that was the real cause of the shootdown.
      Thanks.

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  6. Very educational, as always, juvat. Many thanks. Now what about progress on la casa? :-)

    Following the link to the NCTR SBIR grant award, and then to the website of the company getting the award, I am always amazed at the things enabled by computer hardware and software. And how sometimes those tools aren't quite up to the task - whether by an unrecognized flaw in the program analysis and/or design or a moth in the circuits, so to speak, or the proposed target evolving faster than the solution can be brought to bear.

    Sarge, I think ANY blip on a USAF et al. radar screen these days is a target. Then it becomes the question of cooperative vs. uncooperative. So survival in a high threat environment might entail not only stealth technology to avoid being seen but also technology to make the attacker appear to be a cooperative friendly.

    My somewhat unrelated trivia for today is that NCTR also stands for National Center for Toxicology Research, an FDA facility located in Jefferson, Arkansa, some distance outside Little Rock. It was originally used for research into bio warefare and chemical warfare agents, and its location was intended to minimize casualties in case of an "accident" as well as to provide some security from prying eyes. Similar reason for the locations for most facilities in the Manhattan project. And the Redstone Arsenal.

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    1. Bear in mind a "target" indicates something which can be engaged. We prefer the term "track," until otherwise identified.

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    2. Terminology is critical, as exhibited. And as someone pointed out, you can see what you want to see, so visual ID is difficult at times, especially under pressure. I was going to wax mathematic on apparent target size, but basically the target size you see shrinks by half for every thousand units you are away. So an 8' width of a Hind or Blackhawk, is 8 mils at 1000' 4 Mils at 2000', 2 mils at 3000' and 1 mil at 4000'. The pipper on the gun sight in the Eagle IIRC is two mils wide (might be 1). At 4000', with 320K of closure, you are almost inside min range for an AIM-9 and well inside for an AIM-7. Visual ID at that point is not a certainty. Yet, if the Hind were carrying their version, I don't know, nor want to find out, how fast he could turn and fire. I suspect fairly quickly.

      As mentioned, Bogeys were the term used by us, and the radar controllers, once committed to an intercept. Track was a handoff command. AWACS, Eagle 1 Engaged Banded 360 20. Track Bogeys 350 60. In plain English, Hey AWACs I'm going to go and kill the folks North of me for 20 miles. Please keep an eye on those folks 40 miles behind him, ID them if possible. As soon as I get done with the lead group, I'll want to know what's going on with the next one.

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    3. Tom,
      Framing and Mechanical inspection was done last Wednesday. Guys are up there as we speak, working on discrepancies. Stone and Brick is expected to be installed this week, although rain is forecast for the next couple of days. Insulation is on hold until the discrepancies are re-inspected, but could be this week. Dry wall is scheduled for delivery this week, to be installed as soon as the insulation is completed. My plan is to go through this evening for one more round of pictures and yardsticks as suggested.

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    4. I should have mentioned that we use the term "track" in my current job.

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  7. Thanks for the background it puts a lot into perspective.
    Back when all the electronics were new toys, every air search radar contact was a bogey until we had a visual, usually from the CAP, who’d announce, “Tally ho!”
    Why’d they call them hoes?
    There was IFF, but the resolution on the repeater was not always good enough to discern what the squawk was.
    Surface search was a little better, but all contacts were skunks until designated friendly.
    Then we gave them names.

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    1. That hasn't changed much Skip, see my response above. For all my time in the Pacific, I don't remember being controlled by shipboard radar. I may have, but just don't remember. I did a lot of time with a Marine GCI group on Okinawa, though. Thought they were WAY better than the AF GCI on the island.

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    2. Our GCI guy ...we had three, but they worked in rotation... only controlled aircraft from whatever CAG we were attached to, so it was all Navy or Jarhead.
      During an AWEX the Air Force or other CAG would be the opposition.

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    3. So "Tally Ho!" doesn't mean "Count the working girls"? :)

      As to Air-to-Ground coordination, every coordinator needs to spend time with actual ground units in order to fully understand. Which the Marines, as soon as the first one took to the air, have always been extra specially good at.

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    4. Yeah, in my discussions with my Marine Thesis advisor (a good guy by the way, He was the guy that drowned a few years ago, trying to rescue one of his Marines who'd gotten caught in a flash flood in California), that was the way I finally convinced him about JFACCs. I told him that if I were a JFACC and had Marine Air assigned along with Air Force, I'd assign the Marine Air to support Marine missions and only assign them elsewhere if directed by the JTF commander, if needed. The converse was also true, I would assign Air Force assets to Marine objectives if the Marine Air wasn't enough to support them. That's when the light bulb went on. "OH! So I might get MORE air than I'd have usually?"

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  8. A quick dirty search of the site reveals no hits for the search term "Falklands". What uncomfortable lessons were vicariously learnt from that, narrowed down to air topics? And, just how good was the F14/AIM54 combo?

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    1. Don't get rid of your long-range air-to-air refueling capability.

      Don't get rid of your long-range air-to-ground destruction capability.

      Those are the two I remember hearing about. Sadly, Great Britain has gotten rid of both.

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    2. That pretty much sums it up, Beans.

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    3. Stefan,
      I think the F-14/AiM 54 combo was pretty good at what it was designed for, long range defense of the fleet. I don't know how good it would be in Air to Air combat. Course, blowing up when you're 80 miles away from the F-14 would probably catch you by surprise and ruin your day.

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  9. All of this because my wife and I refound our love of falling asleep to music, and Alan Parsons (though the "Stereotomy" album is too 'noisy' for good sleep.)

    Glad an off-handed attempt at adding music to a rant-dujour got lotsa mental balls rolling.

    As to Billy Jeff... Well... It always seems to come back to Billy Jeff when spectacular group-copulations regarding the military come to mind. Yes, the Peanut Farmer was bad, but Billy Jeff? Yikes!

    As to the rifle scope thingy, gee, what a spectacularly dumb idea. Did the originator ever wonder why the HUD replaced the... tubed sight so quickly once it was introduced? What a moron. So, of course, he got promoted, right?

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    1. Yes, we'll at this point in the lockdown, I'm scraping rock frickin' bottom on posting subjects, so thanks for the idea, Beans. I didn't know that about Alan Parsons.

      Yeah, the last 4 (d) presidents, rank very high in the worst president ever rankings. IMHO.

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    2. And "spectacular group-copulations" is a winner, that will go onto the Acronym Page (SGC), today! Action this day as Sir Winston might say.

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    3. I am working very hard to clean up my language. And I find that the alternate, non-cussword, versions seem to get people's attention much better than actually cussing, in this fallen world we now live in.

      Drop a jar of marinara and let out a string of salty-sailor-invectiveness? Most people don't even blink.

      Drop a jar that goes smash and say "Fudge" in a quiet voice? Room gets still and quiet like a western saloon when the big-bad walks in the door.

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  10. just to comment on the Hind photo - it is scary looking bird...
    Soviet tactics were to put out a 40 of them and "rush B" firing everything onboard...
    My stepmom got scared like hell (war is coming???) when such regimental formation passed over our home back in 1980s...
    And Poles still fly some.

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    1. Yes, it is. Another aspect of Soviet tactics that is relevant to this post, is that they aren't particularly interested in ID'ing us. If one of theirs gets shot down by their own, No Big Deal, as long as the American's lose aircraft. That's why reliance on Visual ID and the close range needed to do so, is so dangerous. Not to mention the possibility of Mis-ID'ing.

      I could see how that might be disconcerting.

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  11. Thank you. I understood about 30% of that but the insight is helpful.

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    1. My pleasure. Some folks understood Air to Air innately, the rest of us had to work very hard at it.

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  12. I remember that blue on blue incident very well. I was the one responsible for tracking all the Mode IV statuses in the Air wing, receiving daily reports from all the squadrons to put into a spreadsheet to send up through CAG. I got that lucky task because I was the CMS officer for the largest squadron in the airwing. I also remember how we couldn't go flying if the Mode IV check didn't get a thumbs up on deck. We weren't in combat, just flying around the boat in the Western Pacific, but so goes it when good men die accidentally.

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    1. Yeah, Mode IV was always problematic. It should work always, we would check it on takeoff on every sortie, always. It worked sometimes.

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    2. Maybe it was Mode 2 also? Been a long time.

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    3. The Eagle could query all four modes. Mode 4 was "supposed" to be a single query, and therefore a fairly certain confirmation. Not so. NCTR was very accurate when you could get an answer. Hopefully, newer versions have more methods.

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  13. and THAT is why the Navy never fired a Phoenix missile in combat... ROE/BVR.

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  14. My first exposure was serving as in the JTF A JOC where firing across the FSCL or just about everything had to be deconflicted everywhere. It was an insane way to make a living. In the Navy it's easy. OTOH, we seldom deal with the Army, seldom with the Marines and almost never with the Air Force. God war is easy when you don't have partners.

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    1. There was a benefit to Joint Ops, but....The Coordination required was significant and fraught with danger of mistakes.

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  15. Odd that you mention Kadena AB. I was stationed there from 1985-1988, as a Crew Chief on F-15s. I was in the 44th AMU. When were you there>

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    1. I got to Kadena in early 1986 and left in 1990. We definitely overlapped. But...I was in the 12th.

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    2. Wow, Good to know we saw the same place at least. The 44th was always called (in a nobody but Us, can say this) way, "The Big Blue Screw". We even had one down in the flight office.

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  16. “Loaded for bear”

    I just can’t even. So offended.

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    1. Don't blame me, blame the Rooskies. They named their main bomber "A Bear". We named ours Big Ugly Fat F**ker. We were loaded to shoot RoooooooSkies.

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