thedrifter
02-09-06, 02:23 AM
At Busy Air Base, A Different Mission
Troop Support Becomes the Priority
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 9, 2006; A19
BALAD, Iraq -- Air Force Lt. Col. Pete Gersten, an F-16 squadron commander here, is presiding over air operations that have surprisingly little in common with those of other recent wars.
In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, or the bombing campaigns in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, Air Force B-2 bombers commonly flew 8,000 miles to drop their payloads. These days, fighter jets based at Balad air base, in the middle of Iraq's Sunni Triangle, sometimes drop 500-pound bombs just two miles from the fences and watchtowers that surround the base.
Gersten says he spends most of his time in the cockpit of his F-16 helping U.S. troops below with reconnaissance and intelligence. He recently helped track an automobile for half an hour through the streets of the northern city of Mosul before the suspected insurgents driving it were apprehended. Piloting a high-performance aircraft while keeping an eye on traffic in a busy city was "a surprisingly complicated mission," he said.
The F-16s, with sensors and imaging devices, are also proving useful at detecting roadside bombs -- and sometimes at bombing the insurgents planting them. Air Force planes also are being used to patrol oil pipelines, electricity transmission lines and convoy routes. As a result, most of the Air Force's time aloft is being devoted to what it considers non-traditional missions.
There was a spike in airstrikes late last year, with 163 conducted from October through December, but Brig. Gen. Frank Gorenc, the Air Force commander at Balad, said that wasn't a harbinger of a new phase in the war. Rather, he said, the increase was an anomaly brought on by three factors: a pre-election crackdown on the insurgency, a drive by U.S. Marines to interdict insurgents in western Iraq and the use of F-16 fighters to detect and hit insurgent mortar teams.
Because of the new anti-mortar mission, Balad is where the most airstrikes have been conducted recently. Insurgent mortar attacks against the Balad base dropped noticeably after a 500-pound bomb was dropped on the team of assailants believed to be the most proficient at firing off several mortar rounds and then quickly escaping. "I'm a big believer in counter-fire now," Gorenc said.
Historically, close air support -- helping troops on the ground -- was a small part of what Air Force pilots were trained to do, along with air-to-air combat, escorting other aircraft, strategic bombing, refueling and other missions. Here, Gersten said, close air support is the entire mission, either in supporting troops with firepower or, more commonly, helping them gather information.
F-16 pilots here said they enjoy the work. "We're here to support the guys," said Capt. Burke Wooten of East Bend, N.C.
Sitting with Wooten in the squadron ready room at the end of the Balad runway, Capt. Justin Robinson, of Mobile, Ala., agreed: "The other day, I could tell a guy was running when he was talking to me. I wanted to do whatever I could to help him."
The huge amount of reconnaissance work being done in Iraq puts the Air Force in more intimate contact with ground troops than in the 1991 Gulf War. Not only can pilots use infrared sensors to detect insurgents in hiding, they can guide U.S. troops to them, both with voice directions by radio and through a new system called Rover that allows them to send real-time video images to ground forces.
Back home, Gorenc said, an F-16 squadron might fly 6,000 hours a year. Here, he said, squadrons average 3,000 hours a month. There are usually at least two F-16s in the air at any given time, waiting for orders to help ground troops. "We are simply on-call support for ground forces," Gersten said.
Often, some of the most effective close air support is provided not by Air Force fighter pilots but by the unmanned aircraft known as Predators. At any given time, four Predators are circling Iraq, flying 20-hour missions that focus on spotting insurgent activity and occasionally firing Hellfire missiles, usually to destroy houses where insurgents are hiding. Ground units especially like to have the unmanned aircraft overhead watching their flanks while they conduct operations such as raids, he said.
"We are the largest Predator operation in the world," Gorenc said, noting that the drones fly some 2,400 hours a month here.
The biggest problem with the Predator, said Maj. Micah Morgan, a former B-1 bomber pilot who commands the Predator squadron here, is that there aren't enough to go around. He has more than a dozen, he said, but "it's the most requested aircraft in-theater -- everybody wants Predator."
Standing in a temporary hangar, Morgan gestured at a Predator that was scheduled to fly later that day. "This is the future of air power."
Staff researcher Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.
Ellie
Troop Support Becomes the Priority
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 9, 2006; A19
BALAD, Iraq -- Air Force Lt. Col. Pete Gersten, an F-16 squadron commander here, is presiding over air operations that have surprisingly little in common with those of other recent wars.
In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, or the bombing campaigns in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, Air Force B-2 bombers commonly flew 8,000 miles to drop their payloads. These days, fighter jets based at Balad air base, in the middle of Iraq's Sunni Triangle, sometimes drop 500-pound bombs just two miles from the fences and watchtowers that surround the base.
Gersten says he spends most of his time in the cockpit of his F-16 helping U.S. troops below with reconnaissance and intelligence. He recently helped track an automobile for half an hour through the streets of the northern city of Mosul before the suspected insurgents driving it were apprehended. Piloting a high-performance aircraft while keeping an eye on traffic in a busy city was "a surprisingly complicated mission," he said.
The F-16s, with sensors and imaging devices, are also proving useful at detecting roadside bombs -- and sometimes at bombing the insurgents planting them. Air Force planes also are being used to patrol oil pipelines, electricity transmission lines and convoy routes. As a result, most of the Air Force's time aloft is being devoted to what it considers non-traditional missions.
There was a spike in airstrikes late last year, with 163 conducted from October through December, but Brig. Gen. Frank Gorenc, the Air Force commander at Balad, said that wasn't a harbinger of a new phase in the war. Rather, he said, the increase was an anomaly brought on by three factors: a pre-election crackdown on the insurgency, a drive by U.S. Marines to interdict insurgents in western Iraq and the use of F-16 fighters to detect and hit insurgent mortar teams.
Because of the new anti-mortar mission, Balad is where the most airstrikes have been conducted recently. Insurgent mortar attacks against the Balad base dropped noticeably after a 500-pound bomb was dropped on the team of assailants believed to be the most proficient at firing off several mortar rounds and then quickly escaping. "I'm a big believer in counter-fire now," Gorenc said.
Historically, close air support -- helping troops on the ground -- was a small part of what Air Force pilots were trained to do, along with air-to-air combat, escorting other aircraft, strategic bombing, refueling and other missions. Here, Gersten said, close air support is the entire mission, either in supporting troops with firepower or, more commonly, helping them gather information.
F-16 pilots here said they enjoy the work. "We're here to support the guys," said Capt. Burke Wooten of East Bend, N.C.
Sitting with Wooten in the squadron ready room at the end of the Balad runway, Capt. Justin Robinson, of Mobile, Ala., agreed: "The other day, I could tell a guy was running when he was talking to me. I wanted to do whatever I could to help him."
The huge amount of reconnaissance work being done in Iraq puts the Air Force in more intimate contact with ground troops than in the 1991 Gulf War. Not only can pilots use infrared sensors to detect insurgents in hiding, they can guide U.S. troops to them, both with voice directions by radio and through a new system called Rover that allows them to send real-time video images to ground forces.
Back home, Gorenc said, an F-16 squadron might fly 6,000 hours a year. Here, he said, squadrons average 3,000 hours a month. There are usually at least two F-16s in the air at any given time, waiting for orders to help ground troops. "We are simply on-call support for ground forces," Gersten said.
Often, some of the most effective close air support is provided not by Air Force fighter pilots but by the unmanned aircraft known as Predators. At any given time, four Predators are circling Iraq, flying 20-hour missions that focus on spotting insurgent activity and occasionally firing Hellfire missiles, usually to destroy houses where insurgents are hiding. Ground units especially like to have the unmanned aircraft overhead watching their flanks while they conduct operations such as raids, he said.
"We are the largest Predator operation in the world," Gorenc said, noting that the drones fly some 2,400 hours a month here.
The biggest problem with the Predator, said Maj. Micah Morgan, a former B-1 bomber pilot who commands the Predator squadron here, is that there aren't enough to go around. He has more than a dozen, he said, but "it's the most requested aircraft in-theater -- everybody wants Predator."
Standing in a temporary hangar, Morgan gestured at a Predator that was scheduled to fly later that day. "This is the future of air power."
Staff researcher Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.
Ellie