Comments on: Aerial IED Busters Slammed

By: Luke

Luke — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:07:52 +0000

I find it disconcerning that everyone views the Air Force as simply a “flying machine.” I am an EOD technician tasked with defeating IEDs. We have lost a lot of EOD brothers in all four branches since the war kicked-off. Maybe people should inform themselves a little better before they make comments

By: Grimmity

Grimmity — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 16:07:55 +0000

I swear all the chairforce does anyway in sector and fly around real fast and pop offa a couple of flares to scare haji. other then that are are also good at killing coalition ground forces.
Posted by: slntax at June 25, 2007 11:46 AM
Hmmm, Interesting comment. We just had a pilot loose his life performing a “scare haji” mission a week ago. Oh wait… he was doing a high speed STRAFING RUN with his 20MM cannon. “New Age” technology at its best right? And isnt it the troops on the ground asking for those “show of force” missions? I’m the guy that builds and stuffs that damn flare and every other “toy” the pilots get to fly around and hope… no, WISH, they could fire off and blow some rag head back to Allah. Put it to you this way. Noone that works on the flightline or anywhere else on base likes to see our planes come back loaded, much less with empty flare mods. It’s like… ok, we are on the ground getting taking shells, rockets, and small arms fire and the ONLY WAY we can fight back (because we are not allowed to have weapons in many places) is to build our Ammo and get it to the planes so our boys in the air can obliterate these guys and all the grunts do is call in a show of force? COME ON. Our pilots have itchy trigger fingers as much as the next guy but they cant just go bomb WHATEVER (unfortunately). I think the General has a point to an extent. The maintenance alone on these 1970–1980 airframes is staggering. If they are up in the air lets use them for whatever they are needed for. But lets not send a high demand low quantity asset up to pop off a few IED’s that a UAV operated by ground forces or able to stay up forever can take care of.

By: Demophilus

Demophilus — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:05:19 +0000

Outlaw:
Thanks for your service. Sorry, but I’m not in the AO; all I know about counter-IED comes from isolation, or open sources. Take it FWIW, if anything.
As for what else the jets are doing in the ATO, I don’t know or NTK, but an educated guess would be as follows.
The “left of the bang” stuff is probably derived from anti-AA/SAM/SSM network attack profiles. In those you use SAR, IR, SIGINT/ELINT and satellites to acquire and cross reference data on mobile launchers and nodes. Most SAMs, MANPADS, and/or AA artillery have pretty big signal returns, and, once used, point right back at their crew, if not their HQ or commo nodes. You don’t need (or, want) to stay on a defined station or track to find and kill the crew, unless you can do it from on high.
Using the same tools for counter-IED would be different. You’d have smaller footprints and less data to crunch all around, which might require more method to collecting it. My guess is, you’d need overlapping ISR search tracks. Maybe that’s what the jets are doing. It wouldn’t be that they can’t come down in the weeds; it would be more about staying in their kill box or fire lane.
At least, I hope that’s what they’re doing. I can’t stomach the thought that they’re just blowing your guys off. That would be mighty shitty.
As for Task Force ODIN, it looks like they’re using Guardrails, UAVs, and Apaches. That fleet mix is a better set of tools for IED — simpler, closer to the end users, with a shorter targeting cycle, and a more accurate and reliable kill mechanism. As you know, the Apache can be Hell on Earth. The force structure is also pretty consistent with Keys’ comments, if I understood them correctly.
One more thing. I don’t really know or NTK what else the jets are doing, but if you’re operating anywhere near the Iranian border, and you can’t order up a FLIR pod, well…no offense intended, but you might consider brushing up on your Farsi.
Good luck and Godspeed, Outlaw13. Watch your 6.

By: Leo

Leo — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:50:20 +0000

If the general’s argument is valid then we might as well airlift everything. Why use roads?
On the other hand, if the army hasn’t got the resources/manpower to catch the guys who plant IEDs, the only viable solution is to get the Iraqis to do the job (sadly they don’t sound like they’re up to it).
Or maybe if they save the money to hire more mercenaries to do all the work there’ll be less bad press about ARMY casualties…

By: DG

DG — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:00:40 +0000

Hell with that AF guy. Fire up the USAAF again and let the USAF get back to training to fight the Soviet Union.

By: Outlaw13

Outlaw13 — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 19:58:04 +0000

You can’t view this IED fight in isolation. During any given ATO cycle there are jets on station, if they aren’t responding to troops in contact or other CAS type missions, what are they doing? The flight hours are being flown regardless, so why not do some route security? They don’t have to come out of altitude, they don’t have to really do anything other that look at a particular stretch of road and report back if they see unusual activity. But I suppose for some that’s asking too much.
Check out TASK FORCE ODIN…Soldiers doing the work the USAF doesn’t want to. http://www.aviationtoday.com/categories/military/11325.html

By: Demophilus

Demophilus — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 19:04:34 +0000

I don't know if referring to an AF general's speech as "whining" was the right way to start the snowball rolling. I read about Keys' comments in AVIATION WEEK too. I don't recall them mentioning the General "whining." Rather, I sort of got the impression that he was saying we should use the right tool for the job, and he was proposing a better way to fight. A Prowler, Growler or ELINT platform may make for a good IED buster; tickle the salient triggering freaks and you could set one off, or identify a receiver in place on a roadside. IIRC the thrust of Keys' comments, the same is not true of a FLIR pod on an F-16. Looking for a warm spot on a desert road is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I'm a civilian these days, so I can't compromise any TTP; I don't know it. All I can do is guess. From the thrust of Keys' comments regarding "the left of the bang", my guess is he's talking about something like the following. Finding an IED in place is way too late; you want to find it in transit to the emplacement site, or from or at the factory. The chair force has a) SAR and FLIR assets that can track multiple vehicles in real and archived time; b) SIGINT and ELINT that can track commo and trigger messaging, and c) an assload of computer assets that can cross reference a) and b). Assuming a fairly typical IED emplacement profile -- for example, a vehicle stopping by the side of the road, people milling about, then leaving in that vehicle, or another -- such an event can be identified and cross referenced against any vehicle track to or from another suspect location. So if Johnny Jihad leaves a mosque outbuilding, stops three times dropping shit on an empty road, and returns to the mosque compound, and there are IED signatures where he stopped, you've got intel you may not have had if someone was allowed to pull the FLIR pod off mission to scan a road or pipeline for Halliburton. That may just be my personal fantasy. Maybe some poor haji's just dumping the mullah's garbage, or he has the runs. On such a mission profile you're still going to get false positives, or decoys. Still, you're better off finding the bomb factory or maker, than finding the bomb AFTER he had it put there by some goober with a shovel. I think that's what Keys was saying. At the time, I sort of admired him for straying from the party line that anti-IED is a good mission for an F-22. At the time, I sort of had the impression that he was saying anti-IED is better handled by other assets, such as unit-organic choppers, UAVs, or UGVs, and that he'd rather have his F-16s with FLIR and Mavericks going after a a mosque outbuilding, or some sheik's cathouse. But hey, maybe I'm an optimist. Maybe Keys really is a wanker. Ain't up to me. Seems to be up to you.

By: H.G.HUDAK

H.G.HUDAK — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 12:19:38 +0000

If One American life is saved, or one injury is prevented, than there is ABSOLUTELY no waste of resources of any kind. Stop complaining General, just fly the Missions!

By: James

James — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 06:26:05 +0000

The air force is half right. The use of pod equiped manned platforms is a waste. The use of long endurance UAV’s is money well spent. Tehnically, we should be able to toss all the manned fighters out of Iraq and replace them with with 3–4 squadrons of predator B’s.

By: James

James — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 01:57:44 +0000

Well I damn sure cant add much to that, nicely put
There isnt much if anything the Air Force can do in counter IED operations outside of WIT teams and USAF EOD in the AO.
You mentioned the ole Bronco, and its sad that it wont happen, because the Air Force is run by a bunch of old fighter jocks that would rather have F-22s and JASSMs than weapons that are more practical in the current battlefield… Dont get me wrong, I know the Raptor is built with future conflicts in mind… but the JASSM is an enormous waste.
God I hate that missile.