Awacs

[Requiem]

Hi Haole,

In the event of a real conflict or war to what extent do AWACS and other controllers (such as FAC) play a direct role in dishing out orders to a package or flight? Does a viper driver expect to constantly be in contact with AWACS or to only hear from AWACS if things go horribly wrong? I ask because I seem to remember a while back on one of Frugals forums somebody mentioned that AWACS in reality plays only a small role in advising and ordering around the vipers on the front line; mostly concentrating on keeping an eye on high value assets or high priority missions elsewhere.

Thanks very very much in advance for any reply :)

[Charlie_VFP]

I am not Haole... but I can give you an answer in respects to naval aviation.

It depends on the mission. There are always check ins - check outs with various monitoring facilities. This is a given when you are entering into a specific conflict area or leaving it.

But it depends on the mission. Sometimes you go over the beach knowing that you will be working with a specific FAC in a certain area. Sometimes you know you will be working a 'Kill Box' and you wont be dealing with them all that much. Then there are times when you are in the area and you are put in touch with a FAC for emergency support. That happens as well.

As for CAP missions, you interact with AWACS much more often. This may be different for the DLink systems in the USAF aicraft, as they are more integrated with that then we (USN/USMC) aircraft are.

I am sure that Haole can give you much more details when it comes to Vipers and USAF procedure as I am not familiar with that side of the fence. We all follow the same leader but dang if we dont do it in different ways. :)

[Requiem]

There was another question which I wondered about aswell which related to Navel operations which is the size of the flights. In F4 the largest flights are 4 ship ( which i understand is SOP for the USAF (plz correct me if im wrong) whereas in Janes F18 flights can get pretty large (i think about 9 or 12 or something like that cant quite remember). 9 or 12 seems alot of AC all relying on one flight leader is this realistic for navel ops or just something that Janes decided to include anyways?

Thankyou kindly for any replys :)

[Charlie_VFP]

While there may be 8 to 36 aircraft flying off the carrier at one time, each group operates in units of 4, sometimes 2. Everyone there will still be under the command of one person if they were all assigned to the same strike package, per say. But you would not see a 8 to 12 ship formation. You would see multiple 4 or 2 ship formations with X distance.

Grouping a lot of planes into a small area is only asking for trouble. Not only that, but the advantage of being spread out.... radar advantage, follow up strike advantage.... ect.... are great.

For instance... in OEF we would put two Hornets at 30K and two more two miles back at 15-20K. The bad guys would launch their shoulder fired SAM's at the 30K birds, of which they cannot hit due to the alititude, and the two trail aircraft put LGB's on their head once their position was known. :ylsuper:

[Requiem]

Hehe ok my next Question is will all this be accuratly implemented into Fighter Ops?

[Haole]

Hi Haole,

In the event of a real conflict or war to what extent do AWACS and other controllers (such as FAC) play a direct role in dishing out orders to a package or flight? Does a viper driver expect to constantly be in contact with AWACS or to only hear from AWACS if things go horribly wrong? I ask because I seem to remember a while back on one of Frugals forums somebody mentioned that AWACS in reality plays only a small role in advising and ordering around the vipers on the front line; mostly concentrating on keeping an eye on high value assets or high priority missions elsewhere.

Thanks very very much in advance for any reply :)Hello Requiem,

Looks like Terry did a pretty good job of answering this question for you. It does depend on our mission as to what role AWACS will play. For the most part they help control us going in to and out of the "box", getting us to the tankers safely and relaying info to and from the big "bosses". They help keep an eye out for pop up targets and start the process of vectoring us to the bogey, etc. Once we get to an area that needs support they usually just hand us off to a FAC and let the FAC take over from there. It all just depends on the mission and who is available out there to get the job done. If no FAC is around then info may be relayed via AWACS to us and we take it from there. Hope this helps out and thanks for the help Terry.
CHEERS!:beer:

[Requiem]

Thank you for the replys :)

[Charlie_VFP]

Haole: No problem. Your the ultimate authority on the subject. I just like to poke my nose in where it doesnt belong. :shades: