Joint Training for Air Operations in Maritime Surface Warfare

Iran has conducted a number of provocative military actions in the Fifth Fleet area of responsibility in the past year, and the State Department now lists the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp–Navy (IRGCN) as a terrorist organization. These actions and other clandestine operations increase the risk of open conflict between the IRGCN and the U.S. Navy. Consequently, U.S. joint forces in the region must remain prepared to conduct high-end warfare in the Arabian Gulf and nearby waters while continuing missions in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the Central Command region. To be ready to counter Iranian fast attack craft/fast inshore attack craft (FAC/FIAC) at any time, more joint unit-level air operations in maritime surface warfare (AOMSW) training should be held in deployed operational environments.

Joint Unit-Level AOMSW Training

AOMSW involves air assets conducting any of five maritime surface warfare missions: surface surveillance coordination, armed reconnaissance and strike coordination, war-at-sea strike, counter–FAC/FIAC, and airborne maritime mining.¹ Countering IRGCN small-boat swarm tactics from the air requires high proficiency and readiness, especially for those fighter squadrons most likely to respond in defense of a vessel in distress.²

Once deployed, Air Force and naval aviation squadrons can rapidly lose proficiency in AOMSW missions without continual training. And some squadrons arrive in theater having never trained on these missions to begin with and may not have fully developed AOMSW tactics, techniques, and procedures—e.g., the first F-35 squadrons deployed to the region. Deployed squadrons face the real possibility of defending U.S. or friendly ships on short notice, and are routinely tasked to provide on-call surface combat air patrols (SuCAPs) in support of Strait of Hormuz ship transits.³ Service-specific predeployment training in the United States does not capture the complexity of operating jointly in the Central Command region. However, joint training at the unit level offers opportunities—short of theaterwide or large-force exercises—to maintain and improve AOMSW proficiency. Unit-level training uses far less fuel and other resources than large-force exercises, with minimal impact to ongoing operational requirements.

Benefits of Joint Unit-Level AOMSW Training

Individual units require regular training to ensure crew currency in a range of missions beyond day-to-day tasking. Training can also identify process challenges in executing real-world AOMSW missions for higher level (wing/group/fleet) leaders to address. Different crypto, Link 16 settings, and communications cards are just a few issues that regularly degrade joint interoperability in daily operations. Training events provide squadrons and aircrews with valuable opportunities to identify and troubleshoot these issues in a semicontrolled environment. Finally, joint AOMSW unit-level training can improve communication between Central Command’s Navy and Air Force components, which is not always strong because of high personnel turnover rates and daily service-specific operations.

Joint unit-level training facilitates the transfer of knowledge from units in theater to those rotating in. Joint mission planning fosters working relationships between units that otherwise may not have many opportunities to interact because of operational requirements and the never-ending needs of the daily combined forces air-tasking order. Joint Navy and Air Force unit-level training reinforces theater-level priorities across the warfighting spectrum, such as strategic messaging to Iran, supporting operational readiness and partner engagement, and tactical proficiency. Finally, when aircraft and ships train in atypical places, the training generates a measure of operational ambiguity because it presents a different look to potential adversaries and other actors in the region.

Challenges to Meaningful AOMSW Training

The Arabian Gulf has limited safe water and airspace areas in which to conduct joint AOMSW training. Available overwater military operating areas are very shallow, with a variety of navigational hazards to Navy vessels (specifically, Arleigh Burke–class destroyers). Informal or special-use operating areas generally are not deconflicted from civil air traffic routes, which are very congested over the Arabian Gulf, requiring handoffs through multiple flight information regions and extensive cooperation with regional air traffic controllers who are not always proficient in English. Furthermore, standoff distances from the territorial or contested waters of neighboring states and surface-to-air missile threats exist throughout the gulf.

For those few areas where it is safe for both ships and aircraft to train, extensive coordination among a multitude of U.S. and partner entities is necessary—a time-consuming process. This makes it difficult to plan exercises, considering individual units often receive real-world tasking on short notice. Thus, unit-level training is inherently opportunistic in nature. The more coordination and entities required, the less likely the event will involve meaningful training, in which participants can learn from mistakes and adjust tactics, techniques, and procedures. Finally, larger events tend to involve senior (O-6 and above) officers, requiring more staffing, bureaucracy, and general planning time.

Improving AOMSW Training

The AOMSW counter–FAC/FIAC mission is not new to joint forces, as it is one regularly trained for in the United States.⁴ In the deployed environment, however, this training is frequently a low priority, relative to core service proficiencies such as air-to-air or strike warfare.⁵ Too often, training does not reflect the most likely threats. Forces deployed to the Central Command region should develop relationships with individual ship and squadron training, weapons, and tactics officers. The Air Force Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar, Navy Maritime Operations Center in Bahrain, and respective service planning cells must create space outside daily operational tasking for meaningful joint unit-level AOMSW training against the Iranian FAC/FIAC threat.

To assist in exercise planning, each entity’s mission planning cell should designate a lead tactical planner to coordinate with appropriate airspace authorities early in the deployment window for each rotational unit. Operational planners should identify available assets for the desired training dates, agree on the training objectives and concept of operations, and find an appropriate training area. Empower the ships and squadrons to do the real mission planning and decide which frequencies and altitude separation schemes to use, since they will be the ones assuming the risk. Let the squadrons decide who will play red air and what tactics simulated opposition forces will employ. Encourage ship training officers to use their rigid-hull inflatable boats to simulate FAC/FIAC, but do not dictate their tactics or run-in timelines. Integrate maritime patrol aircraft, but treat them as meaningful participants and not just glorified public affairs collections platforms. If deployed units are empowered to take an active role in AOMSW training, the quality of the training will always surpass what it would be if planned solely by midgrade staff officers.

AOMSW training should be a high priority in the Arabian Gulf. While joint forces will continue to support operational priorities, they must balance that with maintaining readiness and proficiency to fight and win in a multidomain warfare environment. Failing to regularly train in realistic and dynamic maritime scenarios involving the range of maritime threats courts significant risk.