Inside Defense
Air Force officials in charge of the air war over Afghanistan have begun to employ a tactic reflective of the fight in the mountainous and primitive nation -- saturating the airspace over a particular region with as many intelligence aircraft as possible, according to a service official in the region.
This technique, known as an “ISR soak,” is designed to give intelligence officials a constant view of every angle of an area that may hold high-priority targets, according to Col. Kevin Glenn, chief of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations at Air Forces Central’s Combined Air and Space Operations Center (CAOC) in the Middle East.
“What you’ll see is a lot of assets focused in a very specific area to really maximize intelligence gain that we can get over a specific location,” said Glenn during a Sept. 3 telephone interview. “Once that ISR soak and that sustained, high- intensity ISR has met its objective in accordance with the overall operational plan, they will swing that mass of ISR off to the next plan.”
Flooding an area with a mix unmanned drones and manned spy planes means that aircrew, ground operators and intelligence analysts are all connected at an unprecedented level in an effort to paint a thorough picture of the battlefield, according to Glenn.
“In general, what you’re seeing is a massing; and, of course, when you mass we’re able to start working, ‘OK, what are the connections between ISR platforms A, B, C, D? How can they work together as a team and what kind of communications path do they need?’” said Glenn. “I think, in a general sense, not that it wasn’t before, we’re going to see an even more net-centric approach . . . essentially a lot of ISR assets working together on a specific problem set and, that’s one thing that we’re definitely going to be seeing and are seeing.”
This comes as the Air Force is working furiously to bring more ISR assets to bear in the Iraq and Afghan wars. Since January 2009, the CAOC has seen a 100 percent increase in ISR data, prompting Glenn to request more people to help process this landslide of information.
The service is planning to bring six prop-driven MC-12 Liberty ISR planes to Afghanistan by December. These planes will most likely be based out of Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, or Kandahar airport in the south where they will fly missions supporting Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s new strategy for Afghanistan that emphasizes winning the support of the population over pure kinetic action, according to Glenn.
Rather than pounding the enemy with intense air strikes that can produce civilian casualties, the MC-12s and other ISR planes will be able to watch over convoys and use their sensors to help find roadside bombs. This, according to Glenn, will help allow Western troops to interact with the local populations where they can forge relationships, deliver aid, gain intelligence on the enemy and weaken the Taliban’s influence. This also allows the “Afghan people to move in safety as well,” added Glenn.
Project Liberty aircraft -- as the MC-12s are known -- are already performing this type of mission in Iraq, where they have proven invaluable in supporting convoys and helping ground troops venture outside the wire, according to Glenn.
“Initially, say like the first week or so, people were thinking it’s” a manned version of a Predator drone, said Glenn. However, “Because the [aircrew] are there close to the ground units they are supporting, you start to have personal relationships and unit-to-unit relationships that are forming and then you just get that teamwork that all people in combat work close together have . . . we’re seeing some nice, tight integration in what the Liberty guys are doing in terms of supporting a mission. I think the main thing we’re seeing is that closeness factor and that human factor.” -- John Reed
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