Centre of Gravity

No mere cosmetic change, AWC’s remit is to match the RAAF’s brain power with its air power and maximise the enormous potential latent in the 5Gen platforms acquired under a recent recapitalisation program.

BRAINS AND BRAWN

In the words of AWC’s organisational parent, Air Command, AWC, exists to ‘establish the RAAF as a modern and fully integrated combat force that can deliver air and space power effects in the information age, supported by an integrated workforce which includes Air Force, Army, Navy, Australian Public Service and Defence Industry personnel.’

AVM Gavin Turnbull, at the AWC’s official opening at RAAF Edinburgh on 25 February 2017, stated that the official goals of the RAAF’s newest operational entity were ‘to act as a focal point for bottom up innovation at the tactical and operational levels, coordinate and integrate tactics and procedures development across all platforms using live, virtual and/or constructed (LVC) environments, coordinate the science and technology (S&T) and research and development (R&D) effort across Air Force, conduct testing of current and proposed Concepts of Operation (CONOPS) against force structure and higher level Defence plans at the operational and tactical level, collate lessons learned through experimentation for inclusion in strategic planning, capability development, doctrine development, and exercise planning, and lastly, exchange of ideas across the ADF and the Coalition.’

To enable the AWC to solve complex problems and generate integrated tactics for the front line war fighter, it is divided into four distinct directorates, overseen by HQ AWC. They are:

Test and Evalution Directorate (TED), that provides specialised test and evaluation for the ADF, plus aviation medicine support, aeronautical information products, stores clearance and aviation systems engineering support. The TED’s constituent units comprise the Aircraft Research and Development Unit (ARDU), the Aeronautical Information Service, the Air Warfare Engineering Squadron, the Aircraft Stores Compatibility Engineering Squadron and the Institute of Aviation Medicine.

Information Warfare Directorate (IWD) – centralises the AF’s tactical information warfare elements and provides the wider RAAF with an integrated and tailorable operational support capability drawn from across the Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Information Operations domains. It enables the coherent development and management of the RAAF’s Information Warfare capabilities. Under its command are non-flying squadrons Nos 87, 460 and 462, the Air Force Intelligence Project, Distributed Ground Station, Joint Electronic Warfare Operational Support Unit (JEWOSU) and the Aeronautical Information Service.

Air Force Ranges Directorate – Provides the Air Force Air Weapon Ranges and Live, Virtual and Constructive (LVC) simulation to enable the testing of war materiel and the training of Air Force capabilities in order to deliver more effective war fighters. It oversees operations at the Woomera and Delamere Test Ranges.

Tactics and Training Directorate – focuses on the development of multi-discipline high end integrated tactics and training across the AF through a combination of training, education engagement and integrated exercises. Its constituent unit is the Air Warfare School.

THAT NEW FEG SMELL

Commanding AWC is AIRCDRE ‘Joe’ Iervasi, who comes to the job via the Hornet community, and is now charged with forging the identity of the nascent command. Unlike Air Command’s force element groups (or FEGs), AWC is organised as a grouping of co-equal directorates. AIRCDRE Iervasi explained the reasoning behind this . “It’s to recognise that you can use the AWC as a new institution as opposed to a FEG. It’s actually an institution that’s providing a high level war fighting skillset. In a lot of respects, if you view all of the FEGs in the Air Force today as being vertical columns, Air Mobility Group, Surveillance and Response Group and so on, you have, from a learning perspective, air force training group which standing across all those FEGs, and then the AWC sitting atop them all like a capstone.”

He continued,” This year, we’re looking to consolidate our identity within the AWC, because we hold two personalities. One as a fighting element, that being Information Warfare Directorate, then the other which is the AWC as an institution of higher learning for complex warfare that stands across all those elements.”

AICDRE Iervasi outlined how the recent or imminent introduction of a host of new state of the art aircraft impelled the RAAF to create an Air Warfare Centre geared towards maximising the potential present in such platforms as F-35, Growler and Poseidon.

“The AWC was brought about under the broader Project Jericho in 2015, as the Air Force was posturing with a major investment in fifth generation capabilities. ACM Brown wanted to ensure that if we’re going to embark on 5Gen wired war fighting that we’re actually postured appropriately and have the right people, with the right skillsets and wherewithal, to understand what 5 gen war fighting means. It was just as important to identify those enabling effects that might not necessarily have been caught up in the major recapitalisation acquisition projects. Out of that, Project Jericho was formed, encompassing 16 distinct projects, with one of those being the establishment of an AWC. The intent behind that was to provide a professional institution where future war fighting concepts and ideas could be formulated and to form an ‘institution of excellence’ in Air Force, to help it better understand how it needed to bring all this new capability together in an integrated, joint force.”

AIRCDRE Iervasi explained how the then commander of the Aerospace Operational Support Group was, during the course of 2015, tasked with creating an Air Warfare Centre. Analysis of an AWC’s purpose and scope was aided by reviews of similar, well-established AWC’s found in the USAF, RAF and RCAF.

“In terms from an organisational construct, what we wanted to create was an organisation that was identifiable to those other AWCs and also provide a level of co-ordination with our other major coalition partners. Upon review. it was recognised that the existing structure of AOSG, with its elements of information warfare and test and evaluation (T&E) was similar to AWC’s in the U.S and UK. So, it was recognised that AOSG had an existing core of what an AWC might be, but there were additional things that needed to built on top of that. The key things built on ours, which takes it beyond AOSG, is a couple of key directorates.”

THE SCHOOLHOUSE

The Tactics and Training Directorate (TTD) and the Integrated Mission Support Directorate (IMSD) are the key elements that, according to AICDRE Iervasi, distinguish the AWC from its predecessor FEG, the AOSG.

“The TTD is where we have our senior and most experienced war fighters from all FEGs embedded, to come together to look at our current way of doing war fighting, and to peel away the skin and ask, ‘Are we missing some key elements here that might integrate into a combined, joint package approach?’

“From a tactics development perspective, TTD is also looking at what is happening in technology and in the near and further region where we might be called up on by government to conduct operations. It examines what things that be evolving and how asks, ‘How are we best postured to adapt our current and future force to best be employed in that environment?’

The TTD is composed of two sub-units, 87SQN and the Air Warfare School. It is 87SQN’s role to conduct the recently introduced the all important Air Warfare Instructors Course.

“87SQN is the heart of tactics development and it’s sponsoring our first ever Air Warfare Instructor course. The AWIC from lineage goes back to the Korean war, when one of our senior air force members of that time, Dicky Cresswell DFC, AM identified that between the end of WW2 and Korea, the Air Force had lost a lot of its key expertise in war fighting and had no mechanism to retain subject matter expertise in what was predominately air combat. So Dicky founded what was to become the Fighter Combat Instructor course that kicked off in 1954, and has since, over time, expanded its membership to include our intelligence personnel and our combat controllers. The Air Warfare Instructors Course seeks to expand that membership and the course that we’ve kicked off this year includes crews from Air Mobility Group, and in 2019 we’ll expand that to include our maritime crews as well, when they’ve bedded down the P-8.”

In accordance with the stated aims of Plan Jericho, the AWIC aims to produce high calibre graduates able to meet the needs of war fighters across the ADF.

“Now we have a course that is deliberately looking at getting the best and brightest operators and expanding their horizons to understand how they can fight together, and at the conclusion of this course, those Air Warfare instructors will got back to their host FEGs and continue to drive integration across our FEGs within Air Force and, more importantly, across the joint services. Now we have a professionalistion of war fighting function more broadly across Air Force and can be called upon to provide expert advice and new ways of doing business.”

The six-month course will school personnel from across the major force element groups, with students returning to their squadrons in between exercises and course activities to undertake further training. AIRCDRE Iervasi detailed the background of the AWIC’s founding cadre of instructors.

“With the exception of the AMG element, the course directors for the intelligence, Super and classic Hornet, Wedgetail and the ground based controllers are former Fighter Combat Controllers or instructors themselves, who’ve previously undertaken the course. With regards to AMG, within that community, those individuals that for lack of having done a similar course, are for all intents and purposes the wizened heads in those communities who are recognised as the ‘go-to’ people, and have that standing within those communities and are instructors for respective course candidates.”

Candidates and graduates must be especially adept at navigating the data saturated environment that characterises the modern battlespace. The AWIC seeks to hone the skills needed to wage war in the information age.

“With new capability coming on-board, those projects have been developed in their respective cylinders of excellence and by a broader strategic understanding of how they might come to fight. But the AWC’s role is to provide greater levels of detail about how they’ll come together and fight. It will provide meat on the bones. It’s to put details and concept of operations (CONOPS) on how we’re going to fight and put together the training exercises and activities where we can test those concepts, learn by them, review them and continuously test them.”

LIGHTNING FORECAST

Unlike the aircraft it is replacing, there are no plans for the F-35A to wear the distinctive ARDU fin flashes when it enters service with 81WG next year. (Hornets A21-21 and -101 have been returned to RAAF Base Williamtown, where ARDU retains a test and evaluation flight (as it does at Richmond and Amberley)). Test flying is performed in situ by qualified test pilots, with certification overseen by the Training and Evaluation Directorate. AIRCDRE Iervasi reflected on the technological leap presented by the RAAF’s first, true fifth generation weapon system.

“The F-35 is a fascinating opportunity. This is where the technology will lead us down paths that we haven’t been before. What might be possible from its cockpit is something that is not possible to be conducted in a classic Hornet. Whether we fundamentally change the way the capability is used will ultimately come down to command and control and the authority the pilot has to make decisions and deliver lethal and non-lethal effects. The question we need to ask ourselves is how far do we delegate those authorities given we’ll now have platforms that will have a very good understanding of the environment in which they’re operating and arguably, be able to make autonomous decisions.”

NEW TOOLS

AIRCDRE Iervasi and the AWC team are working towards an FOC date of 2021, which will see its structure is fully embedded and has full membership of the Air Warfare Instructor course. All the while, AICDRE Iervasi maintains his focus on the Centre’s larger mission. “The role of the AWC is to take on lessons of current operations and apply them, taking into account emerging technologies and capabilities in our operating environment and apply that to new concepts.”

Such an array of new capabilities about to enter service with the RAAF has precipitated attitudinal changes, as old ways of war fighting inevitably yield to the new, “A big part of the change is cultural. We’re going to be doing things differently. We will have a new way of looking at problem sets. A big part of that is investing in individuals who understand the change and providing them with the skill sets knowledge and learning so they can do things differently.”