• 55th Wing—Two RC-135 Rivet Joint ELINT/SIGINT aircraft from the 55th Wing at Offut AFB near Omaha, Nebraska.
• 57th Wing—Two Wild Weasel F-4G Phantoms from Nellis AFB's own 561st FS, as well as two F-16Cs from the 422nd TES.
• 187th FG, 160th FS—To augment the aggressor aircraft from the Adversary Tactics Division, eight F-16C Fighting Falcons from the Alabama ANG were tasked to act as additional threat aircraft.
• 193rd Special Operations Group (SOG), 193rd Special Operations Squadron (SOS)— The Pennsylvania ANG contributed an EC-130 with the Senior Scout 'clip-on' EW system, from the 193rd SOG at Harrisburg IAP.
• 355th Wing—Two EC-130H Compass Call jamming aircraft from the 355th Wing at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona.
• 388th FW—Ten F-16C Fighting Falcons equipped with LANTIRN pods from the 388th FW at Hill AFB, Utah.
• 414th FS—Four F-16C Fighting Falcons from the Nellis AFB Adversary Tactics Division, to provide aggressor support.
• 552nd ACW—Two E-3B Sentrys from the 552nd ACW at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.
By the time the last of the Green Flag participants had arrived, there were over two hundred aircraft on the ramp at Nellis AFB, quite an air force by itself.
After their familiarization flights, the crews attended a series of safety briefings, designed to minimize the chance of what the crews call 'a sudden violation of the air/ground interface' — in other words, a crash. Not so long ago, accidents were unpleasantly common at Nellis, with more than thirty deaths from over two dozen crashes in the worst year, 1981. Those were the days when the USAF crews were just learning to fly low-level, and the high accident rate was the price paid to gain mastery of operations 'at five hundred feet at the speed of heat!' Today the range controllers are fanatical about safety, with minimum above-ground-level altitudes and separations between aircraft rigorously enforced. A wing commander back in the 1980s was cashiered for telling his aircrews to ignore these minimums.
But the most fanatical care will not stop every bad thing from happening. Even before the exercise began, an Army AH-64A Apache attack helicopter went down in a snowstorm on a mountain while deploying from Fort Rucker, Alabama. The crew survived (thanks to the crash-absorbing structure of the Apache) and was picked up by an HH-60G Pave Hawk from the 66th RQS (their first 'save' as it turned out). Still, it was not a good omen.
The morning briefing was scheduled for 0630 (6:30 AM in civilian time), so everyone got to bed early.
Tuesday, April 12, 1994—Day 1: Mission #1
The mass briefing room in the Red Flag building was crowded to capacity for the first mission of Green Flag 94-3. The 366th would be playing the role of the good guys, the Blue force. The adversary F-16s (bad guys) would be the Red Force. The object of the game was for Blue to crush the more numerous Reds by smashing their ground targets and shooting down their planes, while avoiding Blue losses. Even though General McCloud was in command, the Red Flag staff actually runs the show. After the weather and safety briefings, the 366th staff came in to give the Blue Force mission briefing. Following this, at 0645, the pilots and controllers of the aircraft and emitters from the Adversary Tactics Department (the Red Force) left for their own briefing. In a few hours war would break out on the northern ranges of the Nellis complex.
For the Red Force, the mission was simple: Stop the Blue Force. Today that would involve eight F-16Cs simulating the performance and tactics of the Russian MiG-29 Fulcrum. For the Blue Force, the first part of their plan was to strike at simulated enemy command facilities (bunkers) and strategic targets (SCUD launch sites). That would complete Phase I. In Phase II, Blue would gain air supremacy over Red by bombing airfields and SAM/AAA sites. Finally, in Phase III, Blue would bomb a variety of targets, mostly truck convoys and supply centers. The campaign was planned to last nine days, depending on the breaks of the referees and how well the bomb damage assessment (BDA) went.
The strike command would fall to the 366th Wing, though General McCloud would not personally lead the strike. A relative newcomer to his F-16, he swallowed his pride and flew as number six in a formation of six 389th FS F-16Cs assigned to hit a simulated SCUD site on the southern side of the event arena. Simultaneously, a quartet of 391st FS Strike Eagles were assigned to hit a nearby command bunker. On the northern side, the F-111Fs of the 27th FW and F-16Cs from the 388th FW would hit similar targets. The F-4Gs, EF-111As, an RC-135, and an EC-130 would provide EW and SEAD support, with two 22nd ARS KC-135Rs and an E-3C Sentry staying back to the eastern side of the range to support the Blue Force. In addition, a flight of U.S. Army AH-64A Apache attack helicopters would hit several Red Force radar sites, much as a joint Army/Air Force helicopter team (Task Force Normandy) did on the first night of Desert Storm. The big surprise of the Blue operation would be a new tactic devised by the Eagle drivers of the 366th. The Wild Boars of the 390th FS would form a virtual wall of Eagles to sweep enemy fighters from the path of the two strike forces. Netted together with their JTIDS data links and armed with simulated AIM- 120 Slammers, they felt they could clear the skies ahead of the Blue Force with a minimum of losses.
Takeoff was at 0830, and the air below Sunrise Mountain rumbled as sixty aircraft clawed their way into the air. First off were the E-3 and the tankers, followed by the relatively slow EW birds. Then came the fighters. Each of the 389th FS F-16Cs was loaded with an AIM-9 Sidewinder training round, two 370 gallon/1,423 liter fuel tanks, two Mk 84 2,000 lb./909.1 kg. bombs, and an ALQ-131 jamming pod. Their decoy launchers were fully loaded with chaff and flare rounds; and like all the aircraft of the strike force, they would use their jam-resistant Have Quick II radios to (hopefully) defeat the communications jammers of the adversary forces on the ground. Last off were the adversary F-16s of the 414th and the Alabama ANG, since they did not have any tanker support and fuel might be a bit tight for them. Up north at Indian Springs, the crews of the AH-64s launched from their forward operating base (FOB). Blue Force aircraft periodically refueled from the tankers to keep topped off. All they were waiting for now was the clearance from the range supervisor, and then they would listen for the 'push' call from the air-to-air commander to start the run to the targets.
Up in front, the eight F-15Cs of the 390th FS began their push towards the gaggle of eight adversary F-16Cs defending the airspace in front of the Red Force target array. Making careful use of AWACS data and their APG- 70 radars, the F-15Cs sorted out the targets, using the JTIDS links to assign a specific target F-16 to each Eagle. Then, on command, eight simulated AMRAAM shots were fired at the Red Force F-16s. Before they could react, the range controllers called seven of them 'dead.' The seven headed back to the 'regeneration box,' and the eighth fled west. The regeneration box is part penalty box and part safe haven located in the northwest corner of the range. If a dead adversary aircraft spends a few minutes in the box, the range controllers will resurrect or 'regen' him, and allow the aircraft back into the fight. Since the U.S. Air Force trains to fight outnumbered against an enemy that can rapidly replace his losses, this is not so unrealistic.
Unfortunately for the Red Force, by the time they had all hit the regen box, the strikers were on their way in to their targets, and the adversary F-16s could only hit back in ones and twos. The Red Force faced a losing battle, since the Eagles of the 390th were still on the hunt, and the Strike Eagles and Fighting Falcons of the Blue Force were hitting the incoming aggressors with well-aimed Slammer shots. By the time the aggressor aircraft were headed back to the regeneration box for the fourth time, the strike forces were over their targets, hitting them precisely as planned.
For 'Marshal' McCloud, this was the closest to war he had ever been, having just missed both Operations Just Cause and Desert Storm. Now he was 'tail end Charlie' on day one of Green Flag 94-3, and things were going good. He stuck close to his element leader in the number-five F-16, and their ingress to the target area was textbook perfect. Six pilots set their weapons delivery computers for a 'pop-up' attack, then pulled up, rolled, inverted, pulled through, and rolled wings level into a dive onto the simulated SCUD launch site. Lining up the 'death
