Skip to content

UOAF Tactics Reference

Doctrine

Brief description of squadron SOPs and expectations for roles within a package.

Air-to-ground DEAD Talk-ons Israel DEAD SOP

This page captures package-level doctrine and fighter-to-fighter expectations used during UOAF events. The most developed material here covers air-to-ground employment and DEAD.

Air-to-air

No additional package-specific air-to-air doctrine is currently documented on this page.

Air-to-ground

Briefing

Ground attacks require a fighter-to-fighter brief that covers the following topics: FROTIES

  • Formation: Flight formation. Default is trail.
  • Roles: For each callsign whether they are shooter, cover, or suppressor. Shooter employs ordnance. Cover guarantees mutual support with visual lookout and comm. Suppressor indicates a role focused on suppressing the target.
  • Ordnance: Weapons to use.
  • Timing: Separation by seconds or nautical miles.
  • Ingress Direction: Magnetic bearing to target from the IP.
  • Egress Direction: Magnetic bearing from target to recovery.
  • Sort: Who is attacking what on the target. Default sort is north to south from #1-4, or by element with the first element taking the north half and the second element taking the south half.

Sounds like this:

"Trail, shooter, cover, shooter, cover. AGM-65D. 15 second separation by callsign. Ingress from IP 1, right to 060, egress to IP 1, left to 270. Lead sorted BMP north of the road, 3 sort T-80 south of the road."

Fighter-to-fighter briefs should be done for each pre-planned target and for attacks developed mid-flight, following this flow:

  1. Flight lead captures or tallies the target and creates a mark point.
  2. Plan the fighter brief and write it down on a scratch pad.
  3. Transmit the mark point to the flight and confirm capture or tally from each flight member. Use a talk-on if needed.
  4. Perform the fighter-to-fighter brief.
  5. Perform the attack and re-issue a new fighter brief as the situation develops.

Cover Aircraft's priorities for lookout

The cover aircraft's lookout priorities are ordered from most important to least important, with 1 as the highest priority and 4 as the lowest.

Reference graphic:

Control + Comm

  1. Copy the FROTIES brief and perform pre-attack capture, tally, or talk-on as required.
  2. Fly the indicated formation from the brief. Shooters at the IP call "[C/S] IP inbound" so everyone knows the attack run is beginning and can maintain timing separation. Fly the indicated ingress direction from the brief. If there is no IP indicated, skip the IP call.
  3. On final, or 10 seconds from weapon release, call "[C/S] in from the [ingress direction]" and dispense countermeasures.
  4. Recover the aircraft to the indicated egress direction from the brief, dispense countermeasures, and manage ECM.
  5. Call "Off [egress direction] [attack status]", where attack status is:
  6. If you did not attack: "dry, [optional reason]". Example: "Off dry 060, parameters" means you are egressing to 060 and could not get the correct weapon parameters. Example: "Off dry 060, defending AAA south".
  7. If you did attack: "[# of weapons + type] away". Example: "Off 060, 2 long rifle away".
  8. Rejoin formation, regain visual, prepare for possible re-attack, and re-sort targets as needed.

Important note: ingress and egress directions only need to be called when they differ from the FROTIES brief.

Complete example:

"Nail31 IP inbound"
"Nail31 in 070"
"Nail31 off 280, two CBU away"

Laser Search Track + Comm

Tomcat: "10 seconds" / "30 seconds" means I need your laser in 10/30 seconds.
Tomcat: "laser on" means turn your laser on now.
A-10: "Lasing XXXX" means I'm lasing XXXX PRF code.
Tomcat: "Spot" means I have contact with your laser.
Tomcat: "negative laser" means I do not have contact with your laser.
If this is Type 1 or Type 2 control, A-10 calls "cleared hot" or "abort".
Optional: "Stare XXXX" means use LST on the indicated laser code.

Talk-Ons

Whenever a flight is being directed to attack a target without a preexisting steerpoint and target description, a talk-on can be used. A talk-on is a plain-English narrative description of the target used to ensure correct ID and capture.

Procedure:

  1. Flight lead gets a mark point and capture on the target.
  2. Transmit to the flight and direct the flight to get eyes and sensors on target.
  3. Offset the flight outside the target threat area and call: "Flight, advise when ready for talk on". Maintain at least a 10-mile separation from the target so the wider target area can be observed.
  4. Start with an obvious reference cue and walk the flight from one cue to another until they have capture on the target. Good starting points are distinctive roads, buildings, or bodies of water.
  5. The directive after a description is: "call contact [the thing you just described]"
  6. The response from the flight should be: "Contact the [thing]"
  7. Talk-on descriptions and directions should be simple and short, driving the aircrew's eyes or sensors from one point to another. A useful format is FIDO:
    1. From a point: an easily recognizable start point.
    2. In a direction: cardinal or sub-cardinal direction.
    3. Distance to travel: an established unit of measure or meters.
    4. Object seen: the target or object the lead wants the aircrew to see.
  8. Use "capture" for the target itself and "contact" for visual reference points.

Example comm:

Finger11: "Fingers, advise when ready for talk on"
Finger12: "2"
Finger13: "3"
Finger14: "4"
Finger11: "In the center of the town 50 meters west of a road running north to south there is a large comm tower, call contact"
Fingers: "2 contact...3 contact...4 contact"
Finger11: "Two comm tower lengths to the north west is a military fence with 6 revetments on the north side of it, call contact"
Fingers: "2 contact...3 contact...4 contact"
Finger11: "The SA-2 launchers in those revetments are our target, call capture"
Fingers: "2 captured, 3 captured, 4 captured"

More examples:

DEAD

General Principles

  1. You are first in and last out. You are responsible for making sure the strikers get safely on and off target.
  2. Prefer to kill the site. Suppression is only a means to get into position to kill it.
  3. Never enter a SAM WEZ unless the SAM is suppressed or does not have line of sight to you. Terrain masking is one example.
  4. Kill any bandits within commit range of the target site.

Continuous suppression SOP

TBD.

Standard flight config (planners / flight lead only)

  • x4 F-16CJ
  • Lead: AGM-65 / SDB, optional CBU
  • Wing: AGM-88 x2
  • All: TGP + HTS if able

How to kill a site (planners / flight lead only)

SA2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

  1. Shooter / suppressor / shooter / cover with swing to suppressor if needed is a good fighter-to-fighter brief for this.
  2. Use AGM-88 at the shooter "IP inbound" or "in" call. Use AGM-65 on FCR.

SA8 / 13 / 15

  1. Use SDB at medium altitude with jammer. Use AGM-65 if SDB is unavailable.

SA-10

  1. For SA-20/21 only: SA-20/21 outranges HARM, so you need to approach blocking LOS and then pop up. Use NOE ingress to about 20 miles, then rapidly climb to SDB parameters.
  2. Continuously suppress the site in the climb and sustain suppression until the Flap Lid is destroyed.
  3. Engage with SDBs, or AGM-65 if SDB is unavailable, with priority on the Flap Lid.

SA 11 / 17 family

With SDB from standoff distance. If that is not possible, continuously suppress the site with a 30-second HARM timeout and attack with AGM-65.

Israeli weapons

See Israel DEAD SOP.

CAS/AI

No additional package-specific CAS/AI doctrine is currently documented on this page.

Strike

No additional package-specific strike doctrine is currently documented on this page.