US airpower – 24 hours versus ISIS

The following link explains how the US generates strikes against ISIS and the processes involved, from planning, intel and targeting input, weapon preparation and strike.
http://nypost.com/2016/05/28/a-surreal-day-inside-our-war-against-isis/

Some interesting parts.

The CAOC produces the daily Air Tasking Order, a detailed master schedule of missions for every US and coalition aircraft in the fight — bombers, fighters, tankers, drones, manned spy planes, cargo aircraft. In a 24-hour day, 500 or more will crisscross the skies.

Each day’s Air Tasking Order takes three days to prepare. Officers around the region and at intelligence centers and remote control drone bases around the world take part by secure phone, e-mail and video teleconferences.

“It’s a constant dialogue and then, based on that, we step to a process to identify the aircraft, identify the missions, whether it’s air refueling, whether it’s intelligence, surveillance and recognizance, or if it’s a strike capability,” Brown said by phone from the CAOC.

Operation Inherent Resolve strikes are flown by three types of Air Force fighter jets, F-15E Strike Eagles, F-16 Fighting Falcons and F-22 Raptors; two kinds of bombers, the B-1B Lancer and B-52; plus armed MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, a k a drones).

Navy F/A-18E Super Hornets, Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier jump jets and the warplanes of a few allied nations also are taking part.

Such sorties come in two varieties: “deliberate” and “dynamic.”

Deliberate strikes are those launched against targets chosen well in advance, studied by “targeteers” and included in the Air Tasking Order. These include “their cash-collection points, some of their very important leadership targets, their command and control, against their IED factories, against oil targets to impact their revenue,” Brown said.

Dynamic strikes — the majority — are conducted on short notice by aircraft assigned to “overwatch” missions, meaning they fly near enough to answer calls from Iraqi ground forces for strikes on ISIS positions during combat or to hit unanticipated “targets of opportunity,” often spotted by drones.

In any given 24 hours, officer pilots and enlisted sensor operators at more than a dozen Air Force and Air National Guard bases in the United States have 60 Predators and Reapers flying Combat Air Patrols (CAPs) over trouble spots around the world. An undisclosed but significant number patrol the skies above ISIS-held Iraq and Syria.

Now J. and his wingman have been given a sensitive new mission. Tonight they are targeting an HVT (High Value Target) using a weapon newly adapted to the F-22. They are to drop 250-lbs., GPS-guided Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) on a house in Mosul where a top ISIS leader is believed to be.

Shown imagery of Mosul prior to the mission, J. recalled later, “I remember seeing the target, and seeing that it was an in urban environment, and seeing how close it was, literally tens of feet away from other buildings, and thinking, ‘This is the first time that I’ve ever dropped one of these weapons. This is the first time that the F-22 has ever dropped one of these in combat, and we’re going big first. This is no cream puff. We’re going after an HVT in an urban environment a few hundred feet from a hospital.’ I remember thinking, ‘If this goes bad, everyone is going to know about it and we’re going to be the goat.’ ”

Maneuvering his F-22 so that its Synthetic Aperture Radar creates a precise picture of the neighborhood that includes the target house, J. can see exactly where their bombs should land.

When released, their SDBs will quickly deploy tiny wings, which will pop out of the sides of the bombs to increase their glide and range. J. and his wingman push the small red “pickle” button on their joysticks and release four SDBs each. They feel the weapons bay open and the bombs thump off their rack. Then they turn their F-22s in a circle to fly behind the bombs and record their flight and impact with onboard sensors.

“Good weapons impact times four,” J. tells his wingman over the radio in a matter-of-fact tone of voice as his bombs find their mark.

“Good weapons impact times four,” his wingman echoes, reporting on his own bombs.

Now they head for home.

Days later, intelligence analysts will conclude that the strike successfully destroyed the target house and killed several senior ISIS figures.

The HVT they were after, though, was not among them.

Plenty more in the long article.