FORT BLISS, Texas--The recent joint exercise Hustler Trough III had lots of moving pieces. Soldiers assigned to 1st Armored Division and multiple Air Force elements worked together to conduct close air support training missions during the exercise, co-sponsored by the 7th Air Support Operations Squadron and 1st Armored Division Artillery, May 23 through 25.
"We're training face-to-face, so the A-10 pilots are out here on the range, integrating with the Soldiers that they're supporting," said Lt. Col. Steven Raspet, commander of the 7th Air Support Operations Squadron stationed here. "I think what makes this exercise so unique is that we all in the end get a face to face."
Joint terminal attack controllers have eyes on the ground. Pilots have eyes in the sky. Soldiers with the 7th ASOS work as the gateway to coordinating air support and maintaining a safe airspace.
"We're the air support operations center here. The squadron is the ASOS, which is the squadron that hosts the tactical air control party ... the JTACs, so we are kind of the command and control element for the Air Force TACP," said Capt. David Diaz, commander, ASOC. "So when they (JTACs) have requests, they send them up through us and we're going to coordinate to fulfill their air support requests."
The ASOC provides the pilots with a digital picture of the battle space.
"They can look at the screen and they can see where the controller is, where the target is, they can see where friendly positions are, they can see where other airplanes are," Diaz said.
After the ASOC makes the connection between the JTACs and the pilots in the sky, those elements work together to complete the mission. This exercise trained pilots assigned to the 66th Weapons Squadron, of the Air Force Weapons School, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, in their forward air controller airborne phase of the school.
"What we're trying to do here is get away from the COIN aspect of what we've been doing in Afghanistan and Iraq for the last 15 years and more concentrating on major combat operations where it is a force on force battle," said Capt. Tanner Gibson, an instructor at the Air Force Weapons School.
The pilots had a lot of face-to-face time with JTACs embedded with Army elements and multiple Army units, learning more about how each does their job and different mission challenges.
"When we come down here we actually get to talk to actual Army ground force commanders and get lessons learned from them," Gibson said. "We can build contacts with them and see what it's like to train with them so we can teach our students in the future better."
The pilots in the school will take the information they've learned during Hustler Trough back to their individual squadrons. This is the third time exercise Hustler Trough has taken place, providing an excellent training opportunity for the Amy and Air Force.
"The biggest take away from this training is the relationship building. Even with training exercises like NTC (National Training Center), we don't get that opportunity to face-to-face and sit down in the same room and talk about those lessons learned, just to improve that joint fires team," Raspet said.
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