Some of the restriction and intresting points in Red flag 2008
No Raptors
Interestingly enough, while F-22 Raptors had participated at earlier “Flags” with a very impressive kill ratio, for this occasion they did not enter the fight at all. While busy deployment schedules are officially cited as reason, some analysts suspect that either the Air Force did not want to risk bad publicity by having one of their premium fighters “shot down” by legacy aircraft – in a time when congressional lobbying continues to fund more F-22s – or that they simple wanted to keep the exact performance of the aircraft’s systems unknown to foreign participants, just as the Indians and French certainly did not reveal all their system’s capabilities.
The Enemy is here
For this year’s fourth run, the most highly anticipated guests certainly came in Russian aircraft. The Indian Air Force (IAF) had brought eight Su-30MKI Flankers, two IL-78MKI tankers and one IL-76MD transport. Having arrived at Mountain Home AFB in Idaho on July 17th, the fighter pilots of No. 20 “Lighting” Squadron from Pune underwent a three-week familiarization with the local environment and training rules, flying small Air-to-Air and Air-to-Ground missions against 18th Aggressor Squadron, which came down from Eilson AFB in Alaska, and the resident 366th Fighter Wing. They also got a chance to exchange rides with their American colleagues, a thrilling opportunity especially for the local pilots.
Moving to Nellis on August 8th (My Birth DAY), it became clear that the Indians suffered notable handicaps, some of them self-imposed. Contrary to last summer’s training at RAF Waddington in the UK, their NIIPBars radars were reportedly emitting this time, but only in a training mode that operates with reduced performance and features. Russian and Indian Officials were concerned not to reveal too many details of this sophisticated sensor (variants of which are to be used in the Su-35 and PAK-FA). The same holds true for the capabilities of the AA-12 Adder Air-to-Air Missile (R-77 “Amraamski”) which was not to be simulated in the exercises, instead virtual A-10 “Archers” (R-73) had to be fired. Given that Red Flag is large enough in scale for Beyond-Visual-Range scenarios to come into play, these two systems would have made a considerable impact.
Opting to not use their most potent Air-to-Air equipment, the Indians instead performed mainly in the ground attack role, using their Litening III pods for precision strikes.
Yet matters turned even more lopsided since they also did not use countermeasures against simulated SAM launches, and abstained from using the Common Data Link, relying instead on normal voice communication to relay targets. Despite those limitations, the training gained was considered highly valuable by all involved.
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