RAA Liaison Letter 2024 - 2025 Edition

RAA Liaison Letter – 2024 / 2025 Edition 121 With the introduction of the US-made Parrot UAS into regiments and potentially expanding capabilities, regiments should now seek to incorporate UAS systems into JFTs and have JFOs practice integrating them to achieve company-level objectives. Consider the future concept of drone swarms. If that is managed at a battlegroup level, who would decide where to use them and how to ensure that the drone swarm strikes the right target at the right time? Given the resources and training provided to JFOs and JTACs, they are in the best position to ensure correct drone swarm usage. FOs and JTACs also need to feel more confident using aircraft through tactics that minimise their exposure to threats like Man-Portable Air Defences (MANPADS). Generally, this involves employing low-altitude tactics so that aircraft can utilise terrain shielding while conducting SEAD missions from IDF or other systems (Horan, 2022). This profile is taught early in both curricula but is often overlooked as a skill to maintain due to the coordination required to integrate RAAF assets with mortars or artillery; furthermore, it is rarely practiced live and integrated with JFOS and JTACs working together. Furthermore, the Army and RAAF need to be more flexible and comfortable with how we deconflict aircraft from active IDF missions, as we commonly treat gun and mortar target lines as a ‘hot wall’ that aircraft cannot cross. There are procedures that allow us to route aircraft under these target lines, but stakeholders need to trust that this can be conducted to enable IDF and CAS to work more seamlessly (Armfield, 2023). All of these issues will be resolved through the Army and RAAF working together more regularly to build confidence in sharing airspace between aircraft and IDF. Training the Future JFO The Army needs to train more JFOs so the capability proliferates as broadly as possible. Currently, there are only enough JFOs to support companies, but not enough to support platoons. Proliferation of this capability down to platoons aligns with how the Army intends to operate in the littoral environment and enables platoons to effectively integrate air-based assets into their plans, such as loitering munitions and UAS (Kempt, 2020; Houston, 2023). Additionally, the JFO program needs greater support among the regiments. There are varying levels of accountability for JFOs maintaining their currency, which is dangerous, as history shows that CAS is only successful when members are competent and proficient. However, this is not solely the fault of JFOs; commanders and supervisors must recognise the qualifications and the associated currency, providing the necessary time to maintain it. Often perceived as 'avoiding' gunnery within the regiments, it is overlooked that JFO currency and events involve integrating ground-based assets while utilising aircraft to strike a target, and this should be encouraged more frequently. There are very few qualifications in the Army that require currency events, and in those fields, commanders must take it seriously to ensure their members maintain both their qualifications and currency. The loss of the currency tracking program ‘JFACTS’ has also made it harder for commanders to keep members accountable. Units are not applying the necessary pressure to ensure their members complete the currency events and meet high standards, with Army Individual Readiness often being treated as a higher priority. Although the regiments require JFTs to achieve common accreditation for artillery only, they should also incorporate CAS into this standard; it does not need to be live, as it can be simulated. A limiting factor for JFTs practising CAS is how regiments prioritise their simulator allocation, with most battery commanders focusing on surface-to-surface training and not allocating time to practice CAS serials. In 2024, the 8th/12th Regiment addressed this issue effectively by dedicating a simulator every fortnight for the JFOs and JTAC to practice CAS together, conducting scenarios that emulated Large Scale Conflict Operations (LSCO). This training culminated in a live exercise that tested JFTs' ability to integrate live guns and live rotary-wing assets, providing excellent training for JFOs and JTACs. Future of TACP and JTAC The RAAF should maintain the Tactical Air Control Party (TACP), as they play a crucial role in integrating aircraft into LSCO, expediting the kill chain through permissive airspace planning, and allowing fires and air-based assets to strike targets without interfering with one another. TACP members enhance the existing Brigade Air Liaison Officer (BALO) for exercises and operations, fulfilling a command and control (C2) and planning function for coordinating aircraft. As of this year, this capability has been reduced in scale and now can only support a divisional