Air Assault Operations Flashcards
What are the (6) Functions of Marine Aviation? Hint: AAA-CEO
- Air Reconnaissance: the purpose of any type ofreconnaissance is to reduce the commander’s unknown risks
- Anti-Air Warfare: the action that is required to destroy or reduce to an acceptable level the enemy air and missile threat.
- Assault Support: commander uses assault support to focus combat power at the decisive place and time to achieve local combat superiority
- Control of Aircraft and Missiles: integrates and focuses the other five functions of Marine aviation into a coordinated effort
- Electronic Warfare: any military action involving the use of electromagnetic and directed energy to control the electromagnetic spectrum or to attack the enemy
- Offensive Air Support: air operations conducted against enemy installations, facilities, and personnel to directly assist the attainment of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) objectives by the destruction of enemy resources or the isolation of their military force
What are the functions of Offensive Air Support (OAS)?
Destruction: missions destroy enemy forces, equipment, supplies, and installations.
Neutralization: missions render areas, weapons, or enemy forces ineffective for a specified time. Neutralization may be applied when we cannot afford to dedicate the assets to destroy our opponent, or when we decide that the most efficient application of force would be to “shut them down” for a set period of time, rendering the requirement for destruction unnecessary.
What are the (2) categories of Air Reconnaissance?
Strategic Reconnaissance: The gathering of information, which is used toaffect policy on the national or international level
Tactical Reconnaissance: the use of air vehicles to obtain information concerning terrain, weather, and the disposition, composition, movement, installations, lines of communications, electronic and communication emissions of enemy forces.
What are the (3) types of Air Reconnaissance?
- Visual
- Multi-sensor Imagery
- Electronic
What are the (2) types of Anti-Air Warfare?
The primary purpose of AAW is to gain and maintain AIR SUPERIORITY. Air superiority is “that degree of dominance in the air battle of one force over another which permits the conduct of operations by the former and its related land, sea, and air forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing force.”
Offensive Anti-Air Warfare: constitutes operations conducted against enemy air or air defense systems before they can launch or assume an attacking role.
* Preemptive measures: weaken the enemy air threat before the enemy can make effective use of their air defense systems
* Supression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD): gain access to a defined zone of airspace that will allow MAGTF operations to proceed
* Local Air Superiority Measures: prevent the enemy’s residual air threat from affecting the execution of friendly operations to the point of prohibitive interference in a specific zone of action
Air Defense: defensive measures designed to destroy attacking enemy aircraft or missiles or to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of such an attack
* Active Air Defense: direct defensive action taken to destroy attacking enemy aircraft or missiles or to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of such an attack
* Passive Air Defense: constitutes all measures, other than active air defense, taken to minimize the effects of hostile air action. These measures include the use of cover, concealment, camouflage, deception, dispersion, and protective construction.
What are the (3) subsets of electronic warfare?
Electronic Warfare Support (ES):The division of EW involving actions taken under direct control of an operational commander to search for, intercept, identify, and locate sources of radiated electromagnetic energy for the purpose of immediate threat recognition.
Electronic Attack (EA): The division of EW that involves the use of electromagnetic energy, directed energy, or antiradiation weapons to attack personnel, facilities, or equipment with the intent of degrading, neutralizing, or destroying enemy combat capability.
Electronic Protection (EP): The division of EW involving actions taken to protect personnel, facilities, and equipment from any effects of friendly or enemy employment of EW that degrade, neutralize, or destroy friendly combat capability.
What are the (2) categories of Offensive Air Support?
Deep Air Support (DAS): defined as air action against enemy targets at such a distance from friendly forces that the detailed integration of each mission with fire and movement of friendly forces is not required.
Close Air Support (CAS): defined as air action against hostile targets which are in close proximity to friendly forces and which require detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of those forces
Explain the different types of Assault Support
Air Logistical Support
* Performed by fixed wing aircraft and delivers troops, equipment and supplies to areas beyond helicopter range and lift capability or when surface transportation is slow or unavailable
Combat Assault Transport
* Provides mobility for the MAGTF. It is used to rapidly deploy forces, bypass obstacles or redeploy forces to meet the enemy threat. All of these actions provide the MAGTF commander with more diverse options for operational planning.
Air Delivery
* Transportation of equipment and supplies to FOBs or remote areas, it can be accomplished with helicopters or loads can be air dropped from fixed-wing aircraft such as the KC-130. Air drops are normally used when surface or helicopter transports cannot be used because of range, closed lines of communications, a lack of adequate airfields, a prohibitive ground tactical situation, high tonnage, or reduced response time
Air Evacuation
* Transportation of personnel and equipment from a forward operating base or remote areas. This includes flights from areas of operations to secure areas, CASEVAC, extraction of forces, and non-combatant evacuation operations (NEO).
Battlefield Illumination
* Can be provided by both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft. Illumination may be IR or visible to the naked eye or invisible. Battlefield illumination can last for a few minutes or several hours.
Aerial Refueling
* Allows MAGTF aircraft, both fixed- and rotary-wing, to conduct flight-ferrying operations, extend time on station, and extend mission range
Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel (TRAP)
* A subcomponent of combat search and rescue (CSAR) and/or joint combat search and rescue (JCSAR) missions, but it is only executed once the location of survivors is confirmed. It does not involve dedicating aircraft assets to locating survivors. The composition of a tactical recovery mission may vary from a single aircraft and aircrew to an assault support mission package that consists of multiple fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft with an onboard compliment of security, ground search, and medical personnel
What are the (2) functions of Control of Aircraft and Missles?
Air Direction: the authority to regulate the employment of air resources, including both aircraft and surface-to-air weapons, to maintain a balance between their availability and the priorities assigned for their use. Includes developing air tasking orders, processing air support requests, collecting information concerning mission status, and changing or altering prescheduled missions.
Air Control: the authority to direct the physical maneuver of aircraft in flight or to direct an aircraft or surface-to-air weapon unit to engage a specific target. Includes airspace management and airspace control which involves the coordination, integration and regulation of the use of airspace of defined dimensions and the positive identification, tracking, and direction of aircraft within a particular airspace through positive and procedural control.
