AVIANO AIR BASE, ITALY
12.13.2023
Photo by Senior Airman Noah Sudolcan
31st Fighter Wing Public Affairs
U.S. Fire Fighters assigned to the 31st Civil Engineer Squadron participate in a simulated F-16 Fighting Falcon crash during Exercise Fighting Wyvern 23-02 at Aviano Air Base, Italy, Dec. 13, 2023. The simulation demonstrated the base’s ability to quickly react and respond to potential emergency situations. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Noah Sudolcan)
Agile Combat Employment is a concept introduced to improve the survivability of air power through dispersal by using proactive and reactive maneuvers. ACE maintains the ability to fulfill air tasking order requirements based on the mission sets from joint force commanders.
“The concept is nothing new,” said Dr. Sandeep Mulgund, senior advisor to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations of the U.S. Air Force. “It’s as old as warfare itself.”
Proactive maneuvers are recognizing situations developing in advance threats and making decisions based on national or combatant command guidance to array forces in an advantageous way. Reactive maneuvers are responding to scenarios as they unfold.
Exercising ACE concepts ensures the U.S. Air Force operates in a modern combat environment. Aviano Air Base demonstrates this ability during exercises like Fighting Wyvern. The exercise operated in response to and within a contested, degraded and operationally limited environment while concurrently executing integrated and joint base defense operations with Slovenia and Italy. Fighting Wyvern 23-02 was the first time the 31st Fighter Wing operated ACE jointly with the 56th and 57th Rescue Squadrons, 606 Air Control Squadron and the 510th Fighter Squadron.
Dr. Mulgund spoke on the importance of integrating with NATO allies and partners into the decision-making process for new capabilities and better interoperating approach concepts.
“Humans tend to learn much more from challenges,” said Dr. Mulgund. “It's when you struggle with something, it's when you have to work through certain pop ups, unexpected challenges, whether its broken equipment, weather related, insufficient equipment or not having worked through some requirements in terms of coordination with a host nation. That's where we learn things.”
U.S. Air Force Col. Joseph Stangl, 31st Maintenance Group commander, expressed the goal of the exercise is to learn as many lessons as possible and to not only work out material solutions but also test Airmen’s ability to problem solve in a more realistic environment.
“ACE in my words is a cultural change, it’s a change in how we employ our combat capability,” said Stangl. “Not just from a material perspective but also from our airmen’s capability perspective. We need a culture of think, execute and communicate.”
ACE utilizes partner nation air bases as alternate operating sites advancing power projection capabilities.
“We have to think about how we maintain the effectiveness of generating air power in an environment where we have a smaller footprint,” said Dr. Mulgund. “In World War II we had about 90 overseas bases, now we have roughly 33.”
Dr. Mulgund spoke on the importance of understanding how to incorporate modern technology with ACE, because everything is observable and it’s important to understand how to maintain survivability and effectiveness in a scenario where everybody with a cell phone is posting on social media.
“A key piece is the human element,” said Dr. Mulgund. “It’s not just about each Airmen having different skill sets, it’s about how you build resilient teams.”
ACE exercises like Fighting Wyvern empower Airmen to find creative and innovative solutions that result in a more capable force.
