Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. -- SEYMOUR JOHNSON AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. – Airmen assigned to the 4th Fighter Wing, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, participated in an integrated combat turn exercise at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C., Dec. 14, 2022.
An integrated combat turn exercise is rapidly rearming and refueling an aircraft while it is still running. The exercise provides realistic training opportunities, mimicking real world combat environments.
“We conducted this exercise to exercise all four components of what makes up a lead wing,” said Lt. Col. Craig Nordgren, 4th Fighter Wing chief of staff. “We have the lead wing command and control elements, the airbase squadron elements and up to two mission generation force elements.”
Integrated combat turn is focusing to decentralized command and control. Agile Combat Employment is the ability to project combat power at anytime, anywhere, all while remaining operationally unpredictable to complicate an adversary's decision-making process.
“We look at ACE as kind of a scheme of maneuver.” said Nordgren, “Our multi-capable Airmen allow us to stay agile to be able to maneuver aircraft at a much faster rate than we have been in the past.”
When deployed, Airmen could be tasked to support more aspects of the mission outside their direct Air Force Specialty Code. Multi-Capable readiness training will increase their knowledge so they are better prepared to support those roles to operate within adequate levels of risk in order to accomplish future missions. This is in response to the 4th Fighter Wing becoming an Air Combat Command Lead Wing.
“This exercise was really the first steps of allowing us to actually execute a two-year plan, which includes a multitude of exercises,” said Nordgren, “The attempt here is to do a building block approach. This exercise was at small elements that will be vital in future larger force exercises.”