Page 35 - 4RA Regimental Journal 2019-2020

them on the exercise, all nations practiced their loading and unloading drills together. The JTAC’s sought out the US Apache and Tiger Pilots and, over the next weeks, would develop a strong common under- standing of each other’s capabilities and limitations in delivering CAS.
The role of the JTAC is standardised throughout NATO and, fortunately for UK JTAC’s, all CAS procedure is conducted in English. Not so fortunate for our European counterparts who impressively delivered results nonetheless in their second lan- guage. Any NATO JTAC should be able to work with any NATO aircraft. To pro- mote this level of interoperability, the UK detachment was joined for the duration of the exercise by a French JTAC – Grif- fin 33 - and attached to a French FST. This arrangement also meant that Griffin could benefit from our own experienced JTAC Instructor Sgt Bowers. It was impressive to watch our European partners control air- craft, we learnt a lot from them and they from us. Similarly, the opportunity to work with French Pilots flying the Mirage or the Raffle provided excellent training for both JTAC and Pilots.
The second week kicked off with a 36-hour exercise, HAF deploying sequen- tially onto four separate objectives, all of which were based on French experiences in Mali. Each operation was accompanied by Air and Aviation as well as fires which had been facilitated by HAF deploying a 120mm Mortar into the AO. The UK JTAC detachment integrated into a French FST and supported the ground manoeu- vre elements as they moved through the objectives focusing on air land integration. Challenges were identified and overcome when working through the French FST to establish the FF locations and the com- mander’s intent. The groups soon came to understand what the other needed though and communication soon became seam- less.
Both the UK detachment and our part- ners took a lot away from Ex ROYAL BLACKHAWK. Lessons were learnt both in Air Land integration as well as integra- tion between NATO partner nations. The exercise was superbly resourced, particu- larly with air and aviation assets and this meant that the training value taken away was excellent. Each JTAC got a significant
IZLID at night
4th Regiment Royal Artillery
Sgt Bowers briefs the French General
Take off
amount of controlling, a lot of which was rotary wing which is otherwise very rare and all JTACs controlled foreign aircraft. As an exercise in developing future relation- ships, ROYAL BLACKHAWK was a stirring success. The UK team departed France following promises of reciprocal battlefield study visits, invitations of future exercises and no small amount of patch trading.
Ex ROYAL BLACKHAWK was an excellent opportunity for UK JTACs to gain valuable experience, develop international relation- ships and improve their understanding of Air Land integration. 4RA will no doubt continue to invest in its people in sending them to Ex ROYAL BLACKHAWK in the future.
Blackhawk team picture
Blackhawk Chinook flying
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