The skies over Iran are an aluminum overcast of US and Israeli fighters and bombers. In the first 103 hours of the air battle over Iran, called Operation Epic Fury by the US and Operation Roaring Lion by Israel, the two most experienced and powerful air forces in the world have collectively conducted well over 2,000 strike missions against Iranian targets. That includes more than 30 Iranian naval vessels sunk and one naval missile platform on fire. In addition, hundreds of support missions have been flown by aerial tankers, command-and-control aircraft, and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft. How are all the missions and targeting coordinated to ensure the right ordinance is assigned to the appropriate target and to sort out who’s hitting what? How is it all kept straight?
Air Operations Against Iran Are Massive
To get a good grasp on what is going on in the skies over Iran, it’s helpful to have some idea of the magnitude of the US-Israeli air operation as well as the contribution the Gulf allies are making. In a March 4 Pentagon press briefing, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth explained: “The campaign has seven times the intensity of Israel’s previous operations against Iran during the 12-day war, seven times. And as President Trump said, more and larger waves are coming; we are just getting started.” Hegseth went on to say that more bombers and fighters are arriving in the combat theater every day. “And now with complete control of the skies, we will be using 500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound GPS and laser-guided precision gravity bombs of which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile,” he said.
With the increase in the number of aircraft and tempo of the air operations comes the challenge of deconflicting sorties, targeting, and air defenses. Currently, according to Aerospace Global News, the US is flying F-22 Raptors, F-35 Lightning IIs, F/A-18 Hornets, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers (electronic warfare variant), and F-15E Strike Eagles. The complement of 200 Israeli fighters includes an Israeli variant of the F-35 and F-15Es. All of the different fighter and bomber aircraft have different performance characteristics with different ordinance loadouts that must be considered. Additionally, the US has deployed support aircraft that include 86 KC-135 and KC-46 aerial refueling aircraft as well as E-3 Sentry airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) airplanes. Those numbers do not include the “two US aircraft carriers present in the region [that] carry Northrop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye AEW&C aircraft, MH-60R Seahawk anti-submarine/anti-surface warfare helicopters, and MH-60S utility helicopters.”
Add to the mix one-way offensive drones, a host of MQ-9 ISR and air strike drones, and the hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles being launched from US guided-missile destroyers and cruisers toward Iranian targets, and the skies over Iran and the Gulf Region are crowded. Then there are the hundreds of Iranian ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones coming the other way, targeting U.S. bases in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Gulf countries like Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE that must be detected, identified, tracked, and destroyed.
As an interesting aside, one type of drone being used to attack Iranian targets is the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System or LUCAS. The LUCAS is a reverse-engineered and improved version of the Iranian drone, the Shahed-16, which itself was an early 1980s German design. So, one could say Iran is reaping what it has sown.
The challenge is how to keep these airborne objects straight so attack aircraft get to the right targets and destroy them with the right weapons and return safely, all while ground air defense systems destroy incoming Iranian weapons without shooting down friendlies. That’s the job of the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC), most likely located at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, with command-and-control nodes at the relevant fighter bases and on board the two aircraft carriers in the region. Additionally, within the CAOC liaison teams and officers from all of the involved Gulf States sit in front flat screens monitoring, coordinating, and directing the air combat activities. There would be a larger Israel Defense Forces (IDF) contingent present to coordinate and deconflict operations between the two major combatants. A similar group of US Air Force and Navy liaison officers would be in the IDF’s operations command-and-control facility. There is constant communication between all involved in the day-to-day operations whether in the air or involving the air defenses on the ground. To further ensure that air operations run smoothly, the planning staffs are co-located where missions are allocated to specific targets, in specific geographical sectors, at specific altitudes for weapons release, and at discrete times. The plan is that no two aircraft occupy the same airspace at the same time.
Friendly Fire Still Happens
In real time, there is integration among and between Gulf partners responsible for air defense. The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait operate US-supplied Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense air defense systems to engage Iranian cruise missiles, drones, and ballistic missiles launched at US bases located on Gulf partners’ military installations. Nonetheless, despite all the integration, coordination, and networking of command-and-control assets, friendly fire incidents still occur. US Central Command in a March 2 press release announced: “March 1, three U.S. F-15E Strike Eagles flying in support of Operation Epic Fury went down over Kuwait due to an apparent friendly fire incident.” The Wall Street Journal provided more detail, reporting that a Kuwaiti F/A-18 fighter pilot mistook three US F-15s for Iranian aircraft and shot down all three. The six F-15 crewmembers ejected safely and were recovered. The WSJ explained:
“One [Kuwaiti] F/A-18 pilot launched three missiles against the U.S. aircraft, according to a US official. The incident occurred soon after multiple Iranian drones penetrated Kuwaiti air defenses, with one striking a tactical operations center at a commercial port and killing six American service members…Kuwaiti officials were on edge when their radars detected the jets flying in and fired on them, the person said.”
With thousands of fighter aircraft, bombers, ISR aircraft, tankers, missiles (theirs and ours), and drones occupying the airspace above a geographic area roughly the size of Alaska, it is miraculous that more such incidents don’t occur. But they don’t because of the highly trained and experienced CAOC and other controllers and planners working hard to ensure they don’t. It is a daunting task, but so far the efforts have proven very successful.
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The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.
