British Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) are in Finland for an exercise.
The MoD say that Exercise Bold Quest has seen armed forces from as far afield as Canada and Australia nations deploy to Finland with the aim of improving the interoperability of coalition forces.
Army Air Corps Warrant Officer Class 1 Norrie Kennedy, is the Standards and Evaluation Officer for all UK JTACs. He said in a news release:
“A JTAC’s job is to coordinate the attack of aircraft in close proximity to friendly soldiers. Such Close Air Support is a team effort, each participant, whether the JTAC on the ground, a pilot in the air or the air command and control, all have a part to play. From an observations post situated high on a disused ski slope, a pair of UK JTACs were afforded a commanding view of the Finnish countryside for miles around. Using FireStorm, a high precision targeting system, the RAF Regiment and Royal Artillery personnel were practising locating simulated targets.
Once identified the JTACs generated highly precise coordinates and passed them digitally to other users and combat aircraft which in turn would simulate an attack. This affords the opportunity to put our processes through their paces and have them analysed with a view to informing future investments and improving interoperability.”
Aircraft available included Finnish Air Force and US Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornets, French Rafales and a Vietnam-era O-2 Skymaster, say the RAF.
Everyone who is a jtac automatically thinks they need gucci kit just because the American ones have it. The infantry should have crye plate carriers and gucci radios first, not wannabe operators like the raf. Stay in your lane fellas.
I can answer this one, from experience. We had to use the Harris radios compared to the standard Bowman, as the Tornados didn’t use the Bowman standard. The Chinook and Merlins do have Bowman. So long as they have correct fill you can talk to them. Never understood why Tornado and I think Typhoon don’t have the Bowman radio, especially as they’re were /are the main asset for ordinance delivery.
What a belter!
The radios we used made by Harris are multi-band ranging from HF up to SHF, have full 128bit encryption and are quite light, batteries were Nicads, but have since been upgraded to Li-ion. They can also transmit micro-bursts and have a sufficientish data handling (not quite 3G level).
The Bowman radio by comparision is good, but doesn’t operate over the same frequency range i.e. only VHF and lower UHF. There was a mod to allow it to do HF as well, but its rarely used. Its data handling is on par and it encryption is just as good. It is bigger though and weighs about 2 kilos more using the same type of batteries. Makes a difference when humping it around.
Must have missed the J in JTAC, they all want Gucci kit not just the RAF ones.
It has nothing to do with the American ones. Nobody gives a shit about ’em.