The US Air Force just war-gamed how pilots would fight if they lost communications in a high-intensity future war

• The US Air Force spent weeks testing how pilots and technicians would operate without communication.
• Scenarios included losing communications and keeping aircraft operational with limited resources.
• This is part of preparation for a conflict with a near-peer like China.

In a future war where battlefield systems are contested, pilots could find themselves flying and fighting without consistent communications with commanders.

The Air Force just war-gamed what such a scenario would look like, forcing its pilots to adapt by generating sorties on their own rather than waiting around for orders.

This month, the 23rd Wing from Moody Air Force in Georgia ran Exercise Mosaic Tiger 26-1, a series of flights based around the Air Force's Agile Combat Employment strategy. Aircraft like the A-10C Thunderbolt II "Warthog" attack aircraft and HC-130J Combat King II recovery aircraft were involved in the training.

One element included sustaining air operations should pilots and maintainers lose communications, like encrypted radio or messages, with command and control. If communications are out for 72 hours, pilots would refer to the Air Tasking Order, or the pre-determined directive that outlines daily air missions, roles and responsibilities of aircraft and units, and targets.

"With the published Air Tasking Order (ATO) for 72 hours out, I have the ability to fall back and execute those operations for the next three days," said Lt. Col. Nathan Frey, 74th Fighter Squadron director of operations, according to an Air Force press release.

The US military's global communications and navigation are highly dependent on satellite transmissions — systems a powerful adversary could attempt to disrupt or physically damage.

If the communications outage goes beyond 72 hours, the situation would look a lot different. Pilots would rely on pre-briefed timelines of events and the last information they have on what their commander would want. They'd be flying air operations without real-time updates.

"If degradation lasts past 72 hours, we would shift to military-type orders that provide broad intent and allow us to coordinate with adjacent units without the detailed integration from the AOC," said Lt. Col. David Pool, 74th MGFE commander, in the press release. "That's where the Wing would step in to assist in liaising between adjacent units to conduct detailed mission planning prior to execution."

Other parts of Exercise Mosaic Tiger 26-1 included stressing rescue and support teams in contested conditions. In the scenarios, airmen flew out of, rearmed and refueled aircraft at, and operated from small or converted airstrips. They also did jobs that weren't their focus areas, like maintaining aircraft, establishing communications, and defending base perimeters.

"Every Airman in the squadron is tackling tasks that normally wouldn't fall in their wheelhouse," said Lt. Col. Justin May, 23d Combat Air Base commander.

Having "multi-capable airmen" has been a focus of the Agile Combat Employment strategy for years, spreading lessons on maintenance, munitions, and logistics across airmen.

Maintenance airmen from the 74th and 75th Fighter Generation Squadrons also had to meet the challenge of keeping aircraft ready to fly for lengths of time without knowing when or if they'd be resupplied.

That meant equipment and supplies were used sparingly, and parts were reused, a far different environment for technicians than their home bases.

"Being responsible for what supplies we do have on-site all leads back to ensuring that we stay accountable and utilize all resources available," Staff Sgt. William Flores, a crew chief with the 75th, said per the release. "Take oil, for example. If we're burning too much oil, we may want to swap jets so we're not using more oil than we can supply, and by doing that, we can maintain air operations."

The Air Force's Agile Combat Employment concept is designed to prepare the service for a future conflict where it wouldn't be operating from big, centralized air bases but rather flying out of more spread-out, distributed places that can be as austere as a stretch of highway. The plan is one of the Air Force's potential counters to China's massive missile force, which, in a war, would target those air bases and runways to prevent US aircraft from taking off.

Agile Combat Employment is especially relevant to the vast Indo-Pacific region where important bases like Anderson Air Force Base on Guam are within range of China's missiles.