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Shaw hosts Dynamic Weasel

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Susan Penning
  • 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. --  Shaw pilots and ground players honed their combat skills last week during a large force employment flying exercise called Dynamic Weasel 06-2. 

About 70 fighter, attack, helicopter and command and control aircraft including F-16CJ, A-10, F/A-18, F-15C, EA-6B, UH-60, AH-64, E-8C, E-3 and RC-135 participated in the exercise, held June 29-30. 

Dynamic Weasel 06-2 was designed to expose pilots to missions identical to those faced in combat, ultimately improving their skill and increasing their survivability and effectiveness, said Maj. Marc Himelhoch, 20th Operations Support Squadron assistant wing weapons officer. Exercise scenarios mirrored current and future air expeditionary force operations and used all available technology. 

In addition to the aircraft involved, ground players included tactical air control parties from the 682nd Air Support Operations Squadron and Marine 2nd Force Recon. Three ground convoys also participated and trained against moving targets from the 20th Logistics Readiness Squadron and 682nd ASOS, and fixed and mobile threat emitters from Poinsett Electronic Combat Range and the Mid-Atlantic Electronic Warfare Range, the major said. 

“One of the major objectives of this exercise is for our pilots to learn to integrate our recent F-16CJ avionics upgrades to decrease the time it takes to complete the kill chain -- find, fix, target, track, engage and assess,” Maj. Himelhoch said. 

Highlights of the exercise included a combat search and rescue scenario with an actual pilot extraction, as well as non-traditional intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance practicing counter mortar/improvised explosive device techniques. 

The exercise was a follow on to Dynamic Weasel 06-1, which took place at Shaw in December 2005 and included 36 aircraft from nine bases across the United States.  Former 9th Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Walter Buchanan reported the first exercise as a “low cost, high pay-off training event.”