Air National Guard F-16 Viper fighters pretending to be enemy cruise missiles together with tiny JSX-2 microjets mimicking cruise missiles and drones have replicated complex threat scenarios during an ongoing large-scale exercise. Layered aerial barrages like this present added complications for defenders and are becoming increasingly commonplace in conflicts around the globe, something that U.S. forces have already been contending with in the Middle East.
The faux cruise missile and drone attacks have been part of Northern Strike 24-2, which the Michigan National Guard’s National All-Domain Warfighting Center (NADWC) is leading and that is scheduled to wrap up this week. The War Zone previously reported on the appearance of the JSX-2s at the exercise, as you can read here. This was also the first iteration of Northern Strike to feature F-16s flying as surrogates for cruise missiles.
“As we’ve seen in recent events in the Middle East, adversaries are finding ways to threaten friendly infrastructure and personnel with small UAS [uncrewed aerial systems]. These emerging threats present a new problem for pilots,” Lt Col. Nicholas “Drag” Smith, a member of the Michigan Air National Guard and Northern Strike Exercise Planner, told The War Zone. “A mixture of threats replicating both cruise missiles and small UAS creates a complex tactical problem for both the pilots and command and control aircraft to solve.”
Cruise missiles by themselves can present a mixture of threat profiles depending on whether they fly at subsonic or supersonic speeds, or have stealthy characteristics or features to reduce other signatures. Drones, especially kamikaze types with longer cruise missile-esque ranges, are typically smaller and slower-flying. Faster jet-powered one-way attack drones are increasingly entering the mix, as well.
“We don’t get a lot of cruise missile training, so having an entire exercise dedicated to just that is great,” Air Force Maj Jacob, an F-16 pilot from the Indiana Air National Guard’s 122nd Fighter Wing taking part in Northern Strike, also said in a statement in an earlier press release about the exercise. “Having the ability to integrate with smaller platforms that are tougher for the radar to see is unique.”
As The War Zone already highlighted in our initial report on the JSX-2s, the microjets present ideal platforms for mimicking cruise missiles and drones given their diminutive size and small organic signatures. They also offer a relatively low-cost and dynamic training tool that can be more readily employed in large force exercises like Northern Strike where U.S. domestic airspace restrictions prevent the employment of semi-expendable target drones. This is not the first time the U.S. military has employed a microjet in the threat replication role for exactly these reasons.
What existing aircraft in the JSX-2’s class can’t do is fly at supersonic or near-supersonic speeds. So, in certain circumstances, “a fighter aircraft can better replicate a cruise missile because of the higher speeds,” Lt Col. Smith said. He did further acknowledge that “replicating the small-Radar Cross Section (RCS) of a threat such as a cruise missile or Unmanned Aerial System” can still be “more difficult” for a fighter like the F-16.
The Air Force also has used some of its ostensibly retired F-117 Nighthawk stealth combat jets as stand-ins for stealthy cruise missiles during exercises, as well as to support other kinds of training and test activities.
F-16s and other fighters can also carry podded systems to further help replicate other types of threats, especially in the radiofrequency spectrum. A picture from Northern Strike 24-2, seen below, shows a Viper with an AN/ALQ-188 pod, or a variant or derivative thereof, on its centerline station. The AN/ALQ-188 is a common sight at U.S. air combat exercises and can simulate certain types of hostile electronic countermeasures systems.
Regardless, “units are often forced to replicate desired threats with their own assets,” Lt Col. Smith added. “Squadron Intelligence personnel help advise the pilots on how to replicate whatever the desired threat may be for training on a particular mission.”
Multiple branches of the U.S. military have been looking to acquire more capable and readily reusable uncrewed targets that might better help fill this gap. There is also interest in employing the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones that the U.S. Air Force and Navy are pursuing, which are being designed to fly operational missions alongside crewed combat jets, in training roles. Anduril’s Fury, one of the designs currently moving through the first phase of the Air Force’s CCA program, was originally developed to meet future air combat training requirements, as you can learn more about in this deeply researched War Zone feature. For now, however, domestic U.S. airspace restrictions continue to impose significant limits on the use of any uncrewed platform.
In the meantime, the threat of complex, combined missile and drone attacks is not only not going away, but is increasing. Lt Col. Smith mentioned recent events in the Middle East, where U.S. forces aided in the defense of Israel from just such an assault by Iran back in April. The U.S. military is increasingly poised to respond to another round of Iranian attacks, in retaliation for the assassination of Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ top political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which could now come at any time.
In and around the Red Sea, American air and naval assets have also been helping to protect commercial vessels and friendly warships in and around the Red Sea from missiles, including cruise and ballistic types, and drones launched by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen on a near daily basis. A drone and missile attack by the Houthis on oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia back in 2019 was a clear harbinger of the current reality, as The War Zone highlighted at the time.
This trend is not limited to the Middle East, either. Russia routinely launches barrages of cruise and ballistic missiles and drones at targets in Ukraine.
At the annual Space & Missile Symposium last week, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) showed a video that explicitly called attention to a “new kind of warfare that involves an adversary launching an air and missile assault to swarm and overwhelm the defender,” according to a report from Breaking Defense. U.S. military officials have increasingly been sounding the alarm about the danger of such attacks on the U.S. homeland, as well as on American forces abroad, and the limits of existing air and missile defenses to counter them, as The War Zone has explored in detail in the past.
Seeing assets like F-16s and JSX-2s working together could become an increasingly common sight as demand grows to include complex drone and missile attack scenarios at exercises like Northern Strike.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com