Page 16 - Combat Aircraft (January 2020)

BY SCOTT WOLFF
BRINGING YOU THE LATEST TALK
FROM AROUND THE SQUADRONS
DELIBERA
DELIBERA
DELIBERA
DELIBERATE TE TE TE TE
DELIBERA
T T
TARGETINGARGETINGARGETING
HOW TACTICAL AIRCRAFT AND
SPECIAL FORCES TAKE DOWN
THE WORLD’S MOST WANTED
MAGINE FOR A moment you’re
one of a nation’s elite soldiers,
assigned to a famed special
mission unit. Perhaps you’ve been
part of this particular organization
Ifor more than a decade, with
multiple deployments all over the
world, and hundreds of low-visibility,
high-risk operations under your belt.
You’re getting ready to embark on an
assignment which could potentially
de ne your career, and both your
success or failure could have global
repercussions.
The objective this time is one of the
world’s most-wanted terrorists, and
your unit has been given the task of
bringing that person to justice. Anyone
can clear rooms and kill bad dudes, but
you can’t get information from a corpse.
A breathing, talking individual can be
a treasure-trove of information. The
mission brief includes the words ‘capture
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or kill’, but you have a good idea, given learned failures — and you’re supported
the nature of your target, that capture by the utmost trust and con dence from
won’t be an option. senior leadership. You’ve been on the
Intelligence for the mission is provided brink of launching on a couple previous
from a variety of very capable, credible occasions, but because of last-minute
sources, and has been owing in for hiccups, you haven’t gotten under way.
several weeks. You and your team-mates Tonight, it’s di erent. Tonight, it’s real…
have been poring over maps and satellite and it’s go time.
images, along with other raw data and
analysts’ reports. There’s back-and-forth Deliberate targeting
chat with pilots who will transport the Whether the target is Abu Musab al-
team into the target location, looking after Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr
in ltration and ex ltration. You’ve been al-Baghdadi, the mission is a massive
rehearsing at a remote location, practising undertaking, utilizing a variety of assets
your craft in an environment with and disciplines to achieve the common
structures very similar to what you’ll nd objective: to capture or kill the bad guy
when the mission goes down for real. in question.
There’s been a tremendous build-up of Deliberate targeting (DT) is an approach
anticipation, because your bosses have that is focused entirely on a speci c
wanted this person for some time. Your person or place, at a speci c time, with
skills are sharp. You have the knowledge all e orts supporting the operational
you need and wisdom provided from requirements and mission commander’s
hard-earned successes — and hard- objective. In order to achieve that, the
21/11/2019 20:55
21/11/2019 20:55