MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- It is well known that practice makes perfect and, for many professions, this means spending hours perfecting a craft. For pilots training at Moody, their arena is Grand Bay Range where they conducted more than 2,600 sorties and employed more than 541,695 munitions in fiscal year 2019.
To ensure these pilots aren’t just dropping bombs, but also shooting for accuracy, the 23d Operations Support Squadron’s range computer operators use a three-part scoring system to pinpoint the location of the munitions to make sure pilots hit their target.
“The ability for Grand Bay [systems] to score us gives us a chance to refine the way we employ weapons and gives us real time feedback on where the impacts of the weapons are,” said Maj. Adam Peterson, 23d Fighter Group chief of standardization and evaluation. “It gives us realism and a chance to tighten up the jets by getting the guns boresighted. [It helps] make sure our weapons are as accurate as possible before we deploy with them.
“When you’re [flying] in the military operating area, you can’t actually drop or shoot things,” Peterson continued. “We can go out and simulate it, but it doesn’t give us feedback that shooting on the range does. [The range] gives us a chance to see what happens when weapons are coming off the airplane and how the things you can’t really simulate, like weather, can have [an effect] on those weapons.”
The computer operators use three scoring systems to score weapons employment: Weapons Impact Scoring System, Improved Remote Strafing Scoring System and Laser Spot Video Recording System.
“We supplement the pilot’s eyes during [their] training,” said Hal Barnes, 23d OSS computer operator. “The systems display scores on a screen that is seen by myself and the range control officer [which is] communicated to the pilot. It’s important because [scoring] allows the pilot to make adjustments the next time they make a pass.”
According to David Kilmer, 23d OSS computer operator, the WISS is the most critical system and is used daily to score bombs and rockets.
“The WISS takes a video of the location from the flight tower, main tower and the target itself and triangulates the footage to calculate the angle and position of where the bomb landed in relation to the target,” Kilmer said.
Not only do the systems record bombs, the IRSSS also uses the sound of the supersonic bullets to calculate a score while pilots are strafing.
“The [IRSSS] reads [the sound] and tells me how many shots the pilot took,” Kilmer said. “It allows me to see the distance between when the pilot started to shoot and when he stopped. Additionally, it measures how many rounds were detected and how many shots actually hit the target. The computer gives us impact scores with distance from the center of the target as well as the related clock position after the pilots shoot, which helps the pilots adjust accordingly for the next shooting pass.”
Additionally, pilots can use lasers to hit a target, which is recorded and scored by the LSVRS.
“[The LSVRS] records the laser spot used for laser guided munitions training events so I can tell the range control officer how close [the pilot] came to the center of the target,” Kilmer said. “The range control officer is the one up in the tower [who] communicates with the pilot over aircraft radios, and I communicate with the RCO [through] a headset. This system provides the capability for pilots to review the results, whereas the other systems give them print outs to view their performance.”
These systems provide pilots with real-time feedback and scoring and ultimately helps them supply more effective close air support to Airmen downrange.
“The ability to use the combat laser, perform sensor-aided deliveries and drop heavyweight inert weapons while getting real-time scoring allows us to refine tactics, techniques and procedures that we will use in a deployed environment,” Peterson said. “It also gives us the opportunity to boresight our weapons and targeting pods so they’re as accurate as possible when it actually counts.”