During the first two weeks of April 2019, the Hellenic Air Force base at Andravida, home to the 117 Combat Wing and its F-4E Phantoms, staged the annual medium-scale ‘Iniochos’ exercise, hosted by the Service. Under auspices of the Air Tactics Centre (ATC), some 80 fighters participated in the Exercise everyday, exposing the participants to an intensive battle rhythm.
How it all began
Given the high (readiness) level of the Hellenic Air Force (HAF) personnel owing to the everlasting tensions with neighboring country Turkey, for years the HAF has been looking for a way to verify ability to employ their weapon systems in a high-density environment. Iniochos is an annual medium scale exercise flown from the facilities of the Air Tactics Centre at Andravida Air Base, located in Northwest Peloponnese. It was first conducted in the late 1980s, as a small scale tactical level exercise tailored to the contemporary necessity for training in combined air operations in accordance with the Hellenic Air Force Doctrine. Lt Col Gkioles, Director of Operations of Iniochos for some years, elaborated how the exercise has evolved to its current form: “In 2013 the project started with a small group of people. The then Chief of Staff, General Tournas, tasked the Fighter Weapons School to create this type of exercise from scratch and deliver it within six months. Nobody believed it was feasible but General Tournas put his full faith in the then Majors Karpouzis and myself. We worked 18 hours a day with no vacation. We made it happen with help of the squadrons – and at minimal cost. We were dog tired by the end of the exercise but the smiles on the faces of the participating pilots were one best reward! A month later I happened to read the book “Sierra Hotel” which is the story of how Red Flag at Nellis Air Force Base came about and the similarities were astonishing!”.
The success of the exercise led to the decision on establishing this as an annual event including international participants adopting the single base concept, meaning that all participants would operate from the same base as much as possible to maximise all benefits like (de-)briefing together – as also social activities.
Demanding missions
While the participants are exposed to non-stop flying by day and night, the flow of information affects every aspect of the mission thus creating a realistic and immerse environment where the air crews’ tactical flexibility in decision making is challenged at high levels. To ensure the quality, tactical relevance and valid results, the Fighter Weapons School (FWS) has the oversight of all tactical aspects of the exercise. The aforementioned characteristics create a unique demanding training environment that can only be provided by Iniochos. The area used by participating units included the whole Athens FIR (Flight Information Region) up to its most Southeastern area near the island of Kastelorizo which lies very close to Turkey. One might call this provocative, another a show of force.
The traditional roles of Blue Air and Red Air were alternated between (mainly) HAF participants, Lt Col Gkioles explained why: “The HAF is an Air Defense-focused Air Force, which is in full alignment with our doctrine and geostrategial position (at the edge of Europe and NATO). Red Air operations are mostly tasked with DCA (Defensive Counter Air) missions hence our guys get a lot of benefits by these missions.” Iniochos is known by its participants for its variety of demanding missions, in conjunction with the simultaneously held Hellenic Navy (Astrapi) and Army (Polifimos) exercises, including Air operations versus Integrated Air Defence Systems (IADS), Anti Surface Warfare and Strike Coordination and Reconnaissance (SCAR).
The Lightnings !
Being the biggest exercise for the HAF in the year, all its combat squadrons were involved during the exercise. The United Arab Emirates also returned to Iniochos for the third consecutive year, the UAE AF & DF bringing six advanced Mirage 2000-9s of 71 Squadron based at Al-Dhafra Air Base. The Israeli Air Force, who are participants from the very first exercise, announced their presence at an early stage but were only present during first week of the exercise. This year their 117 Squadron flying F-16Cs and 109 Squadron F-16Ds both brought six jets each from Ramat David Air Base. They flew directly to Andravida with the support of KC-707 tankers. The United States Air Forces Europe (USAFE), joined this year with a small detachment of just 6 F-16s from the Spangdahlem-based 480 Fighter Squadron. Returning after last year’s debut was the Italian Air Force with six Tornados from 6° Stormo, based at Ghedi Air Base.
Undoubtedly stars of the show this year were the F-35A Lightning IIs of the Italian Air Force from the 13° Gruppo (squadron) bringing all their currently delivered six Lightnings to Greece, this being the first non F-35 programme-country to receive these jets. “The experience has been amazing because we had the opportunity to exploit all capabilities of our weapon systems, performing both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions, SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) and DEAD (Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses) missions,” Detachment Commander (DETCO) Lt Col Lodato commented after Iniochos. As expected, the F-35s operated with the Lunenburg lenses installed on the aircraft ensuring that the actual Cross Radar Section (CRS) could not be picked up by those who might be interested in knowing …....
Pillar of stability
Greece geographically straddles this strategic part of Europe. “The Balkan countries, the Middle East, Northern Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean Sea are areas of great strategic importance known for its broad scale of security challenges.” Greek minister of Defense Evangelos Apostolakis said during the Iniochos press conference. “Greece plays a key role in the promotion of international defence cooperation and initiatives. Exercise Iniochos enables realistic international operational air training in a joint environment and contributes to strengthening stability and effectively tackling common security challenges at international level. Thus, the interaction and synergy achieved, in addition to the obvious operational benefits in the area of defense, also contribute to the strengthening of the bonds of cooperation and friendship among the participating states.”
The Greek Government would like to take the lead role in organizing international exercises while the ATC plans to make Iniochos the most important medium scale air-exercise for Europe and the Middle East. To reach this objective, a fully simulated combat environment is being provided to all participants, together with the opportunity of using different kinds of target ranges for perfect realistic training conditions.
According to US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, Greece is well underway in reaching this goal: “It’s very, very impressive to see how Iniochos has grown. It’s a fantastic example of the unique role that Greece is able to play because of its geography, the unique set of participants that Greece pulls together for this exercise, the unique opportunities to fly over sea, high mountains, over a very large airspace, and to develop the capacity to work together and so to build security. It reflects the ambition of Greece as a builder of bridges, as a pillar of regional stability.”
And the Future
Overall, the exercise was a big success once again and a great opportunity to verify the capabilities of the organising home team. For the HAF it was interesting to get a “glimpse” of the F-35A and its capabilities, an aircraft which might well be the successor of (part of) its current F-16 fleet. According to Lt Col Gkioles, the exercise is still evolving based on lessons learned from the past: “Participants tend to request extra flights (more than what they initially request in the Main Planning Conference) once they arrive and realise the available training opportunities, so we added more flying slots for side missions and increased the flying window. There is also an increased interest on SEAD/DEAD vs IADS missions, so we multiplied the scenarios involving SBAD (Surface Based Air Defense) like the Patriot, Hawk and Skyguard. Although all missions can be flown without Air-to-Air Refueling (AAR), because the exercise areas are predominantly close to the air base, participants still want to train thus. So this year we had AAR in five days (one was cancelled due to weather) supplied by the IAF with its KC-707s and USAFE KC-135Rs flying out of Mildenhall.”
Looking at the future there are a few aspects Lt Col Gkioles would like to add to the exercise: “We would like to add more diversity in participating assets. For example CSAR Helos from other countries, Remotely Piloted Aircraft MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance), Naval air assets or even an aircraft carrier itself which could make for an even better scenario, especially with the ASUW (Anti Surface Warfare) missions that take place in the Southern and Eastern Aegean Sea.”
But at the end it is the men and women who do the job. “Don’t focus on the machines, it is the people that participate that make the exercise a great experience and the underlying objective for all exercises is to boost morale across the ranks. “This has been achieved, the effect is profound!” Lt Col Gkiolos concluded after this year’s Iniochos.
Photos and text: Patrick Smitshoek, Stephan van Geem and Remco Stalenhoef