Package

Leadership

Written by ​Sithis
Review: 1.1

Contents
Chapter I: Introduction

Chapter II: Planning

Chapter III: Briefing

Chapter IV: Execution

 PACKAGE LEADERSHIP Author: ​Sithis

Chapter I: Introduction
Original post: ​https://flyandwire.com/2020/04/06/package-leadership-chapter-i-introduction/

If you are into DCS or similar games, chances are you enjoy torturing yourself with complex tasks, because
mastering something that, at first, seems unattainable is just so much more rewarding. After all, don´t we all “love it
when a plan comes together”? Even more so if you not only manage to get a few buddies into the virtual air, but also
manage to put a few warheads on foreheads together without blowing each other up by accident.

On your way through DCS you will find various tutorials and videos on topics like aircraft systems, flying procedures,
how to work together with a wingman and weapons employment. Something you will not find a lot on is on what
follows after.

What do you do when you have several flights to coordinate?

How do you approach a mission with different flights each having their own tasks?

How to work through the chaos of frequencies and calls, when you have several flights working together?

How do I maintain my picture and prevent “helmet fires” not only in my own cockpit, but for my buddies as well?

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In order to answer those questions and help you coordinate a large number of people without giving yourself a heart
attack, I am going to draw from real world concepts and experiences and break them down to a level that is
appropriate for the flight sim enthusiast.

You can of course default to all the real-world procedures and organisation, but good luck getting more than a
handful of people together who are trained up to that standard and willing to sit through 3 hours of power-point
presentations before taking it to the virtual sky.

Instead I will try to give you the tools you need to get any group organised no matter the skill level and the
complexity of the mission.

Now KISS
One basic principle I want to start out with is KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid. The more moving parts you have the
more can go wrong. Especially now that we are trying to work towards the most complex tasks and missions. Having
more possibilities for error than absolutely necessary will lead to disaster.

“Carrying Mk82air instead of Mk82 even though you plan a level bombing in order to give you the option of retarded
delivery?” One wrong fuse setting will spoil the whole operation.

“Giving the SEAD flights some bombs so they can do some additional damage with the Strike flights?” You just gave
yourself the extra task of de-conflicting two attacks.

“Planning an elaborate manoeuvre with three flights to get the ideal run in on the target?” A less than ideal run in
that is simpler and therefore guaranteed to work on the first try might save you a second run in and a lot of chaos,
when it matters most.

It might seem trivial to dumb everything down as much as possible, but even with only a 1% chance of a single
moving piece going wrong, if you have a hundred moving pieces, failure of any one suddenly becomes very likely.

Keep in mind, we are trying to work up to the most complex of tasks, it is going to be complex enough without us
making it unnecessarily hard for ourselves.

This goes contrary to the notion of optimizing towards optimum efficiency, but there is no way around it. The more
people you are trying to coordinate, the less efficiently each one is going to contribute. Each member in a well-run
outfit is still going to be a net gain, up until the point where it is too much for you to manage.

Your Picture, your Control

Being at the helm of a mission means success and failure hinges on you maintaining control of the situation, but in
order to control a situation we first need information. Information that comes together to form the overall picture,
which you use to make decisions in the field. Based on those decisions you will exert tactical control to shape the
battlefield to your advantage. You will only be able to do this is when you compartmentalize and make leading your
main task. If you are busy flying your kite, checking your sensors, employing weapons and trying to not die, you are
not doing what you are there to do, which is lead. “Leading from the front” is an often-misunderstood phrase,

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because if you are in the very front, in the thick of it, you are too busy with other tasks to be able to control the
mission tactically.

Applying this to DCS, when we are putting together a package, the package commander will be one of the planes in
the package and therefore already be leading from the front in the true meaning of the phrase, yet do not put
yourself into a spearhead position. You should not be Sweep or Wild-Weasel and Package Commander at the same
time, but Strike and Escort positions give you some head space to full-fill your main task.

Once you are where you need to be you will need to concentrate on your main task, which will be building a picture
and constantly updating said picture to be able to make decisions. Then reaching a decision and using your assets
to achieve your goal. If you are flying alone this is easy; your sensors help you built the picture, make decisions, and
press the right buttons to use your assets, which are your aircraft and the weapon systems attached to it. When
leading packages, however, we need to apply this to multiple aircraft, while you are also busy flying your own plane,
but all the other planes have their own pilots and therefore a mind of their own.

So, once you get overwhelmed (and you will get overwhelmed) the easiest thing to do is to just concentrate on your
own plane and let everybody fight their own fight. “To stop leading” is the easiest and also the most fatal thing one
can do, but it is the normal human reaction to sensory overload, and you see it every single time an inexperienced
leader is pushed over their limits. Same thing happens when you are sitting in the safety of your home, in front of the
computer. Suddenly there is too much stuff going through your headset for you to comprehend. The skill is to realize
you are getting close to your limit, taking a few deep breaths and working through it. Like with all problems in
aviation, there is a checklist to work through. This checklist is not unique to aviation and if you make it the heart of
your thinking you will make any leadership task a lot easier for yourself. If you have watched any of our big package
flights on YouTube you will maybe have noticed once things get really hectic and the radios gets really busy I will go
quiet for a few seconds, taking my time to work through this checklist before giving instructions to the people who
need them. The checklist items are:

Situation, Mission, Execution, Command, Control

These items should be the basis of your thought process, your briefings, and your orders.

Situation:

Where am I, where are my allies, where are the OpFor

These are the most fundamental points of the picture. Datalink makes a lot of this easier, but enemy positions and
unit types especially are often unclear. Having a clear picture that is shared with the whole group is a never-ending
task; if you are really working on this checklist once every minute or so, you will find yourself realizing things like:

“I don´t know if SPECTRE is in position he has not given me his ETA yet”,

“I do not know if BOAR is already off target” and

“I am not sure if FALCON still has radar contact with the Bogeys of the north group”.

Every time you are not 100% sure about what is going on around you, demand information. When you were flying
one jet you were looking at your instruments, your radar and your datalink to build a picture. Now that your package

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is the asset, keep asking them for the information you need, tell them when to report back to you and keep them
updated what the overall situation is.

Mission:

This should really be just one sentence, and for our purpose it is enough to condense it to what our ultimate goal is:

“Destroy the buildings at MG604302”,

“Provide CAS along MSR Charlie from 1600Z till 1730Z”,

“Gain air superiority between line Zulu and Foxtrot”

In a package each flight will of course have a specific mission

“Conduct sweep ahead of strike Alpha”,

“Provide escort for strike Alpha” etc.

The important part is, to not loose sight of your ultimate objective. All actions should be aimed towards completing
this goal.

Execution:

This is where your plan goes. It can be as easy as “Shoot 20nm short skate” or the already mentioned three-hour
power point. This is very much based on circumstances and we will get into more detail later.

Command:

After you have laid out your overall plan, you need to instruct individuals on what to do. At the beginning of a mission
this will usually be “proceed with flight briefings and step at 1900Z”, and if you are going through this in your head
every minute, it will usually result in realizing everything is going as planned, no need to give out new orders.

In the heat of battle, however, you will sometimes need to take a few seconds to rearrange your whole execution
due to a change in the situation leading to you having to give out commands to every single participant.

After all nothing is as consistent as change itself.

Control:

First element of control is closed loop communication. You are already practising it with ATC anyway. “LK19 climb
FL360”, “Climbing FL 360 LK19” you know what you are supposed to do, and ATC knows you understood them and
are complying. Same should be applied within the package. Your orders should be short and concise, and the key
points should be read back. Using “Affirm”, “Wilco” and “Roger” when appropriate is also key in clear
communication. If you are not satisfied that you were understood correctly keep repeating yourself until you are sure
you were understood and people are complying.

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Next you need to monitor your package, to ensure that they are executing the tasks you assigned them according to
how they were assigned. Remember that they all have a mind of their own and it is all too easy for them to slightly
alter their task, get fixated on the wrong target, do something that endangers other flights, or simply execute it in a
different way than you anticipated. Especially in DCS, where nobody’s well-being is on the line, it is all too tempting
to go all Air Quake, but it is your job to keep people in line and make sure a few people going rogue doesn´t ruin the
fun for everybody else. This of course depends on how strict or casual your group is, but if you are trying to lead a
package against a well defended target you will need to ensure everybody is following the plan to the letter.

Fun should be the focus in any game, but having the strike flight get shot down, because the SEAD flight did not feel
like hitting the assigned targets is not fun either.

Delegation
This does not mean that you are supposed to micromanage everything. Delegation is key. Pick capable Flight Leads
and give them as a broad mission as possible within your plan so they can take care of leading their flights and do
the same for their flights as what you are doing for the package. Instead of telling the Sweep Flight lead to stay
exactly 20nm in front of the strike and engage targets only on your command, give him the mission to clear the
target airspace of enemy aircraft when the strike arrives (ETA of the strike 2030Z). Flight Leads are leaders as well,
let them lead and take the weight off your shoulders. Not only in planning, but also during the mission. Instead of
asking for every small detail from the flights during the mission, ask your flight leads if they can achieve a certain
mission, let them check the details like fuel and weapons and let them figure out an answer for you. “Panther are
you able to suppress Grumble Castle 110 at 20 15min?” is a lot quicker than trying to figure out all the parameters
yourself.

Accountability
This does not make you unaccountable for their mistakes, however. After all you are the person who put them there
and you are the one who needs to reduce the number of moving parts (remember KISS?) to ensure everybody has
a mission he can handle and they all fit together in a way that ensures ultimate success. In DCS we even have the
luxury of the mission designer dictating the difficulty of what we are facing. Flying with two brand new flight leads
against a heavily defended IADS will only cause helmet fires and is not fun for anybody. Mission designers and
package commanders need to reach an equilibrium where everybody is being challenged, but nobody is being
constantly overwhelmed.

Every mistake that happens in the mission is your mistake, everybody can play the blame game and say he was put
in his position by somebody else, but “The Puck stops here” with you. You move the chess pieces and if the bishop
falls, because he would not move sideways, the bishop is not the one to blame.

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Chapter II: Planning

Original post: ​https://flyandwire.com/2020/05/22/package-leadership-chapter-ii-planning/

After talking about concepts and principles, we are finally going to get to something practical:

The actual planning phase of your mission. Of course, no plan can account for everything, but if we approach
planning carefully and allow for reserves, we dramatically increase our chances for success.

PPPPPPP
Some of you will already be familiar with the seven Papas. They stand for:

Proper Pre-Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

…when your instructor starts slowly writing those Papas down on their notepad, you know you just fucked up.

Everything you can take care of ahead of time should be taken care of, and you do not have to juggle it in your head
in the heat of the moment. During planning there is no shame in asking people for advice, putting things up for
debate, or even delegating parts of it. As long as once briefing time arrives, you have it all figured out and it is rock
solid.

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In games like DCS we also have to compensate for the fact that it is just fun and games and not a job. You are going
to have buddies who role in five minutes after briefing time, because they got held up at work and are now looking to
unwind going head-to-head with some SU-27s, and that is fine – it is just a game after all – but as long as one
person puts in the work and provides everybody with a solid game plan, we can still make complex operations work.

Intelligence
Before we jump into decision making, we need information about what we are facing. The Situation, Mission,
Execution, Command, Control cycle starts for the first time. Starting with the situation, you will rely on whatever
intelligence information the mission maker is giving you. If he is letting you run into enemy territory completely blind,
you should maybe have a word with him first. Also looking at it from the other perspective, if you are a mission
maker these are the minimum points you should address in your briefing.

The key points you should have a clear understanding of are:

Own Forces:

-Flights in my package

-Allied Flights operating in the same AOO and their taskings

-Tankers and AWACS, their times on station and tracks

-Any other allied or neutral air movement we might encounter

-Allied ground forces and their possible movements

-Allied Air-Defense

-Allied Naval assets and their boxes/transits

Opposing Forces:

-Available Aircraft, weapon types and airbases

-Known Air-Defense positions and possible unknown reserves

-Ground and Naval assets in the AOO

-Anything more elaborate you can get your hands-on, like doctrine, support assets, or the typical response time of
who you are facing

Geo/Met Conditions:

-Weather forecast including brightness on night missions

-Lay of the land in the AOO

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Overall Plan
Before we get into the fine details of planning, we need an overall idea of how we want to approach a situation.
There is more than one way to deal with every problem and you will be weighing risk versus reward each time.
Doing this, you should be able to come up with a list of viable solutions and the pros and cons of each.

Once you have collated the pros and cons of your potential solutions, it is advantageous to gather your Flight-Leads
and share your ideas, highlighting the pros and cons of each, which approach you favour and finally put it up for
discussion. It is one of the most valuable parts of your planning process for a number of reasons.

1. Input

You are getting a lot of valuable tactical input. More people will simply have more ideas than one person on their
own, and more eyes can spot more flaws. Some solutions will be dead ends for reasons you did not even think
about. Some completely new ideas will present themselves. Having several people providing input will dramatically
increase the quality of your list of solutions.

2. Capabilities

You will not be able to know the exact skill level and capabilities of every single person in your package, but your
Flight-Leads will have a pretty good idea of what their flights are capable of. The success of the package always
relies on every Flight being able to complete their tasking, and the Flight-Leads will be the ones to tell you what they
can provide. For example, if the SEAD flight is training two new wingman and the SWEEP is running with 8 veteran
players, fighting your way the long way around the air-defense might be a viable option.

3. Command Intent

It is very important for the Flight-Leads to not only understand the overall mission and their individual taskings, but
also the command intent. They do not only need to know where they are supposed to be and what they are
supposed to do, but also why. This enables them to improvise and anticipate how you are going to change the plan,
being one step ahead of you and able to take a huge load of your shoulders once it gets stressful.

4. Getting to know your Flight-Leads

Running big packages means it is not just you and your best buddies, but a bunch of people you do not necessarily
talk to on a daily basis. Like any big group there are going to be people who disagree with you. This first discussion
is a great place to find out who your Flight-Leads really are, and to better understand their approach and viewpoint.
Who is easy to work with? Who always needs to have the last word? Who is good at looking at the larger picture?

5. Being heard

In the end you want to know which overall plan is the best option to implement. Of course, you can put this up for a
vote with your Flight-Leads or you can just decide it yourself after hearing their input. Either way, they will know that

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they have been heard and they had a chance to shape the decision-making process, which is always motivating and
helps lead to people feeling engaged.

Taskings
Now with the overall plan in place we can look at who needs to do what. You should not be the one to plan every
flights’ flight down to the last detail, but you should give them a tasking that pinpoints who needs to achieve what to
guarantee success. This tasking should consist of the overall mission, specific task of the flight and crucial
parameters you want met.

For example

Mission: Destroy buildings at 54°12,3´N 017°23,4´E

Task: NICKEL escort PANTHER (Strike)

Maintain position South of PANTHER between FL320 and FL360 to meet expected threats from the South, while
KITTY (Sweep) focuses on threats from the West.

Flight planning
With everybody aware of what they are supposed to do, all the flight-leads can jump into the actual business of
planning their flights. Sadly, DCS offers very little support for this, as most modules lack even basic tables for
weight, drag, speed, and consumption. So you can either rely on real documents, if you can get hold of them, or do
some test runs. “Combat flite” is also a great tool for planning complex scenarios.

In the end all flight-leads need to check back with you with their flight plan and you need to know:

– Load-outs

– Optimal cruise speed and altitude

– Max range

– Max endurance in the AOO

– Joker and Bingo

– How they aim to fulfill their taskings within your parameters

This is the last opportunity you will have to change important aspects of the mission before preparing the briefing, so
take advantage of it if necessary.

EmCon

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Emission control and Electronic Warfare is not very sexy and therefore often forgotten about. In DCS even more so
since very little of it has made it´s way into the simulation. The one thing we can apply, however, is emission control.
Our radar emissions are seen a lot further than we can see. It is like a flashlight in the dark. We can see something
50nm away thanks to our flashlight, but somebody standing in the dark a kilometer away can clearly see our
flashlight. With close AWACS support, the standard should be having your Radar turned off and you need to specify
this in the briefing / planning, and communicate the parameters for the Radars to be turned on.

The other emission that needs to be controlled in DCS is jamming. The only kind of jamming simulated is good old
‘70s noise jamming so the tactical implications are not very complex. Usually it is enough establish two states:
EmCon Sierra (Everything off) and EmCon Oscar (Radar/Jammer free).

Some pointers
To round it all off I want to offer you a list of hints, which might come in handy when planning your mission.

Enemy’s plan

Take a look at your intel and think about how you would defend your objective. Looking at it from the enemy’s view
point might reveal some weaknesses you can exploit, but will also highlight the biggest dangers to your attack. One
great example are IADFs. Sometimes they are positioned in a way forcing you to run parallel to them. A great way to
get ambushed by fighters using the SAMs as cover. Sometimes it is easier to go the long way around and push
through a SAM, that otherwise would be of no concern, to take the enemy fighters by surprise.

Human factors

Human factors can be especially hard in DCS, due to everybody having real life commitments, and therefore
planning packages can take quite a bit of time before you even get to the fun part. The most experienced
participants might also be the ones who have the least time for planning. You may get lucky and have pilots who are
good at, and willing to do, the planning for a flight-lead who is willing to execute someone else´s plan, but in most
cases you will have to compromise. Whatever you do, do not overburden new flight-leads. Try to build them up step
by step, because somebody who is completely overwhelmed may not be motivated to try it again, and the whole
thing will end up being frustrating for all players involved. There is no shame of doing an easy job well instead of
barely making it through a tough one.

Reserves

Always plan with reserves for everything. Fuel, weapons, people, time, you name it. Nothing ever goes 100% to
plan. Give yourself 20% reserves on everything and it will be a lot easier to go through with your plans and you will
gain more room for flexibility if the need arises.

Small windows

If you have all the time in the world you can assault a target step by step. Let the Sweep take care of the fighters.
Once they are done let SEAT clear the Air-Defense and then let the Strike roll in to do it´s thing… but waiting for
each element to complete its tasks sequentially will give the enemy room and time to counter your offensive. In order

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to keep the enemy on the back foot, and to egress the AO before the enemy can counter-attack, you will have to run
as tight a package as possible, by overlapping task timings where you can in order to keep the pressure on the
enemy. Do not overdo it and adjust it to the skill level of your package, but the smaller the window is which your
Sweep and SEAT flight have to open, the higher your chances of success.

Overloading

Reserves are great, but do not go overboard in the weapons department. In DCS most of us have developed a habit
of always bringing a WWIII doomsday load outs. When doing large coordinated strikes a lot of other factors are more
important than the number of ordnance a single aircraft carries. The lighter you are the higher you cruise and
therefore the quicker you cruise with less fuel needed. Every package is only as quick as its slowest aircraft and if
defensive everybody needs to be able to maneuver efficiently. Check your flight-leads and make sure everybody
brings the weapons they need + 20%.

There is no sense in bringing enough AMRAAM to defeat four waves of opponents if the drag and weight means you
will not be able to get to the first.

Altitudes

The altitudes for best range and best speed are usually pretty high and under most weather conditions they are
within the altitude band where flights will produce contrails.

Going into the medium altitude band means less speed, less range, and potentially in range of some SAM system
you could otherwise overfly, but making it harder for the enemy to spot you visually.

Sticking low to the ground and going in at low altitudes or even NOE puts you in harms way of all AA systems
including AAA and ManPads, but might make you completely invisible depending on the terrain.

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Chapter III: Briefing

Original post: ​https://flyandwire.com/2020/07/05/package-leadership-chapter-iii-briefing/

Preparations are done, we know how we want our chess pieces to move. We have looked at all the factors, taking
everything into account and finally got a solid plan. Trouble is, we need to communicate all this to every single
person taking part. Time for the briefing.

At the end of the briefing you want everybody to understand all relevant aspects of the overall mission without
having bored anybody to death. Ideally you would be able to perfectly fly the mission without any communication at
all, but that is of course an unrealistic expectation. What we are truly aiming for is, once it is time for take off, every
pilot knowing how the package is going to function and what he has to contribute.

Initial Intel
The intel you were provided to plan your mission with is the first thing available to anybody. It is beneficial to make it
available to all participants as soon as you can. It is going to be a while, until you can share any additional
information, therefore the unfiltered intel is the only resource anybody is going to have at this point. I can assure you,

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not everybody is going to read all of it, but it will certainly enhance the situational awareness of the majority of
participants.

Briefing Document
There are a bunch of ways you can present your briefing, from the dreaded power-point to no visual aid at all.
Maybe you even feel inclined to do a whole video presenting your plan. The most efficient way I have found is to
write everything into one PDF briefing document following a heavily abbreviated NATO order format , which we will
get into later.

Having a PDF and sharing it in advance of the actual briefing does not only allow you to use it like a power-point,
while you hold the actual briefing, but also enables everybody to have a look at it beforehand and therefore aid in
understanding. Additionally it means that people who missed the proper briefing can still jump in, understand their
role and play their part.

Kneeboard
Preparing a kneeboard is something you are probably already familiar with when you are reading this. Each
flight-lead prepares them for their flight. However, there are a few additional items often proving useful when flying
as part of a package:

• Which call-sign corresponds to which tasking

• own position in the package

• mission specific codewords

• Altitude blocks

• Other flight frequencies

I do not include all of these items all the time and there might be other things you want to add.

Also always leave a blank space so people can put down some notes themselves. If an item is not applicable do not
just leave a box on the kneeboard with N/A. Delete the line. It will make the whole page easier to read and creates
even more space for notes.

Format
Now we got everybody on a Teamspeak/Discord/Skype and you can hold your briefing. The briefing document and
kneeboards have been sent to everybody ahead of time and they can look at them while you talk through it step by
step. The extent of the briefing highly depends on your group and mission. For a casual flight you might want to stick
to the basic “Situation, Mission and Execution”. Briefing more complex missions and packages I have found the
following format to be a good compromise.

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Situation

A quick overview over the key points, which were already provided in the Intel. Do not go into great detail, but try to
describe the whole picture in as few words as possible without leaving out any key components.

Mission

Just one sentence, best read twice. “Destroy buildings at 55°12´N 023°28E” or “Gain air superiority in GG08”.

Command Intent

I like to make command intent a separate point to emphasize the importants of the mission as the single common
goal. In command intent I specify what the focus of my execution is going to be. Are we going for speed and
avoiding fights when possible or are we going to seek to bind the enemy in fights. This is also the part where you
can elaborate on the mission. Do we need to take out a target no matter the losses or do we want to cause as much
damage as possible with minimal casualties.

Execution

Now we go into detail of how the whole mission is supposed to unfold. Break it down into phases to make it easier to
comprehend. Three is usually a good number, but sometimes you need to make it four or five.

Phase 1: Ingress

How do we proceed towards the hostile airspace?

Specify order of take-off, speed, altitude and formation. If refueling is necessary it is crucial you specify how AAR is
going to be structured. Who is using which tanker in what order and regrouping in what position?

Make sure the aircraft with longer legs refuel first, since they are going to loose some of their fuel again while waiting
for the others to AAR.

Easiest is setting up a common holding point where flights can proceed and hold. Just remember to assign different
flights different altitude blocks and to tell the flight-leads to report once they are waiting and ready.

Phase 2: Push

Again specifying speed, altitude and formation are important.

You have the option of either nailing everybody down on ETA´s, for example “SWEEP at 0830, SEAD at 0832 and
STRIKE at 0835”, or setting up a formation.

Flying formation as a package does require datalink capable aircraft since you will not necessarily operate in sight of
one another.

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You can then use the main Strike flight as the center of your formation and assign positions in reference to them.
You could for example assign SWEEP to work from a position 20nm ahead of the strike. ESCORT to be stationed 5
to 10nm towards the biggest threat and the second STRIKE to follow close behind the first.

You can of course put the SEAD flight into a position like this as well, but the very dynamic nature of their tasking
lends itself to giving their flight-lead more freedom in how he wants to position himself.

This structure is also only useful until you have to react to emerging threats, therefore you need to make clear how
aggressive you want your different flights to act. If you have more than one flight engaging air targets, for example a
SWEEP and an ESCORT flight, it makes sense to give one more freedom to pursue enemies in order to keep them
at bay and one close by to keep threats away from the heart of the package.

Phase 3: Egress

This Phase should be initiated as quickly as possible once the mission has been achieved or has become
impossible. No reason to maintain a vulnerable position if you don´t absolutely have to. During egress you should
ideally position a flight with long range air to air weapons at the back of the package, so they can turn around and
hold off any aggressors that might pursue you.

Establish a line within friendly airspace which crossing shall be reported back to you with the current fuel state so
you can organize the transit back to base and possibly release flights early to join with a tanker.

Command

Now it might be obvious that the package commander is in overall command, but DCS being a game and everybody
always eager to go do their own thing it never hurts to remind everybody of the command structure that has been set
up for this package and who the responsible flight-leads are.

GCI are also always a great help, but they often have a tendency to “own” the assets on their frequency. An
inexperienced GCI might even try to reassign one of your flights to a close by tasking which he feels is more urgent.

To later keep control of your package you should therefore make sure all commits are done via yourself. GCI and
flight-leads report bandits and if necessary threat assessments, but you need to clearly state in your briefing that
only the package commander commits his flights against the threats. Only once this has happened do they leave
their position in the package and maneuver relative to the threat.

Support

A short list of Tankers, AWACS and air bases and all relevant frequencies. It is usually just a quick reference
chapter in the briefing document, which I skip in the briefing itself apart from me reiterating that flight-leads always
need to have one radio tuned to the package frequency.

Charts

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Attach as many maps as you need to paint a complete picture. One overview showing all AWACS and AAR tracks,
one overview with the complete route, one detailed route with push part of the route and terrain details, a few close
ups of the target area with pictures attached, a map of the egress routes with relevant threats and so on and so on.

Questions

When planning your briefing allow for enough time for people to ask questions. Sometimes there will be no
questions and sometimes you will be going over certain details for ten minutes. Just make sure you have enough
time to eliminate all uncertainties.

Checking back

Last, but not least address some questions to your flight-leads. Just some probing so you know everybody is on the
same page and nobody is holding their map the wrong way around. If you have tricky parts in your plan focus on
them. Otherwise some all time favorites are.

“Which frequency are you always monitoring?”

“Who is in front of you and who is behind you on the tanker?”

“If GCI assigns you a target what do you do?”

“What is your ETA for the target waypoint?”

“What is your relative position in the package?”

KISS … again and always

Unlike the wall of text I have created here, you should aim to keep your briefing as short and simple as possible
without sacrificing detail. There is always room for improvement, but if you manage to get everything across within a
15 minute presentation, you can call it a job well done.

Flight briefings
With the package briefing over, it is time for the flight-leads to take their flights aside and proceed with their
respective briefings. They usually do not need as much time, but giving them the same amount regardless before
mission start is good practice. That way players can maybe even sneak in a quick break and be fresh and ready for
the final phase: The execution.

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Chapter IV: Execution

Original post: ​https://flyandwire.com/2020/07/13/package-leadership-chapter-iv-execution/

Finally, after all the hard work and preparations it is time to get going and have some fun.

During the execution we are of course following the framework already built during planning and briefing, therefore
we are now going to focus on some helpful concepts and guidelines as in part I, instead of chronologically following
the execution step by step.

Ye old circle of leadership

You are probably already sick of it, but of course we are going to return to Situation, Mission, Execution to help us
structure ourselves.

However this time it will slightly changed to:

● Situation
● Task
● Execution
● Command

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● Control

Our biggest enemy is getting overwhelmed, not knowing what to do and ceasing to lead would leave your package
dead in the water. The one big thing you can do to prevent helmet fires is structure your thoughts. Go through this
structure every minute or every time you receive new information. The individual items should include:

Situation

Where are our own forces, how are their situations?

Where are known enemy forces, how do they impact my task?

Where are suspected enemy forces, how likely is their presence and how could they impact my task?

Task

What is the one goal my package has to achieve during this phase of the mission?

For example: “Regroup holding point Alpha 0735A” or “Bomb target at GG634702 and therefore keep threats away
from PANTHER (Strike)”

Execution

How do I have to change the Situation in order to achieve my task? If you actually manage to do the whole cycle
every minute or so, you will often come to the conclusion: “Everyone in formation, on time, no threats, therefore we
just continue” and the cycle stops here.

But as we all know every plan only holds up until enemy contact and at some point you will need to either divert the
package from it´s route, dispatch a flight to deal with an air threat or dispatch your SEAD flight to deal with an AA
threat.

Of course there are more options in your inventory when dealing with changing Situations, like changing altitude,
speed or formation of your package, but the aforementioned three are the ones you will need to use most
commonly.

Command

Instead of rambling on and on on frequency about what you think is going on and how you think the package ought
to react, you need to give short and concise orders. Address each flight individually and tell them quickly, but
precisely what they need to do.

For example:

“Nickel close formation to 5nm”

“Bull free to maneuver, target Group A”

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Control

Just as crucial as actually telling each flight what to do is checking that they are actually doing it. If you are doing this
for the first time you will be surprised how often people are not doing what they have been told even if they had
every intention of following the overall plan. It is usually for one of three reasons:

Being overwhelmed, Flight-leads can have helmet fires too and be overwhelmed with what is going on in their little
world and be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Misunderstandings, we all know comms are never perfect and even if you give out commands perfectly and they are
read back correctly, there will be misunderstandings from time to time. However if this happens all the time you
should consider some self reflection and maybe improve how you communicate.

Initiative, a lot of virtual pilots like to show a lot of personal initiative and sometimes need to be reminded that “it is
nice of you to want to kill all the enemies by yourselves, but you are leaving the rest of us undefended”.

All of these can of course be easily remedied by simply reminding the flights where they need to do what at this point
in time. Crucially you as package commander actually need to check on them and remind them of their
responsibilities if necessary.

Information
As you know by now, all this always starts with “Situation” and therefore with information.

And as the old saying goes AssUMe makes an ass of u and me. Our decision making needs to be based in facts not
assumptions. With data-link capable aircraft you have a wealth of information right there, but for everything
additional and in any non data-link aircraft you will need to convey information verbally.

This of course means continuously communicating with your GCI, if you have one, and always asking your
flight-leads for more information.

You are not sure your Sweep is still 20nm in front, because you lost radar contact? Ask!

You have not had an update on the bogeys to the north for 2 minutes? Ask!

You are not sure your SEAD flight has the fuel to cover you for a second approach? Ask!

It might seem annoying pestering your flight-leads for all kinds of random information all the time, but everything is
lost and won on the information front. So ask all the time and about everything you need to know. If they are not
responding ask again until they are.

Questions can also be broader using the expertise of your flight-leads to make decisions.

“Escort are you able to hold off Group B for 6min?”

“SEAD are you able to suppress new AA threats at the secondary target?”

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“Sweep are you able to proceed direct HB without AAR?”

Building a picture
Now of course this will not eliminate the fog of war entirely. All sensors at your disposal will gather more information
about the enemy than your aircraft´s sensors alone, but they will not make you omnipotent.

Before you take off you should have carefully studied your intel, so you know which threats to expect from where.
For example if you have two enemy airbases in the north, enemy fighters attacking you from the south is not the
most likely scenario. If you have a mountain range with an IADS, it is highly likely enemy CAP will take station within
this area.

By take-off you should have a pretty good idea which threats you can expect from which direction. You should never
rely on this estimate, since it is only an estimate, but you can already pre-plan some actions in case they do come
true.

For example:

CAP in IADS cover? Divert flight 50nm west

CAP from enemy airbase 1 in the NW? Dispatch Sweep when they are at 60nm

CAP from enemy airbase 2 in the E? Dispatch Escort when they are at 40nm

Maybe these things are not going to happen, but if they do, you now do not even need to think about it and can go
with your pre-planned solution.

While the mission is progressing and you are receiving more and more information, you can now check the
information against what your estimation was. Two radar contacts from a direction you were expecting Hostiles from
might warrant more attention than a random Bogey.

The wrong picture

At the same time you need to test your estimation with every new information you get. As soon as something does
not add up, abandon your picture and built a new one. Confirm information if necessary.

Worst thing that can happen, and I am guilty of this myself from time to time, is sticking to a false picture.

It is all too easy to dismiss information that does not fit with your estimate as false and stick to the more comfortable
version of events, where everything is still going as planned.

Take comfort in knowing nothing ever goes as planned and we are all just managing one crisis at a time.

As soon as one piece of the puzzle does not fit, your alarm bells should ring and your current estimate should be
jettisoned immediately.

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Exfil
Once you turn your back to the target and head home, suddenly there are no sensors pointed towards your most
likely threat direction.

There is a safety in heading home with sufficient speed, but it is preferable to have a flight at the back of the
package occasionally checking behind and covering the retreat.

Right hand man

With all this thinking and administration going on mid flight, a capable wingman is worth his weight in gold. Not just
for the normal fighter aircraft duties, but for leading the package as well.

Easiest way to lead a package is by always having everybody on package frequency, however due to AAR or just
random mistakes flights will sometimes not be available on the frequency.

The wingman can then switch to the flights primary frequency to reestablish communication.

Same goes for any other bigger problem or miscommunication. The package frequency is not the place for extended
talks and explanations. Should they be necessary, the wingman can simply conduct them on the flights primary
frequency, while the package commander stays on the packages frequency and keeps leading the package.

In two seater aircraft like the F-14B the other crew-member can take workload off the package commander in a
similar fashion.

For example with the RIO as package commander, the pilot can assume more of the typical flight-lead duties, like
initiating Tac-turns, changing altitude and speed of the flight or pushing the flight out to combat spread.

The human factor

We have now talked about the role of package commander extensively, but of course this is not a one man show, it
is a team effort. More importantly it is an after work/at the weekend lets have some fun kind of team effort. There will
be fuck ups and there will be people bending or disobeying the rules and to a degree that is ok. It is of course the
package commanders job to remind the people where they should be at this point and what they need to be doing
right now and usually this will suffice in keeping the experience organized enough for everybody to enjoy it. But
inadvertently you will run into people who will not fall into line after a simple reminder.

As much as I have harped on about structure and maintaining it, in such cases I can only recommend to just leave it
be. Concentrate on everything else, maintain immersion for the sake of the rest of the package and try to fly a
successful mission regardless.

“There are no battles to be won on the intercom” safe it for the debrief or a calm talk a day later.

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