ISAF 2009-2013 - ACO Building - Introduction (1/x)

Since I started working on a mission template for Afghanistan theater, representing the battlefield at the peak of the ISAF/OEF involvement, it's time to explain how we can expand the previous work made on tanker refueling altitude and their AAR area locations, that was eventually shared through a whole ACO proposal for the 2001-2003 era.

ACO example for the early OEF/ISAF era (2001-2003).

Between 2003, at the end of the initial phase of OEF, and 2009, that marks the start of a "surge" meant to multiply the number of troops deployed on the ground in Afghanistan, several changes that can affect our ACO have occurred. Let's try to analyze them.

The "surge" in Afghanistan happened between 2009 and 2013: the overall operational activity reached a real peak in 20011.

I. Airfields

In the immediate post-9/11 phase (2001-2003), all fixed-wing operations were launched from external bases like Diego Garcia, carrier groups in the Arabian Sea, or regional allies (e.g., Uzbekistan's Karshi-Khanabad). This kept the Afghan sky relatively uncluttered but limited response times for close air support (CAS).

By 2009, the surge demanded in-theater basing to support troop levels peaking at over 100,000 U.S. and coalition forces. Key airfields reopened and upgraded to accommodate fighter jets: Bagram by December 2001, Kandahar by 2004, and Camp Bastion by 2009. These were staffed by military air traffic control (ATC), managing Class C and D airspace with radar services.

Secondary sites like Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif hosted temporary fast-jet detachments, while forward bases such as Jalalabad saw rotary-wing surges. Kabul International emerged as a dual-use hub for civilian and strategic airlift, handling C-17s and commercial flights.

Control Zones (CTR) and Control Areas (TMA) in 2009.

All these major airfields were protected by class C or D airspace, that have obviously to be taken into account and were part of the ACO applying to military operations.

AAR Area located outside of Bagram class C airspace, but within Bagram class E airspace.

II. Airways and Volume of Traffic

While in 2001-2003 the level of traffic was minimal, with primarily military aircraft in the sky, and the few civilian traffics mostly overflying the country in high altitude, the situation drastically changed later.

First of all, civilian traffic resumed everywhere, both for military logistical support and humanitarian aid, but also for purely civilian purposes. Tactical transport aircraft (intra-theater) were flying on a daily basis between the North and the South of the country, and the Kabul/Bagram - Kandahar airway was very busy both in lower airspace.

For this reason, airways locations had to be taken into account, and military ROZ had to be located below or next to these airways, avoiding them carefully: it's the military airspace that adapted to the civilian airspace, and not the other way around.

Upper and lower airways as described in the 2009 AIP.

For the AAR Areas for example, it meant fitting next to these airways in most cases, since AAR operations usually took place between FL200 and FL290.

AAR Areas located between civilian airways.

III. Military Footprint on the Ground

Early OEF featured a light footprint, with fewer than 20 major forward operating bases (FOBs), patrol bases (PBs), observation posts (OPs), and combat outposts (COPs), concentrated in urban centers. By the 2009-2013 surge, ISAF expanded to over 800 installations, including 400+ U.S.-led FOBs, to secure population centers and counterinsurgency hotspots like Helmand and the Pakistani border. Most received indirect fire capabilities (e.g., 155mm howitzers, mortars), requiring on-demand controlled firing areas (CFAs) or ROZs to deconflict artillery with air operations. These are were most of the time activated on-demand only, in real time.

Maximum altitude for a 155 mm projectile could be above FL200 in Afghanistan.

But those ground installations also broadly used UAVs and tethered balloons for ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) purposes, and an additional set of ROZ became usual around FOBs.

Firing ranges were another type of dedicated airspace: most of them were reserved for surface-surface activities, but their locations had to be protected, both for the sake of the aircraft (indirect fire, again), and the safety of their users. Remember this friendly-fire incident at Tarnak Range in 2002, where small arm fire exercise was mistakenly interpreted as enemy fire. Note that these type of airspace were generally included in the civilian AIP.

Firing ranges as described in the 2009 AIP.

IV. ISR and UAV Activity

If the early stages of OEF saw the first operational use of UAVs like the Predator, and the first use of armed UAVs for ground attack, with the AGM-114 Hellfire, their presence was initially very modest. We have to wait 2007 to see the first permanent detachment of MQ-9 Reapers in Afghanistan, at Kandahar.

While some UAV missions were directly supporting troops on the ground via JTARs, other ones were purely ISR missions supporting the Joint intelligence process. In those cases, the UAVs could be assigned within "Unmanned Aircraft" (UA) areas, or more general multi-purpose ROZ.

By default, UAV could also be assigned in Kill-boxes (KB), just as any other aircraft. In Afghanistan, the CGRS Grid was widely used, and we can note that the theater referencing system used in 2001 was deprecated, and a global referencing system for the whole CENTCOM AOR was later used.

CGRS Grid used after 2003.

We can note that the main areas of interest for ISR were the main roads (ring-road, and the large roads leading in and out of the country), as well as the border areas.

Other high activity areas could also benefit from dedicated ISR ROZ on a case-by-case basis, for example for the planning and execution of large ground operations. It was for example very common along the border with Pakistan.

Conclusion

The 2009–2013 Airspace Control Order (ACO) was significantly more congested than its earlier versions, due to the sharp increase in both civilian and military traffic. However, in many respects, it will resemble a peacetime environment rather than a major combat operation, owing to the increased presence of non-combatant air traffic.

In this context, in high altitude, military activities will no longer automatically take precedence over civilian needs, as they did in 2001, but will instead be closely integrated with them. In lower altitudes, however, the situation remains unchanged: the airspace in a "hot" combat area, where fighters, helicopters and UAVs coexist in close proximity.

In the next posts, we'll discuss how to build the Air-to-Air Refueling (AAR) Areas, and then the various ROZ for IDF around FOBs.