What Happened To BAI?

[Guest alfakilo]

Back in the day, there was this term BAI (battlefield air interdiction)...but in doing a little Googling, I can't seem to find it...or at least can't find a reference that says the term is still in USAF doctrine.

You folks who have been thru PME recently...can you help on this question?

TIA.

[60 driver]

BAI was history even when I was still in the hog over ten years ago. The term "deep CAS" was roughly equivalent, but didn't last long, if I recall correctly. At least as far back as the mid-late '90s, it was either AI or CAS, with not much "approved" terminology to describe where you were in the battle space without resorting to old terms.

The young guys can explain the current type I/II/III concepts in more depth than I, but those are the latest equivalents for what you might remember as direct/indirect/deep(BAI).

Edited July 18, 2009 by 60 driver

[Guest alfakilo]

Thanks for that link. My hog time dates from Bentwaters in the early 80s when BAI was very much still a going affair.

[60 driver]

Definitely a Fulda Gap era term. :)

[Hacker]

In the early days of OIF, they used the term "Killbox Interdiction" (KI) to describe roughly the same mission as BAI. I haven't seen that term since then, but then again there hasn't been any teritory beyond the FSCL since then either.

[Smokin]

It's now (at least in the Viper community) called SCAR - Strike Coordination and Reconnaissance. Basically the same as killer - scout or whatever of the 69 terms the same mission used to be called.

It seems to me to be pretty worthless training. IMHO when a war kicks off, assuming that it is fairly traditional (going to war against a nation-state), I don't see this mission lasting more than a few days. Either the ground troops will be moving in quickly and we'll switch to normal CAS or the war isn't going well and we'll be doing DCA defending the BX.

[Hacker]

It's now (at least in the Viper community) called SCAR - Strike Coordination and Reconnaissance. Basically the same as killer - scout or whatever of the 69 terms the same mission used to be called.

BAI and KI are not the same as SCAR. You're correct that SCAR was a follow-on to Killer Scout, but the focus of SCAR is to find things and identify targets for other people to kill after your bombs are gone -- there is a recce/ISR piece to SCAR that is not explicitly part of KI (or was not part of BAI).

[Guest alfakilo]

Thanks, folks...it seems that once again a rose by any other name is still a rose.

[ClearedHot]

but the focus of SCAR is to find things and identify targets for other people to kill after your bombs are gone.

Perhaps in the Strike Eagle community, but not necessarily true in other platforms.

SCAR is far more similar to Killer Scout in other communities.

[nsplayr]

May be a stupid question...does Killer-Scout now possibly = RAOPS-C2?

[Flare]

Perhaps in the Strike Eagle community, but not necessarily true in other platforms.

SCAR is far more similar to Killer Scout in other communities.

2 same.

CH...do you all do SCAR too?

Edited July 15, 2009 by Flare

[M2]

Thanks for that link. My hog time dates from Bentwaters in the early 80s when BAI was very much still a going affair.

God bless ya! I was at Bentwaters as a young enlisted pup from 82-84, those were great times!

Have ya been back? I was there a few years ago, took a motorcycle trip over for a TDY from SHAPE. Bentwaters is a huge industrial park, with about a million geese in the old TAB-Vs. There is a Cold War Museum in the old command post so if you are in the area let me know as I have some buds that work there.

Woodbridge, where I lived, is a Brit Army Base now, the old housing area has been replaced and you can't get back to the ops area. Otherwise, the area looks the same, except Ipswich has grown considerably!

Cheers! M2

[ClearedHot]

2 same.

CH...do you all do SCAR too?

Yes, we do.

[Guest alfakilo]

God bless ya! I was at Bentwaters as a young enlisted pup from 82-84, those were great times!

Have ya been back? I was there a few years ago, took a motorcycle trip over for a TDY from SHAPE. Bentwaters is a huge industrial park, with about a million geese in the old TAB-Vs. There is a Cold War Museum in the old command post so if you are in the area let me know as I have some buds that work there.

Woodbridge, where I lived, is a Brit Army Base now, the old housing area has been replaced and you can't get back to the ops area. Otherwise, the area looks the same, except Ipswich has grown considerably!

Cheers! M2

It was a great time. I was there from 82 to 86, first in the 78th at Woody and then the 511th at BTW. In my career, no other assignment matched these four years when it came to the quality of senior leadership and the sense of accomplishment from a mission well done.

And the flying...there were few rules back in the Cold War days, and we took full advantage of it...takeoff from BTW, climb to 500' to cross the Channel, drop down once in Germany, root around the Buffer Zone to piss off the East German tower guards, bootleg a German range, beat up a NATO tank training area, and then beat feet back to the UK never having got above 500' and the only person talked to was the range controller.

Fun times, but no more. Can't smoke in the club either.

I haven't been back but have used Google Earth to look around. We lived in the little village of Ufford just outside BTW...some day wife and I would love to see the house again, but we suspect too much has changed. The old saying about not going back is too often true. Maybe one day I'll take a stroll down the BTW runway like Dean Jagger did in Twelve O'Clock High.

[Stuck]

"Dont sit under the apple tree, with anyone else but me..."

Hearing those B-17's start up right before the flashback gives me goosebumps at the beginning of that movie.

Cheers!

- Stuck

[60 driver]

Bentwaters

I haven't been back but have used Google Earth to look around. We lived in the little village of Ufford just outside BTW...some day wife and I would love to see the house again, but we suspect too much has changed. The old saying about not going back is too often true. Maybe one day I'll take a stroll down the BTW runway like Dean Jagger did in Twelve O'Clock High.

I lived in Aldringham, just south of Leiston.

I was stationed at Bentwaters the year we shut the lights off, 92-93. I was in a nonflying job at the time (banked) but the atmosphere and the guys from my "attached" squadron (the 92nd TFS "Skulls") are what ultimately led me to put the hog #1 on my return to fly dream sheet. What a great assignment. Wish I could have flown there. The Bentwaters-Woodbridge closing, followed by Soesterberg and then Zweibrucken and Bitburg, convinced me once and for all that Congress BRACs in dream sheet order.

I took my wife to the UK for vacation in '06 and we drove out there, knowing that they had turned the support side of the base into council housing, and expecting the worst. To my surprise it looked almost exactly the same, to a creepy extent almost. My house, which was 400 years old when I lived in it, hadn't changed either. You guys should go see your old place, I bet you'd be surprised how little has changed. As you probably remember, the British aren't exactly renowned for that.

[Guest alfakilo]

You guys should go see your old place, I bet you'd be surprised how little has changed. As you probably remember, the British aren't exactly renowned for that.

So true, particularly in the Suffolk that I remember. What a sense of timelessness! We'd love to drive around the old Roman country roads just to see what was around the next bend...what a great place that was!