Know thy enemy, but also thy allies: U.S., coalition troops to rehearse for combat in simulated Afghan war.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: Air Force

KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. -- A high-tech combat simulation now in the planning stages will seek to achieve what eight years of real combat in Afghanistan apparently has not. And that is to teach U.S. forces how to fight with allies.

It's a long-standing annoyance for many in the U.S military that they don't get to train with allies before they deploy to war. They often meet their partners for the first time on the battlefield.

Maj. Michele Boyko, assistant director of operations for the 705th Combat Training Squadron, sums up the problem with a story from her experience flying in a B-1 bomber.

"The first time I had to work with the French was in Afghanistan, during an emergency close-air support situation with a controller on the ground," she says. "That was unsatisfactory. Why haven't we trained together?"

In September, she will direct the first-ever Coalition Virtual Flag exercise, a major step towards the groundbreaking virtual mission rehearsal in 2011.

"This event will be a huge mark on the wall for us," says Lt. Col. Troy Molendyke, commander of the 705th Combat Training Squadron that oversees the distributed mission operations center here. "We hope to establish this as a baseline and really use that as a steppingstone, because we see that as a huge growth area."

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Virtual Flag exercises combine live and computer-based players in a simulated war. They allow "red teams" to test forces with real-life scenarios such as roadside bombs and ambushes.

Four Virtual Flag events are held annually with participation from units across the services that are preparing for deployments. On occasion, select units from allied nations have linked in to play. But, until now, the interaction between U.S. and coalition forces has been limited.

Coalition Virtual Flag will connect U.S. armed forces and their British, Canadian and Australian counterparts via simulators at their home bases or those located at the center, says Boyko, the exercise director.

Participating in its first Virtual Flag, the 612th Air and Space Operations Center at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona will run the "war," which will span the southwestern United States. That location was selected because the coalition partners have databases that cover the Nellis ranges for their simulations, Molendyke says.

Canadian CF-18 pilots will fly in the game from simulators at their base in Shirley's Bay, Ottowa, while Australian F-18s and F/A-18s will participate...