Air warriors: (revamped flag exercises reflect new missions).

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: WARGAMING - Cover story

NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. -- Gotham City lies in the Nevada desert about 50 miles north of Las Vegas' shimmering casinos. But it's not on any maps. Dozens of times every year, F-15 Eagles, F-16 Fighting Falcons and A-10 Warthogs place simulated bombs on targets along its dusty streets. From above, the pilots participating in the legendary P, ed Flag exercise see a village resembling those they may encounter in Iraq. A closer look reveals that the town is merely a collection of strategically placed shipping containers painted to look like buildings.

Red Flag, one of the largest and most intense air combat training exercises in the world, is best known in the aviation world for air-to-air scenarios. In fact, an IMAX movie about the exercise, "Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag," playing at a casino a few miles away follows a day in the life of a young pilot as he flies against the base's aggressor squadrons. Like the typical cop who spends a 30-year career without ever discharging his service revolver, the chance of a modern day jet pilot engaging in a traditional dogfight is now remote, experts say.

And while toe-to-toe aerial battles are still part of Red Flag training, the leaders who run the month-long exercise about a half dozen times per year are quick to point out that they are adapting to new threats. Gotham City is a case in point.

"Anybody who has been to a flag more than five years ago, has not seen a flag like you're seeing now," said Air Force Lt. Col. Mike Caudle, deputy director of operations at the 414th combat training squadron, the formal designation for Red Flag.

In addition, the Air Force has revamped the Air Warrior exercise--where Air Force and Army ground troops coordinate close-air support--and redubbed it Green Flag. The new Green Flag will better prepare airmen and soldiers who are heading to Iraq or Afghanistan to fight insurgents operating on urban streets, in villages or mountainous terrain, rather than armies on a European plain, its managers said.

The changing nature of warfare prompted one Air Force officer to write an article, "Why Red Flag is Obsolete," in the September issue of Air & Space Power Journal, which is published by the Air Force.

The "fighter-centric" Red Flag "fails to teach and exercise a coherent strategy for defeating symmetric and asymmetric adversaries," wrote Lt. Col. Rob Spalding, an intelligence officer serving in the office of the secretary of defense.

He cited the use of Predator unmanned aerial vehicles as more suitable to fighting insurgents or terrorists, and its emergence as a favorite tool of combatant...