From April 15-17, Allied Air Command hosted a conference of experts in the field of Agile Combat Employment or ACE to continue refining and coordinating the concept among Allied Air Forces. ACE is an operational scheme of manoeuvre designed to improve resilience and survivability while generating air combat power from both home bases and geographically dispersed locations. It can be used proactively or reactively involving main or deployed operating bases or contingency locations. Implementing ACE deployments requires a flexible, well prepared and coordinated approach by the deploying force and the receiving bases.
“We hosted the sixth event on ACE this week, and the fact that over 130 participants from 25 nations joined the event shows there is a steady increase in the interest from nations to embrace and operationalise the concept,” said French Air and Space Force Brigadier General Gilles Juventin, who leads the Support Directorate at Headquarters Allied Air Command and oversees the areas of infrastructure, supply, logistics, communication and information systems and aircraft engineering.
Overall the ACE programme is designed as a plug and play concept for commanders and planners to use to increase survivability while maintaining uninterrupted operational capability. The focus of this conference was three fold; complete the operational design to assist in our quest to create official NATO ACE doctrine, further develop bed down plans to allow Host and Sending Nation coordination in setting the theatre and lastly to gain more fidelity of national Aircraft Cross Servicing programmes which will enhance ACE capabilities.
