ALPENA, MICHIGAN, UNITED STATES
U.S. Air Force Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) specialists and 3d Air Support Operations Group (ASOG) Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) waged simulated war against 820th Base Defense Group (BDG) Airmen during exercise Capri Sun at an Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center operations site in Michigan, Mar. 31 to Apr. 11, 2025.
Blue force TACP and SERE conducted surveillance and targeting operations while being hunted by 820 BDG opposing forces in the bitter cold of Michigan’s forests reaching lows of 14 degrees Fahrenheit. The opposing forces’ goal was to detect TACP and SERE Airmen’s presence with small unmanned aerial systems, simulated intelligence injects, roving patrols, and reconnaissance and surveillance equipment, then to engage with blank rounds and simulated indirect fire.
“It’s critically important that exercises are difficult,” said Col. Anson Stephens, 3 ASOG commander. “You never want someone to see something for the first time on the battlefield when bullets are actually flying, so we intentionally make these as difficult as we can to push the limits, and the next time, that limit is even further to make us successful in combat.”
820 BDG’s primary mission is to defend austere airfields in contested battlefield environments, and this exercise enabled them to apply their defensive fundamentals to protect simulated adversarial assets on this battlefield. Blue forces aimed to infiltrate these defenses undetected to provide targeting data to strike assets.
“A motivated and capable opposition force truly tests the mission capabilities of the blue force, it identifies both strengths and weakness,” said Master Sgt. Anthony Pyle, 823d Base Defense Squadron opposing force leader.
These opposing forces stressed the TACP and SERE Airmen’s ability to blend into the environment, move covertly throughout the simulated battlefield and detect critical assets for strikes. The weather, environment and opposing forces confronted these blue forces during their 108 operating hours.
“It’s important for us to train in arduous and difficult conditions, because we need to be able to employ our forces anywhere, anytime,” said Capt. Aaron Moore, 3 ASOG TACP officer.
These blue forces enabled 820 BDG opposing forces to develop and test their subordinate leaders, the backbone of a flexible fighting force. Through centralized planning and decentralized execution, these subordinate leaders executed individual operations to achieve their common objective.
“The capability for a commander to empower their subordinate leaders to execute their intent with minimal oversight is a huge force multiplier in Agile Combat Employment operations,” Pyle explained. “Rather than operating as one giant echelon of troops at a company level, we can execute multiple missions at the squad level and below to achieve greater effects.”
Story by Capt Christian Little
93rd Air Ground Operations Wing
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