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Just a few days ago, the large-scale air exercise "Bamboo Eagle 24-3" organized by the US Air Force just came to an end. This exercise was exaggerated by the US military and media as "preparing for a large-scale conflict with China", which can be regarded as a rare large-scale exercise of the US Air Force in recent years.

It is true that this exercise is of a super-large scale. According to a U.S. Air Force press release, the exercise involved more than 150 different types of military aircraft and more than 3,000 soldiers from more than 20 units - this scale is already a big deal for an air force exercise. Moreover, the U.S. military aircraft participating in the "Bamboo Eagle 24-3" exercise are not only "large in number", but more importantly, "of all types". Preliminary statistics show that the U.S. military aircraft participating in the exercise include F-22 and F-35A stealth fighters, F-15 andF-16 fighter, B-1B and B-52 strategic bombers, as well as multiple types of aerial refueling aircraft, E-3 early warning aircraft,C-130JC-17 transport aircraft, E-11 battlefield communications node aircraft, and RC-135 electronic reconnaissance aircraft appeared in the exercise airspace, and U.S. Navy and Marine Corps troops also participated.

At the same time, the exercise also deployed a large number of "adversary" forces provided by the US Air Force and private contractors for a highly realistic confrontation. For example, the 57th Information Adversary Squadron under the 57th Wing of the US Air Force was responsible for simulating the opponent's attacks on computer networks and information systems; the 507th Air Defense Adversary Squadron was responsible for simulating the adversary's air defense system; the famous 64th and 65th "Intruder" Squadrons and the 706th Adversary Squadron under the 926th Wing were responsible for simulating the enemy's air defense system.F-16, F-15 and F-35 fighter jets simulated the main fighter jets of the imaginary enemy. In addition, several F-5 fighter jets provided by private contractors also participated in the exercise as imaginary enemies. It can be regarded as a rare "big scene" of actual combat training in the United States.

If it was just because there were a large number of U.S. military aircraft of various types participating in the "Bamboo Eagle 24-3" exercise, veterans would not pay so much attention to it. The real reason is that the U.S. military top brass and the media have almost undisguisedly expressed the intention of the exercise to target China.

Major General Christopher Niemi, commander of the U.S. Air Force Air Combat Center, said that the U.S. Air Force no longer has the "luxury of security" to fight from rear bases, so the pilots participating in the exercise will be required to maintain the same combat rhythm as before, but must face "the threat of large-scale enemy firepower that has never been seen before." This is completely different from the "Red Flag" exercise, which usually only allows pilots to familiarize themselves with the opponent's tactics and air combat techniques through simulation exercises. In the "Bamboo Eagle" exercise, "from C-130 transport aircraft loading cargo to F-22 stealth fighters fighting the enemy, the U.S. military's air combat chain was fully exposed to the threat of the opponent for the first time."

Why does the "Bamboo Eagle 24-3" exercise highlight such a feature? The US media put it more bluntly - because it is simulating a large-scale conflict between China and the United States in the future. Considering that there is no technological gap between the advanced fighter jets of China and the United States, and the PLA's long-range firepower fully covers the US military bases in the Western Pacific region,PentagonIt is believed that in future large-scale air battles between China and the United States, U.S. military aircraft may be attacked by the People's Liberation Army at any time whether they are taking off and landing or patrolling in the air - hence the saying that the U.S. Air Force no longer enjoys the "luxury of security."

The US "Power" website admitted that the US Air Force wanted to confront the PLA head-on in the Pacific region and face new challenges - this is also the reason for holding the "Bamboo Eagle" series of exercises. For example, the number of airports available to the US military in the Western Pacific is very limited, which is completely different from the situation in continental Europe where airports are densely distributed. Therefore, if the US Air Force wants to fight in the Pacific region, it often needs the assistance of tankers, and the related scheduling is very complicated. In the "Bamboo Eagle" exercise, the US military once dispatched 17 tankers at the same time to test its ability to organize large-scale aerial refueling.

At the same time, the "Bamboo Eagle" exercise also focused on the "agile combat use". According to the assessment of the US Air Force, once a large-scale conflict breaks out, the US military bases currently distributed in the first and second island chains will find it difficult to survive the long-range strike firepower of the People's Liberation Army. In order to improve the wartime survivability of US fighter jets, multiple fighter units need to be dispersed and deployed to different locations and maintain frequent maneuvers, and the relevant command organizations and logistics support forces also need to be dispersed.

However, remote airports that are not easily attacked often have problems such as incomplete equipment and difficult support. At the same time, if these fighters stay on the ground for a long time and are deployed frequently, they are also vulnerable to attack. Previously, the US Air Force has conducted exercises to test how to integrate the combat capabilities of transport aircraft and F-22 stealth fighters. For example, after precise scheduling, transport aircraft and F-22s landed at front-line airports almost one after another. The C-130 carried the fuel, ammunition and maintenance equipment required for the F-22 operations to ensure that the fighters could take off quickly and return to the battle. After completing the support, the C-130 also quickly left the airport to avoid being attacked by the opponent.

From the information revealed by the US media, the Pentagon has really put a lot of effort into the "China-US War", and such dynamics are worthy of vigilance. But then again, in recent years, the so-called new tactics of the US military against the PLA have emerged one after another, such as the US Navy's "distributed lethality concept", the US Army's "multi-domain task force" and the Marine Corps' "expeditionary forward base operations", but even the US military admits that these new concepts and tactics look "beautiful", but they still face many difficulties in implementation, and they are more of a means for the various services to compete for military spending in Congress.

Privy Council No. 10/Old Driver Ma Shi Tu