UKTAT conference proves its worth in gold

By Staff Sgt. Michael Porter
Unit Public Affairs Representative
RAF Digby, United Kingdom

Several members of Detachment 1, 488th Intelligence Squadron, Royal Air Force Digby, recently attended the United Kingdom Tactics and Analysis Team (UKTAT) conference held at the Air Warfare Center, RAF Waddington, UK.

Analysts from Det. 1, attended the conference in an effort to improve the sharing of information and support to military operations. This goal of improving the intelligence community relationships between our two countries is the primary mission of Det. 1 and is the reason for its initial establishment in 1994.

The UKTAT conference is a bi-annual event used to provide and discuss high-grade tactical intelligence to front-line operators and pilots. It produces reports that are distributed to all RAF operational detachments, squadrons, and flying stations.

TAT’s were established to allow operators, primarily aircrew, to have face-to-face exchanges with intelligence personnel. This two-way exchange allows intelligence collectors to refine their products into a more user-friendly product and helps them redirect their collection activities as required by the continual changes in the military environment. Intelligence personnel gain a better understanding of aircrew difficulties through their dialog that ultimately helps them provide better data for out-smarting, out-flying, and out-fighting our enemies.

The United States Air Force runs geographic and mission-specific TAT’s. Some of these are directly supported and managed by Air Intelligence Agency with the primary role of funneling intelligence support to a team of representatives from the host nation government, who in turn support the respective ambassador.

This particular TAT conference was designed to allow for an intelligence exchange between intelligence producers in the field and aircrews of Operations SOUTHERN and NORTHERN WATCH. Many first-hand accounts of situational military tactics in Iraq were discussed at great length. The dialog between GR1 (Tornado) and NIMROD aircrews and intelligence analysts proved to be especially useful for both sides.

When all things were said and done, the conference proved its worth in gold. The aircrews left with a greater appreciation of our intelligence capabilities and the Det. 1 members discovered several unknown operational tactics to look for and exploit in the future.