Closely aligned with the birth, growth, and mission of the Aircraft Survivability journal (ASJ)—as well as JASP and the survivability engineering discipline itself—have been the birth, growth, and mission of the Joint Combat Assessment Team (JCAT). Even before a survivability community existed, combat aviation leaders recognized the incomparable value of gathering comprehensive, real-time combat data and then assessing and sharing that data to support the analysis, improvement, and effective employment of U.S. air systems. Accordingly, since 2008 the “JCAT Corner” article series has been a permanent and important component of each ASJ issue.
BDART: Pioneering Boots-on-the-Ground Forensics
Like that of the survivability discipline, the birth of JCAT is rooted directly in the battlegrounds of U.S. conflicts. The Battle Damage Assessment and Reporting Team (BDART)—JCAT’s predecessor—was established during the Vietnam War to be a pivotal real-time system for collecting and analyzing combat damage data during the conflict. The team’s primary mission was to provide detailed, accurate, and complete reports on aircraft damage and losses, thereby helping the U.S. Air Force to refine and improve its survivability and vulnerability analyses. BDART personnel were trained to collect data directly from the field, often under hostile conditions, to ensure the integrity of this important information. The team also conducted detailed interviews with surviving crew members of aircraft incidents.
BDART’s direct, hands-on approach proved to be much better than other reporting systems of the time, a fact confirmed in several comparative studies of Vietnam-era combat aircraft data. In one study, published in 1975, BDART Air Force A-1 and F-4 combat data from 1969 through 1971 were compared to that of other collection/reporting sources. Researchers evaluated the completeness and accuracy of various kinds of aircraft damage/loss data, such as mission type and phase, weapon type, aircraft altitude, velocity, projectile direction, system damaged, number of hits, hit locations, man-hours (and clock-hours) to repair, parts availability, level of repair, crew ejection, crew injury, crew status, reason for crash, and fire presence. The conclusion of the study was clear—the BDART data collection and reporting system, designed specifically to support aircraft vulnerability/survivability analysts, was consistently superior to any system that was not.
JCAT: A Mission and Legacy Continued
Building on BDART’s foundational principles and successes, JCAT was officially established in 2003, during the intense, early phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan. Its specific initial focus was to help provide definitive answers in response to mounting losses of U.S. aircraft, particularly helicopters. More generally, the JCAT mission was to continue BDART’S important legacy of conducting high-quality hands-on forensic investigations of combat losses and providing timely, actionable intelligence to commanders.
Whenever an aircraft was hit, JCAT personnel would get the call, immediately travel to the scene, and physically comb through the wreckage for clues. The team would analyze bullet holes, scorch marks, impact craters, and other damage markers to determine exactly what kind of weapon was used and how it was employed. This information would then be rushed to commanders, who could immediately change their tactics as necessary to avoid subsequent hits/losses. The JCAT methodology was direct, methodical, and built upon a rigorous four-phase process, which became the bedrock of JCAT operations for the next 2+ decades.
The process would begin with the Report phase, an initial notification from a unit in the field detailing a combat incident. This phase triggered the Collect phase, where a team of forensic experts would deploy, often into still-hostile environments, to the crash site. These “battlefield detectives” would physically examine the wreckage, meticulously documenting munition entry points, analyzing blast fragmentation, and recovering key components to identify the specific enemy weapon system used. The team would then move to the Assess phase. Here, their forensic findings would be fused with all-source intelligence to determine not just what hit the aircraft, but how and why. This deep analysis would reveal enemy tactics and aircraft vulnerabilities with high fidelity. Finally, the findings would be formally documented in the Archive phase, creating a lasting repository of survivability data that could continue to be shared across the Department of War to influence ongoing aircraft design, engineering, development, and modernization.
J-FORCE: When Boots Can’t Be on the Ground
Without a doubt, JCAT’s meticulous, hands-on Report-Collect-Assess-Archive process informed many rapid tactical changes and ultimately saved countless lives on the battlefield. However, it also came with one major limitation—JCAT assessors had to be able to get to the crash site. This limitation, U.S. military leaders increasingly recognized, could be problematic in future potential conflicts with peer adversaries, where battlefields could be in the middle of a vast ocean or deep inside a hostile region protected by a network of advanced missiles and air defense systems. These “no-go zones” could make it highly difficult or impossible to send in traditional JCAT investigators. Thus, a new way to perform the JCAT mission without putting boots on the ground was urgently needed.
Enter the JCAT Forensic Operations and Remote Collection Evaluation (J-FORCE) Agile Reaction Test (ART). Sponsored by the U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander and the Joint Test and Evaluation Program Office, J-FORCE was established to answer the critical need to modernize JCAT’s traditional approach and establish a new kind of process to collect, maintain, and share aircraft combat data. Specifically, the J-FORCE ART was chartered to develop and test a new set of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that would help enable JCAT assessors leverage the nation’s most advanced intelligence-gathering systems and data—collectively known as Title 50 National Technical Means (NTM)—and perform their mission remotely.
Putting the Process to the Test
To validate these groundbreaking procedures, the new TTPs were put through a rigorous testing campaign during two large-scale exercises. This testing was deliberately spread across diverse and challenging environments, from the Pacific to the Arctic, to ensure the TTPs were universally applicable and effective. The first exercise was Talisman Sabre 25 in July 2025, a massive, biennial, combined exercise led by the United States and Australia to simulate high-intensity conflict in the Indo-Pacific. The second exercise was Northern Edge 25 in August 2025, a premier joint field training exercise in Alaska that places participants in a uniquely challenging Arctic environment to hone advanced tactics against near-peer threats.
The results of the JCAT ART test exercises proved the new J-FORCE TTPs to be a great success. Assessors were able to:
- Effectively Collect Data: The TTPs successfully enabled the team to leverage the Title 50 NTM to gather the essential forensic data required for a complete assessment, proving that physical access to the wreckage is no longer a prerequisite.
- Deliver Timely and Accurate Assessments: The remote assessments conducted were consistently judged to be just as timely and accurate as traditional, on-site methods, providing commanders with the high-fidelity intelligence they need without delay.
- Validate the Process: The successful execution across two large-scale exercises served as a powerful validation of the new TTPs, confirming they are robust, reliable, and ready for real-world application.
The Future Is Now
In conclusion, the groundwork has been laid for advanced remote assessment procedures to become the new standard for the ongoing JCAT mission. This transformation is expected to ensure that future combat assessments remain viable in contested environments, maintaining the critical data feedback loop between combat incidents and technical and/or tactical adaptations. And just as traditional BDART and JCAT hands-on collection and reporting processes have delivered timely, crucial information from the battlefields of the past, the new J-FORCE TTPs promise to do the same for those of the future, wherever they may be.
