Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing tcml-3

by Tom Clancy

  • Inter-Theater Transport—In any kind of deployment several squadrons of C-130 Hercules medium transports would be needed to move personnel and cargo from rear areas to the forward airfields. During Desert Shield and Desert Storm the press never noticed the vital job done by C-130 units (many were Air National Guard and Reserve squadrons) hauling bombs and missiles, spare parts, black boxes, food, and almost everything but fuel to the various wing airfields around the Persian Gulf. (The Saudis took care of the fuel.) Today, the logistical rules have not changed one bit, and this job would have to be done, or the wing's efforts would come to an immediate and grinding halt.

  Of course, virtually any other kind of USAF flying unit could be plugged into the 366th Wing structure. This could range from the LANTIRN-EQUIPPED F-16Cs of the 388th FW at Hill AFB to beef up the wing's PGM delivery capability, to U-2s or RC-135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing (RW) and 55th RW respectively. In fact, what goes overseas with the 366th Wing will probably be limited only by planners' imaginations, and what is available at the time.

  CONOPS: THE 366TH STYLE OF WAR

  One of the viewgraphs you see during Colonel Scott's briefing on the Wing says, "The 366th Wing lives, works, plays, trains, deploys, and fights TOGETHER." It's easy enough to tell squadrons they will live at the same home base, but can you make them fight as one team? For the 366th, togetherness is more than just lip service. The togetherness shows in many ways, like on Friday nights when all the officers in the wing gather at the officers' club for happy hour. You don't see clusters of F-16 pilots, F-15 pilots, or tanker crews. Instead, you see mixed clusters, with waving arms describing formations (pilots can't really talk without their hands), new tactics, and ideas. These people really are interested in what is happening in the other units of the wing.

  On a more practical level, a very impressive planning effort has gone into getting the Gunfighters ready to fight. These plans continue to be improved and refined, with a primary focus on getting the wing where it is going with less use of the Air Force's scarce heavy airlifters, and getting more out of the 366th's pool of aircraft and weapons. Let's look closer at how the Gunfighters would get to a crisis.

  Getting There: The 366th Wing Deployment Plan

  The 366th library of deployment and operations plans is constantly growing on the disk drives and in the notebooks at the headquarters on Gunfighter Boulevard. We're going to look at just one of the deployment options — the movement of the wing to a well-developed base in a friendly host nation. By well-developed, we mean that the base has adequate facilities — aircraft shelters to house the wing, barracks or tent facilities for personnel, and stores of supplies such as fuel, water, and munitions compatible with USAF aircraft. Most friendly nations have supplies of jet fuel; and 80-series bomb warheads are quite common around the world. Also, the 366th might draw on prepositioned stores of such supplies, or access one of the maritime prepositioned ships stationed at places like Diego Garcia and Guam.

  The 366th deployment scheme is designed around response forces packaged (i.e., sized and matched) to meet the particular crisis in question. It may be enough to send just a few fighters and tankers to a crisis zone to keep a lid on events until reinforcements can be assembled and sent. Other times, you may want to pile on into a given situation, to deter a particular rogue regime from making trouble. To keep things simple, the 366th Operations Group has designed a series of packages which allow the NCAs to quickly order a particular force into a crisis. The following chart shows the breakdown of the packages:

  366th Wing Deployment Package Options

  As can be seen from the six options in the table, the smallest deployment unit, known as an A Package, includes twenty-four fighters and fighter bombers (eight F-15Cs, eight F-15Es, and eight F-16Cs), along with four KC- 135Rs configured for FAST tanker deployment. The B and C Packages build upon the basic A Package by adding additional aircraft, until the entire Mountain Home force is committed. In addition, each package has a "plus" option, which adds a force of B-1B bombers from the 34th BS at Ellsworth AFB. You also may have noticed the force of support aircraft that is added to each package option. These are the E-3s, EF-111s, and EC-130s, which would accompany the wing on any deployment.

  It would probably be impossible to deploy the entire wing (a C+ Package) in one wave, due to the shortage of heavy airlift. Thus, for anything larger than an A Package, the wing is broken into separate waves, so that tanker and heavy transport aircraft can be utilized in shifts. For example, the deployment breakdown for a B Package would look like this:

  B Package Deployment Schedule

  The C+ Package, which is the largest option available, looks like this:

  C+ Package Deployment Schedule

  Each wave would be separated by something like twenty-four to thirty-six hours, and would depend on tanker and airlift support to get certain key pieces of equipment and personnel onto the ground at the right time and in the right order. The matter of airlift cannot be overemphasized these days, since the force of AMC heavy airlift aircraft (C-141s, C-5s, and C-17s) is at the danger level when it comes to moving important stuff for top-priority units like the 366th. The AMC heavy airlift force in early 1995 consisted of the following aircraft:

  USAF Heavy Lift Fleet

  As you can see, the heavy airlift fleet is limited to less than 375 PAA aircraft assigned to units around the USAF. This situation is going to get worse as C-141s are retired faster than new C-17s are delivered. Whenever possible, AMC will try to use commercial freight aircraft from the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF), a pool of commercial freight aircraft subsidized by the U.S. Government and available to be drafted in a time of crisis. Another option for AMC is to charter freight aircraft from air carriers like UPS, Emery Air Freight, Federal Express, or even some of the huge Antonov 124 transports operated by the Russian flag carrier, Aeroflot.

  As for the 366th Wing, they have worked hard to reduce their heavy airlift requirements to the bare minimum to get into operation at a host base in the minimum amount of time. The key is the number of C-141 loads it will take to get a particular package into action at the destination. Because the C-5 and C-17 can carry bigger loads of cargo (including outsized loads), and the KC-10 is limited to palletized cargo and personnel only, the load planners at the 366th Transport Squadron transportation office have to take this into account when they get the phone calls from AMC headquarters at Scott AFB. They plan for all kinds of possibilities. For example, consider the following notional table of airlift required to move various package combinations:

  366th Package Deployment Transport Requirements

  It should be noted that the above table is representative of only one particular planning scenario (the most optimistic actually), and should not be considered definitive. In fact, for bare-base operations, you should probably double the number of C-141 loads and throw in the services of one of the USAF Red Horse battalions.

  Now, let's look back to our earlier example of an A Package going to a well-developed host base. As you can see, about thirty C-141s, along with appropriate tanker assets, would be needed to move the force overseas to the host operating base, and once the wing is in the air, the clock and the meter are running with regards to pushing cargo and supplies forward. What you see in the above table is just the down payment on a credible 366th deployment. A continuing logistics effort is vital to keeping the wing flying and operating up to its full potential, because on the ground the 366th is only a set of targets for another air force to destroy.

  Hold Until Relieved: The 366th Style of Operations

  Let's assume that General McCloud and the 366th Wing leadership has gotten the designated wing package to their host base. What happens next? Actually, well before the first combat aircraft has arrived, there will be a great deal of activity at the base, starting with the arrival of the FAST-1 tanker with its site survey team. Working quickly, they will size up the base, and using their own SATCOM link, will
send back to Mountain Home the exact support requirements for the wing, so that the proper AMC airlift can be ordered and the right pallets and cargo can be loaded and sent on their way. Right after this comes FAST-2 with the AOC buildup team to establish the WICP satellite communications links back to Mountain Home and the Space Warfighting Center in Colorado Springs. Following this would be the CI element with their CTAPS equipment on FAST-3. This would be immediately moved to the AOC to keep the planning process going. Finally, FAST-4 would arrive, hopefully together with the first elements of the wing package with the aircrews and maintenance personnel necessary to fly the 366th's first missions.

  So, just what might those missions be?

  The Gunfighters are capable of almost any combat operation, except launching long-range cruise missiles or doing a stealth penetration strike of an enemy air defense environment. Below is a chart of the different mission capabilities of the various aircraft of the 366th Wing (and attached units):

  366th Mission Capabilities

  As can be seen, the Gunfighters provide a core capability to run rapid response air operations in a crisis initiated by a hostile government or force. The 366th is an aerial fire brigade, grudgingly willing to trade losses to buy time for the politicians back home to make up their minds, define a policy, and send forward reinforcement and/or replacement units. It is assumed that these would take over for the long-term campaign that would follow the commitment of a unit like the 366th. It is likely that the deployment of a package by the Gunfighters would be part of a joint operation with ground units from the Marine Corps or the Army's XVIII Airborne Corps. Just how they would fight in a crisis is therefore rather hard to specify, given the unpredictability of rogue states and other "bad guys" around the world. Thus, the 366th leadership will have to be both sneaky and imaginative in their use of their limited force of planes and aircrews.

  The temptation to engage in an aerial form of guerrilla warfare must be balanced by the principles of mass and coordination that were proven during operations like Desert Storm and Just Cause. This means massing airpower assets, not just parceling them out wastefully and dangerously in penny packets. It also means looking for unconventional ways of hurting an opponent, so that they can be caught looking somewhere else while the wing hits the "real" target. The Gunfighters Operations Staff must look for centers of gravity to hit, rather than punching away at an enemy's strength. The key to doing this is keeping their fighting edge sharp, and that means training and exercising. We'll take a look at the wing doing this in the next chapter, when we deploy with them to the biggest exercise they attend each year, Operation Green Flag at Nellis AFB, Nevada.

  Getting Ready for War: Green Flag 94-3

  An air force is more than an expensive collection of planes and personnel. A nation cannot just throw money and youth into building an aerial fighting force and expect to get anything more than a glorified flying club for military pageants. While an air force cannot win a war all by itself (despite what some zealots would like you to believe), since World War I no country has won a war without having a winning air force overhead. The history of the last six decades is filled with examples like France (1940), the Middle East Arabs (1967), and Iraq (1991), who spent a fortune on aircraft and had their heads handed to them when real combat came. Building a winning air force has relatively little to do with how much money a country spends.

  Yes, air forces are hideously expensive. Figure on spending about $20 million for each modern single seat fighter, $2 million to select and train each pilot to a combat-ready level, and perhaps $100 million per wing per year, plus real estate costs for a no-frills air base. To maintain proficiency, your flight crews need to fly at least twenty hours a month, at a couple of thousands of dollars an hour. Don't forget to budget enough for administration, security, medical services, spare parts, practice ammunition, bombs, missiles, targets, and a thousand other details. Still, it isn't money alone that does the job. For starters, building an air force is a multi-generational task, which requires decades of investment in the cultivation of skills that are relatively rare and fragile. The best example of this is the Israeli Air Force, which uses a network of "talent scouts" with sophisticated psychological profiles to identify its future aircrews (and thus its future leaders) on the soccer fields and elementary schools while they are still pre-teen kids.

  While such a system of selection may work for small countries with a few hundred aircraft and strong social cohesion, it would not be practical for a country of the size and diversity of the United States. America has an air force (actually several if you count the Navy, Marine, Army, and Coast Guard) with thousands of aircraft. Because of its worldwide responsibilities and interests, the U.S. has to reach deep to build its military forces, calling upon a wider range of skills and cultures than any other nation on earth. Backing up the selection of the right people is a massive industrial commitment, for only nations with a viable airframe industry can hope to avoid crippling dependence on one or two major powers for weapons, spare parts, and training.

  There is a saying that goes, "If you think training is expensive, try ignorance!" Consider an example from the Vietnam War. Prior to the 1968 bombing halt over North Vietnam, both the Navy and Air Force suffered severely in air-to-air combat with the wily and agile MiG interceptors of the North Vietnamese Air Force. In fact, the critical kill/loss ratio was going decidedly against the Americans — only 3:1 (three MiGs shot down for every U.S. aircraft lost in air-to-air combat. Now, this doesn't sound bad until you consider that the MiGs and their pilots cost the North Vietnamese almost nothing to replace, and that fighting over friendly territory, a MiG pilot who ejected often lived to fight another day, while American aircrews who ejected stood a good chance of dying in a POW camp. In World War II, by way of contrast, the average kill/loss ratio was something like 8:1; and in Korea it was 13:1.

  To improve the odds, the Navy launched a program of adversary flight training, flying practice missions against aircraft more agile than the F-4, including a few real MiG fighters that had found their way to the United States for evaluation and testing. The Navy opened the famous Top Gun school at NAS Miramar near San Diego, California, and a dozen or so classes of crews had cycled through by 1972. Every Navy pilot going to Southeast Asia received thorough intelligence briefings on the enemy aircraft and tactics that he would face.

  The results were stunning. When the air war over North Vietnam started up again in 1972, the USAF still took a beating from the North Vietnamese, for a while losing more aircraft than they were shooting down. At one point the kill/loss ratio fell to only.89:1! Only the rapid introduction of electronic warning systems based on real-time intelligence saved the day for the Air Force, bringing the ratio back to a barely acceptable 2:1. But the Navy story was quite different. In a matter of weeks, the Navy fighters drove the North Vietnamese MiGs from the coastal zones; and at one time they had an incredible 31:0 kill/loss ratio. By the time of the cease-fire in early 1973, the ratio was a more realistic 13:1—a massive success compared to the Air Force's dismal performance during the same period. An unpopular war, fought under impossible political restrictions, was bad enough, but being outperformed in the air by the Navy was a burning humiliation for the USAF.

  Today's U.S. Air Force is built on a foundation of education and training that only can be understood in terms of the bitter experience of USAF personnel in the skies over Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s. The air force that America sent to the Persian Gulf in 1990 and 1991 was very much the product of the unacceptable cost of the Vietnam War and a twenty-year struggle by a generation of officers to exorcise the ghosts of dead comrades. Over the two decades since the end of that divisive conflict, the USAF has remade itself to ensure that its Vietnam experience will never happen again.

  THE AIR FORCE CORPORATION

  Like any large organization, the United States Air Force has a corporate culture. That culture is the product of its history and the collective experience of its pe
ople. Just like most big American corporations, it's had mergers and take-overs, reorganizations and purges. The Air Force Corporation started small, grew as a result of the vision of its founding members, and came into its own because it had a unique product at a time when it was needed. It has grown and shrunk as a result of competitive market forces in its own very specialized line of business, where the only customer is the U.S. Congress and ultimately the voters, taxpayers, lobbyists, and political interest groups that shape the law-making and budgeting process. Let's look at some of that history.

  The Aeronautical Division of the U.S. Army Signal Corps was organized on August 1st, 1907, only four years after the Wright brothers' first powered flight. Commanded by a captain, the unit had one Wright biplane and a few mechanics. By 1914, it had become the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps, under a lieutenant colonel; and by 1918, after the United States entered World War I, it was upgraded to the Air Service, under a major general; and then in 1926, during a period of disarmament, it was downgraded to the Army Air Corps. On June 20th, 1941, with the threat of a new war on the horizon, it became the Army Air Forces, now led by a lieutenant general. By 1944, its strength had peaked at 2.3 million personnel, with tens of thousands of aircraft. Finally, on September 18th, 1947, after a forty-year struggle for identity, the U.S. Air Force was born, under the leadership of General Carl "Tooey" Spaatz.