AFSOC plans to station more aircraft and people overseas, apportioned and immediately available to the TSOCs of Europe, the Pacific, and Africa. The 352nd SOG in Europe will be first to receive new aircraft, and Group Commander Col. Christopher Ireland said that Her Majesty’s Government announced approval for the arrival of permanently stationed CV-22s in 2013. Additionally, the 352nd is planning to grow from approximately 750 personnel to more than 1,100. In addition to the new CV-22 squadron, there will be additional C-130s, increased numbers of ST airmen, and required support personnel.

Aircraft, organic to the TSOCs, prove to be a primary enabler for mission performance on a time-critical basis, and Fiel is determined to provide mobility assets that will include vertical-lift capability. Fiel explained that the overseas groups have traditionally been the nucleus of overseas deployments, with barely enough aircraft and people to get things started in a crisis, but with not enough to support large or long-term sustained operations. His intent is that the overseas groups will have enough aircraft to support fully the operations their TSOCs may be tasked to perform, without having to await deployment orders from the Pentagon or airlift priorities to position augmenting stateside forces.

AFSOC planners also have produced options of placing the complete spectrum of its inventory of aircraft into the overseas groups. In fact, the offer to do so has gone to U.S. SOCOM and has garnered support from the superior command. Approval to place such aircraft as AC-130 gunships, U-28 manned ISR aircraft, smaller mobility aircraft, such as the C-146A (Dornier 328), and the AvFID C-145s will be problematic for the countries of the possible beddown of the aircraft. Fiel explained that he fully expects stationing of all the aircraft overseas will be approved in the United States, but the gunships may not be approved by the prospective host nations. He said the proposal may be approved eventually, but the overseas groups may not have all of their assets located at the same base, or even in the same country. “All of this will take a while to sort out,” he said. “We don’t have a beddown location for the CV-22 in the Pacific yet, and the rest of it will come even later.”

Asked about AFSOC’s inventory and acquisitions, Brig. Gen. Marshall B. “Brad” Webb, AFSOC director of Plans, Programs, Requirements, and Assessments, Headquarters, A-5, detailed the numbers of aircraft procured as of the end of 2012. AFSOC has 10 of 10 programmed PC-12s; 10 of 16 programmed C-145s; and 12 of 17 C-146s. Of the programmed MC-130Js, 13 of 57 are delivered; of the programmed 37 AC-130Js, only one is delivered (which will be the developmental prototype). Webb stated also that the budgetary turmoil in Washington and in the Pentagon budget will, no doubt, affect the production numbers in the future of aircraft procurements. It could take up to 10 years to acquire all of the programmed planes, but he also anticipates that the support for AFSOC’s program will hold together, and AFSOC will get the aircraft in the plan.

Fiel makes the argument that the program is also extremely cost effective for the Pentagon and for the country. When all of the C-130s in AFSOC are based on the same C-130J airframe, the amount of cargo aircraft needed to support deployment to crisis locations will shrink significantly, as will the time needed to position forces, so he believes the program will be supported to completion.

 

The Future of AFSOC Is a Future of People in Service

AFSOC’s planned posture, if fully approved and executed, would mean that almost half of the command’s people and aircraft would be stationed overseas. Also, half of the command that will be stationed in the United States will be placed at Cannon, acknowledged by all as an austere location itself. When questioned about personnel retention, given that posture of AFSOC assets, Webb admitted that leadership will have to work to keep the people involved in their mission and convince them to stay for long-term careers. Noting that AFSOC people have spent much of their time in pretty austere places and apart from their families, he did not think the planned laydown of bases would be a big problem. He also stated that the probability that this plan will be fully approved by the prospective overseas partner nations is presently unknown. Approval of it all is far from a sure thing, he said, and it will be many years into the future before the potential problem can be fully manifested, giving AFSOC people plenty of time to adjust. In short, he did not see much difficulty ahead.

Fiel gave a slightly different view. AFSOC airmen are devoted to their missions. As they are deployed less to combat than in the recent past, he said, that presents the retention problem, if any. Having AFSOC adjust to most of its operations being peacetime training, exercises, and developing integrated operations with partner nations – preparing for future conflict rather than fighting current conflicts – will be the challenge for leadership in the near-term future. Over the past 12 years, the command has been totally engaged in wars and active combat, and most of the people in AFSOC joined up with expectations of that type of life and service in mind. Adjusting to the indirect mission of the long-term building of the Global SOF Network, a training environment, and occasional – not continuous – combat will challenge AFSOC’s airmen to achieve new and different things in the future. There will be some who leave, but the vast majority are devoted to their adjusting missions and will remain so. No problem.

This article was first published in The Year in Special Operations: 2013-2014 Edition.