deploying unit is the 82nd Airborne Division) and/or the 347th (if the 24th Mechanized Infantry is used) will be getting ready to move and be in place when their associated ground units arrive in-theater. Unlike Operation Desert Shield, where this level of deployment took weeks, the whole sequence will take days. The idea is to respond so rapidly that a crisis can be contained, rather than become a drawn-out campaign.
With the initial phase completed, the deployment will transition to a more sustained pace. Additional fighter units will deploy, the bombers will continue their strike operations, and a sustained tanker air bridge will be established. During this transition phase, the 366th would be generating ATOs for all of the deployed forces, as well as for the bomber/tanker missions coming in from the United States. Should host or coalition aircraft wish to join in, they can supply their own command and control hookups into the 366th Air Operations Center (AOC). And if the crisis were to escalate, or the tempo of operations grow, you would probably see a full-sized theater-level JFACC Tactical Air Control Center (TACC) from one of the numbered air forces dispatched to relieve the 366th AOC. At this point, air operations would intensify, and you would see a sustained Op Tempo similar to that of Operation Desert Storm.
This is the current scheme for deploying airpower with ACC. Whether it survives the first hours of a crisis remains to be seen. But given the experience of some of the people who have worked on these plans, it represents the best use of the available ACC assets today. Of course, as new aircraft, weapons, and sensors come on-line, the plans will be altered to suit the new situation.
No military operations plan ever runs completely as designed. When General Horner laid out the deployment plan for Operation Desert Shield in August 1990, he did it in an office in CENTCOM headquarters at MacDill AFB near Tampa, by himself, on a pad of paper with a pencil. No other JTF commander will
ACC TOMORROW: COUNTDOWN TO 2001
And what of the future? The next few years will be, if anything, more dangerous and uncertain than the last few. Given the wild rush of events since Mikhail Gorbachev took power in 1985, we can only imagine what the final years of the 20th century will bring.
So what will ACC look like as it moves towards the 21st century? Almost certainly it will be smaller. Older types of aircraft such as the B-52 and F-111 will disappear, and the small fleet of B-2A Spirit bombers will make itself felt. Also arriving will be the first of the new F-22A stealth air superiority fighters which will revolutionize air- to-air warfare. It would be nice to think that these new airframes will be bought in the kind of numbers that will make them decisive in future combat situations. But with B-2A production limited by Congress to a mere twenty airframes, and the F-22 production run planned at just 442 units, such hopes may be just that. Hopes. Nevertheless, it has been an Air Force tradition to equip their aircrews with the best that the American treasury can buy, despite the numbers involved. Also, there is a firm commitment by USAF leadership to keep critical design and manufacturing capabilities from wasting away. The USAF needs to maintain its share of the defense industrial base. Three areas that General Loh has identified as critical are:
• Design, development, testing, and production of bomber and fighter stealth airframes such as the F-22, F- 117, and B-2.
• Design, development, testing, and production of heavy airlift aircraft such as the C-17, capable of carrying outsized cargo loads.
• High-speed computer and electronics design to support improved avionics capabilities, as well as improving reliability and maintainability of new and existing aircraft.
In particular, he would like to see continued low-rate production (two to three a year) of the B-2, so that the bomber force might stabilize at around 120 airframes (say, 80 B-1Bs and 40 B-2s) at the turn of the century. In this way the force would remain both credible and survivable following the retirement of the last of the B-52s. As for the F-22, that is another problem. Recently, senior Administration officials proposed that the F-22 program should be 'stretched out' so that the new fighter's service introduction would be delayed until around the year 2005. This would undoubtedly result in a rapid escalation of the program's cost and force ACC to push their already limited and aging fleet of F-15Cs to last another five years more than planned. It may well be that the program stretch will be required. But it will come at a high price in time and treasure. The old adage 'Pay me now, or pay me later' was never truer than in the game of defense procurement.
As for the rest of the ACC combat force, there will be a modest series of upgrades. Addition of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and new Have Quick II radios will certainly be applied across the board. These are relatively low-cost upgrades which will be felt across the whole of the USAF. A more subtle upgrade is being applied across the entire ACC fleet in the form of improved sensors to target improved weapons. Some of these are as simple as software upgrades to enable a greater percentage of the ACC fighter force to fire the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile. Others — such as adding the AN/ASQ- 213 HTS pods to the Block 50/52 F-16C — cost a bit more, yet provide a cost-effective, interim replacement for an existing but dying capability. Still others, like the AIM-9X version of the classic Sidewinder air-to-air missile and the new series of air-to-ground munitions, are costly, but necessary to maintain the credibility of a shrinking force. It is important that Congress and the American people understand that the money spent on these programs is not just being spent to protect the stock values of defense contractor shareholders, but to maintain the very credibility of our military forces. A bit of money spent today may prevent an aggressor from deciding that tomorrow is a good day to test the will of America and her allies. A war never fought is always the cheapest war. We should always look for the
Another financial problem for ACC, and the entire U.S. military, is that they must bear the burden of an unnecessary support infrastructure that is essentially a large public works program for members of Congress. Let me explain. Unless you have been on Venus the last few years, you probably have heard something about the Base Reduction and Closing (BRAC) Commission which has been recommending the closing or realignment (i.e., reorganization) of various surplus military facilities around the United States. The fights over which bases will remain and which will be closed have been among the most vicious and partisan in memory. Because of the loss of civilian jobs inherent in any base closing, individual members of the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate have taken the fight to keep pet facilities open to sometimes absurd lengths.
For the USAF and ACC, this has meant they have been forced to keep facilities open and paid for that they simply do not require or desire. For example, the USAF currently maintains five Air Logistics Centers (ALCs) around the United States. These are massive facilities, where the Air Force modifies or rebuilds aircraft of virtually every kind. However, the requirement for five ALCs was set for the USAF during the Cold War, not with the reduced force of today. Senior USAF officials have publicly stated to me that they only require two ALCs to service the current USAF fleet. The ALCs at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma (near Oklahoma City), and Hill AFB, Utah (near Ogden, Utah), have won awards for their facilities and personnel, and they can handle, with capacity and capability to spare, every aircraft in the USAF. Yet mainly due to the efforts of the congressional delegations of California, Texas, and Georgia where the endangered facilities are located, the Air Force has been unable to close any of the excess facilities. Between payroll and O&M costs, each ALC probably costs the USAF close to a billion dollars a year to keep open. Just the savings from closing these three facilities could support between ten and fifteen wings of combat aircraft every year!
Bases are, of course, not the only pork in the military budget. The USAF and other services are also forced to bear the financial strain of buying weapons and systems they do not need or desire, so that a contractor can be sustained in a home state or district. I wonder at times how the shame does not show on the faces of those elected and appointed to serve the people. So, will the Air Force and other services ever be allowed to cut the unnecessary overhead costs from their budgets? Doubtful to impossible. Closings cost votes, and the members of Congress much prefer to let our combat forces shrink than suffer a loss at the polls.
It should also be said that USAF leadership would love to restructure their support facilities to get more out of them. One of the more interesting ideas I have heard is the concept of merging all U.S. military flight test facilities and test pilot schools into a small group of consolidated facilities in the open areas of the western United
