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Aerospace Power Journal - Spring 2002

Focus: The Shaft of the Spear

Evolution of the Air Force Expeditionary Logistics School

A Revolutionary Approach to the
Employment of Combat Support 

Lt Col J. Reggie Hall, USAF*

*Colonel Hall, currently assigned to Headquarters USAF, Deputy Chief of Staff, Installations and Logistics (IL) as the executive officer to the assistant director, is the president of the Capitol Chapter of the Logistics Officer Association in Washington, D.C.

IN JULY 1999, the Air Force chief of staff initiated the Chief’s Logistics Review, a one-year bottom-up assessment of Air Force logistics. One component of the review- a look at the professional development, education, and training of logistics officers- identified a deficiency in integrated logistics training and revealed a gap between the Air Force’s agile combat support (ACS) logistics doctrine, air expeditionary force (AEF) strategy, and training of logistics officers. A cross-functional training course for logistics officers modeled after the USAF Weapons School program was originally recommended as a solution to bridge the gap among logistics-officer training requirements, ACS doctrinal principles, and AEF employment strategy. Following presentation of the proposal at the Corona meeting in fall 2000, Headquarters ACC was tasked to develop an integration plan for incorporating logistics-officer training at the Weapons School.

Weapons School Logistics Division Concept

Maj Nancy A. P. Stinson and a group of cross-functional logistics officers assigned to the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke AFB, Arizona, articulated the initial Agile Logistics School concept and published their proposal in the Spring 1999 issue of The Exceptional Release.¹ The present article represents the second phase of their business plan to establish an Expeditionary Logistics School (ELS). The author, a member of the original Luke team, further advocated the school idea as an Air Command and Staff College student and initiated an academic research project sponsored by Headquarters USAF’s Directorate of Maintenance to evaluate that concept and recommend a future course of action. The research results and recommendations, used as a baseline justification for the Logistics Division’s presentation at the previously mentioned Corona, provide a more comprehensive description of this effects-based approach to integrated training for logistics officers. The research results were also used by ACC as the blueprint for developing an independent advanced logistics officer school. The new ELS’s first class is scheduled for January 2003.

The conceptual framework of the Weapons School Agile Logistics Course called for developing a selective, expert-level, integrated logistics program to train multifunctional logisticians in the direct support and sustainment of combat operations (fig. 1). The primary objective entailed establishing a formal, resident course that provided in-depth analysis of the operational tenets in all logistics disciplines, as well as the core responsibilities associated with the integration and employment of aerospace power. An element of practical application was proposed to leverage the value and utility of current operational combat training by incorporating the employment and redeployment phases of Red Flag exercises as “hands-on,” performance-based, capstone-training application evaluations in real-world environments. This would have capitalized on existing effects-based, combat-employment scenarios.

Although the Red Flag capstone-exercise option was not included in the ELS curriculum, several practical-application courses were selected to provide a working understanding of combat-support functions. Throughout the syllabus, trips are scheduled to courses offered outside the campus at Nellis AFB, Nevada, that provide necessary instruction for cohesive development of the consummate logistics war fighter. Prime among these are the courses taught by Air Mobility Command, which address combat-support beddown activities, and by the Air Force Combat Ammunition Center (AFCOMAC), which teach weapons buildup and munitions-surge operations. Both are key to a comprehensive understanding of the functions that contribute to successful combat support.²

Doctrinal Support: ACS, EAF, and the
Air Force’s Global Engagement Vision

The Air Force’s Global Engagement vision and expeditionary air force (EAF) strategy focus on the ACS core competency as the foundation for rapid force projection of light, lean, and lethal aerospace power.³ ACS- the cornerstone of Global Engagement and the foundation for the other Air Force core competencies- creates, sustains, and protects all air and space capabilities to accomplish mission objectives across the spectrum of military operations. This definition expands the traditional scope of logistics, which includes maintenance, supply, transportation, and logistics plans, to incorporate the critical support functions of contracting, services, civil engineering, force management, and force protection. The employment of ACS logistics functions mandated in Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2, Organization and Employment of Aerospace Power (17 February 2000)- the service’s “capstone operational” document- authoritatively prescribes cross-functional logistics tasks as key responsibilities of the staff assistant for the A-4 director of logistics. The latter, who reports to the commander of Air Force forces (COMAFFOR), has responsibility for logistics plans, force beddown, transportation, supply, maintenance, services, civil engineering, explosive ordnance disposal, and related logistics activities. However, Air Force logisticians are not taught integrated logistics concepts in their basic, supplemental, or functional training programs.

Current Training for Logistics Officers 

The Air Force does not have an expert-level course that teaches officers operational and tactical logistics concepts and procedures. Further, the diverse technical-training schools for logistics officers do not teach employment tactics for expeditionary logistics. Supplemental logistics courses focus on deliberate and crisis-action planning, deployment/redeployment, and planning/execution:

During the development and production of the [Expeditionary] Logistics Officer School syllabus, the ACC implementation team surveyed available instruction relative to the subject matter to avoid duplicating existing efforts. Their investigation verified that although certain components of instruction may be found scattered among some existing courses, the fact remains that there is no centralized course of instruction dedicated to the development, in senior captains, of the leadership skills and knowledge of the tactics, techniques, and procedures necessary to produce combat sorties and associated combat support in contingency operations at a deployed location.⁴ 

The absence of training in logistics employment and sustainment has created deficiencies in the professional development of combat-support and logistics officers. Due to this lack of training, logistics officers are not prepared to perform the very duties they are deployed to accomplish.

Company grade logisticians commonly have responsibility for any or all of the logistics functions at a deployed location. Commanding a team of 35–50 personnel who represent the broad spectrum of logistics specialties, these young officers are usually the resident experts and senior logisticians on site during a 120-day deployment. Logisticians deployed with expeditionary forces often learn “on the job” how to support a provisional logistics squadron at an air base or how to function as a COMAFFOR’s A-4 staff officer. Therefore, the lack of training for expeditionary logistics officers constitutes a critical deficiency in the implementation of the Air Force’s EAF/AEF strategy. It was necessary to develop the ELS with an integrated curriculum to encompass all required facets of effects-based logistics instruction.

Effect on the War Fighter

The increased operations tempo and corresponding personnel tempo required to meet the objectives of Global Engagement have driven a need to reduce the number of personnel who support AEF deployments. Reducing the logistics “footprint” in the area of responsibility (AOR) to the minimum number of specialists necessary is based on the assumption that technicians have a very good knowledge of what they are doing. Unfortunately, that baseline assumption is wrong. Most logistics officers deploy without cross-functional expertise or training and in many cases are exposed to their integrated functional responsibilities for the first time during a deployment. Officers who learn on the job take a significant amount of time to become familiar with the diversity of deployed logistics functions and to become proficient in managing the myriad of ACS operations. The pegged learning curve causes difficulty for anyone who has to make key decisions affecting logistics outputs. Accelerating the learning curve becomes paramount in the AOR, where time is precious and every minute wasted by having to learn on the job is a minute closer to mission failure. If logistics cannot support the sequence of events in the operational plan, it is not a plan at all but simply an expression of fanciful wishes.

Reducing the ACS learning curve in initial combat operations is also vital in supporting expeditionary aerospace forces. A RAND feasibility study briefed at the Agile Logistics Users meeting in 1998 supported the EAF’s 48-hour bombs-on-target concept of operations. It noted that in order to meet the 48-hour mark, challenging logistics-support timelines would have to be achieved and maintained, with little room for error or delay.⁵ Failure to recognize the time required to provide logistics support or delays caused by logisticians’ having to learn on the job may force operational commanders to change plans, thus affecting the air campaign or impeding opportunities to exploit the enemy’s weakness. Reports from F-15, F-16, and F-117 aircraft-maintenance officers deployed to Southwest Asia over the past several years have indicated that a lack of expertise in integrated logistics employment has hampered initial sortie generation.⁶ For example, F-15 maintenance officers deployed to Saudi Arabia noted that several factors- including a lack of sustainment capability- drove the aircraft mission-capable rate below 50 percent after only a month of combat sorties.⁷

Although there are integrated logistics-training shortfalls across the full spectrum of logistics ranks at all levels--tactical, operational, and strategic--guidance from senior Air Force leadership is specific about the target audience for the ELS. The primary focus of this new school is on the tactical level of operations at the wing, both home and deployed. Further, it is targeted for the company grade officer with a specific background and at a specific career juncture. The foundational objective of the ELS is to train this officer to become a skilled practitioner of effects-based logistics.⁸ This does not imply that senior leadership is less concerned with the broader spectrum of logistics-training shortfalls; however, this initial effort is focused on addressing the most critical need first.

Expeditionary Logistics School:
Value Added to the War Fighter

An in-residence, integrated logistics course will institutionalize standard instruction in logistics employment at the tactical level and provide the Air Force with a corps of expert logisticians educated in the practical application of functions across the full spectrum of logistics disciplines. The focus of the course, as defined by the Air Force logistics community, is on the phases of a contingency operation.⁹ The ELS will offer blocks of instruction in mobilization, deployment, beddown, combat employment, redeployment, reconstitution, sustainment, and command and control (C²) consistent with the Agile Logistician proposal (table 1). It will also bridge the gap in the professional development of logistics officers and create experts in the application of expeditionary logistics concepts.

Table 1
Strawman Course Outline

 Source: Briefing, Lt Col Diane Tatterfield, ACC/LGQT, January 2002

The original Agile Logistician proposal was designed to integrate logisticians into the current mix of operational-weapons/tactics-school students at Nellis AFB and enhance the training-environment site picture by bringing ACS perspectives to the table- similar to the integration of space operators several years ago. The incorporation of critical logistics tactics, techniques, and procedures necessary to generate airpower employment was seen as a catalyst for infusing a more holistic perspective into the “train as we fight” academic environment and better prepare future Air Force senior leaders. The end product of the original Weapons School Agile Logistics Course was envisioned as a better-qualified logistician, fully equipped to immediately employ resources for the provisional commander or AEF commander of the future.

Although the Air Force chief of staff decided not to associate the ELS with the Weapons School at this time, the beddown of the school will be at Nellis AFB. The two entities will remain separate until such time as the ELS demonstrates its validity and credibility through the performance of its graduates. At that time, the ELS could be incorporated into the Weapons School as a fully vested division. Association potential aside, key components of the Weapons Instructor Course (WIC), such as course design, rigor, and active-mission curriculum content, are essential to the success of the Weapons School and are in line with the recommendations of the Agile Logistician Course concept. In light of the format’s proven success, efforts were made to mirror these components as much as possible while keeping firmly in hand the training requirements specified by Air Force senior leadership.¹⁰ 

Adding Logistics to the “Family of
Patches”: One Team, One Fight

The legacies of the Weapons School and Red Flag stand as prime examples of Air Force training programs driven by operational combat requirements. Building experts in effects-based logistics and providing them realistic training in combat-support employment are just as critical to the successful employment of the AEF today as they were for tactical aviation in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. The Air Force cannot afford to have deployed logisticians learning on the job as it executes theater airpower operations. We must train logistics officers and develop their expertise in expeditionary logistics and ACS competencies to leverage logistics and improve combat capability. We need this course in order to train logisticians in EAF beddown, sustainment, and redeployment. Just as the operations community trains by using Red Flag, combined force air component commander (CFACC) exercises, and C² exercises, so does the logistics community need realistic training to create the world’s most effective expeditionary logisticians. Applying lessons learned from combat-aviation training to create the ELS provides an opportunity to benefit from the Air Force’s history and places expeditionary combat support, as an operational imperative, on equal footing with aerospace operational art that war-fighting commanders use to shape and influence the battle space.

We must train as we fight, and that means having realistic, in-time, and combat-oriented logistics training as well! The ELS syllabus includes a component addressing weapons-systems capabilities and employment that would be taught by WIC instructors. The intent is to provide the logistics officer an operational focus on and understanding of the significance of selected sorties in overall combat operations. This understanding not only allows the expeditionary logistician to better anticipate the demands of a fluid combat environment, but also provides the insight to recommend viable alternatives to facilitate operational intent (e.g., selection of beddown airfields that reduce initial deployment requirements for specific combat/mission-support aircraft). The company grade logistician will be challenged to comprehend the complete picture of aerospace power projection and develop the insight to effectively leverage combat-support elements, thus becoming an indispensable part of the global strike team.¹¹

The ELS will give war-fighting commanders special expertise in the employment of agile combat support and will leverage effects-based logistics to improve combat capability. This revolutionary concept lies outside the development process for traditional logistics officers. Currently, no other training venue for combat-support specialists focuses on outside, technical logistics functions and considers the interdisciplinary spectrum of combat-support actions required to prosecute an air campaign successfully. Logistics officers who successfully complete the ELS will truly be war fighters in every sense of the word! 

Washington, D.C.

Notes

1. Maj Nancy A. P. Stinson, Capt Malcolm E. Blair, and Capt Alex E. Dubovik, “Employment of the Agile Logistician: Future EAF Leaders Propose Creation of a Loggie Weapons School Counterpart to Meet New Challenge,” The Exceptional Release, no. 73 (Spring 1999): 14–16.

2. Carl A. Cafiero and Margaret Timmons, “Preface,” Core Curriculum for the Advanced Logistics Officer School to Complete CORONA Fall Tasker, CFOOT-18, no. F44650-01-F-0013 (Washington, D.C.: Synergy Inc., 28 September 2001).

3. Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force (Washington, D.C.: United States Air Force, 1997).

4. Cafiero and Timmons.

5. Robert S. Tripp et al., Enhancing the Effectiveness of Expeditionary Aerospace Forces through Integrated Agile Combat Support Planning, RAND Report DRR-1857-AF (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, May 1999), 7.

6. Col Ralph J. Templin, “Desert Shield Lessons Learned—First 30 Days,” report sent to Headquarters Tactical Air Command, 27 September 1990, in Capt James D. Allen and 1st Lt M. Brian Bedesem, “Deploying and Sustaining an F-117A Expeditionary Fighter Squadron: Why Agile Combat Support Is Needed Now,” Air Force Journal of Logistics 22, no. 4 (Winter 1998): 32–36.

7. Capt Ben Davis, “War Stories, Great Expectations . . . ,” The Exceptional Release, no. 69 (Spring 1998): 13, 15.

8. Cafiero and Timmons.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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