New USAF Air Wing established at KAF
The USAF is a generally unreported part of the American surge (via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs):
Update thought: Curiously, in air force ranks based on the RAF, a Group Captain out-ranks a Wing Commander.
AF stands up 2nd wing in AfghanistanThe USAF unit at Kandahar was previously called the 451st Air Expeditionary Group. And note this from April:
The buildup of airmen inside Afghanistan met another milestone with the standing up of the second wing in Afghanistan.
The 451st Air Expeditionary Wing was formally established during a July 2 ceremony at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan.
Commanding the new wing is Brig. Gen. Guy M. Walsh. Before taking the Kandahar assignment, Walsh led the Maryland Air National Guard’s 175th Wing, home to C-130Js and A-10 Thunderbolts. He also served in 2005 as the director of staff for the Combined Air Operations Center at Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
The Air Force has been at Kandahar since 2001, however units there answered to a wing headquartered several hundred miles away at Bagram Airfield.
The mission at Kandahar has steadily grown to include a C-130J squadron, aerial port operations, combat search and rescue sorties and MQ-1 Predator flights.
...Some lumbering American A-10 attack jets known as Warthogs now based in the north of the country are to shift to KAF soon, too...Also from April:
...The Group at Kandahar was under the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing at Bagram Airfield near Kabul. The 772nd Expeditionary Airlift Squadron with C-130Js became part of the unit in March.
By the way, the USAF is flying UAVs, MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers, out of Kandahar Air Field:...
"(Both the MQ-1 and MQ-9 are weapons-carrying aircraft,) and both have a hunter-killer role in addition to their intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities," said Lt. Col. Scott Miller, the 62nd ERS [Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron] commander, who is deployed from the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing at Creech AFB...
Update thought: Curiously, in air force ranks based on the RAF, a Group Captain out-ranks a Wing Commander.
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 3:19 p.m.
5 Comments:
"...Some lumbering American A-10 attack jets"
Lumbering ??
Maybe a Herc "lumbers". The Hog Drivers won't be happy with those who say their aircraft "lumber"
They are Pilots and they too have feelings after all.
"...Some lumbering American A-10 attack jets"
Yeah, Fred, that caught my eye also. While the A-10 is only subsonic, it's hardly "lumbering". The Free Dictionary Online defines "lumbering" as "To walk or move with heavy clumsiness."
The article at Canada.com is attributed to Matthew Fisher of Canwest News Service. Mr. Fisher might want to take, oh, five minutes, to read this basic article at Wikipedia about the A-10 Warthog.
An excerpt from the Design section of the article "...The A-10 has superior maneuverability at low speeds and altitude, thanks to large wing area, high wing aspect ratio, and large ailerons."
If a person is going to represent himself as a knowledgeable professional journalist writing on matters military, he ought to know WTF he's talking about. Or at least do some basic work; five minutes study of the Wiki article wouldn't make him look like the typical clueless journalist to a reader who knows a bit about the subject, when he's writing about military affairs.
Dave in Pa.: I have been present when Mr Fisher has talked about Afstan and other things; he is in fact one of very few Canadian journalists who knows or cares anything about things military. In 2003 he was embedded with a lead US Marine reconnaissance unit fighting to Baghdad; he likes Marines.
I would suspect that he used "lumbering" simply because it's:
a) colourful, and
b) he also knows about F-16s, F-15s, Harriers, etc. and was, in his mind, distinguishing the Warthog from, er, "fast air". A distinction that would elude almost any other Canadian journalist.
Mr Fisher does know "WTF" he's dealing with.
I certainly jump at criticizing journalists (mainly Canadian) but in this case you're not on target.
Mark
Ottawa
Re: groups/wings, the RAF/RCAF-CF go squadron>wing>group; the USAF goes squadron>group>wing. I.e., 2 or more USAF squadrons make a group; two or more groups make a wing.
Primus: Thanks. Did a bit of Googling and came up with this:
"...
In October and November of 1947, the Air Force implemented the Hobson Plan. SAC's basic organizational unit became the Base-Wing. Under this plan, combat squadrons were temporarily assigned to combat groups, which were in turn assigned to a wing. The Wing Commander was an experienced air combat leader. The base support functions - supply, base operations, and medical were assigned to groups, assigned to the wing. The group of this period was really nothing more than an administrative unit and consisted of nothing more than a designated commander and one assistant. As the paper-work caught up with what was actually happening, the combat group was completely discontinued. The administrative unit only survived in non-combat roles. The base and the wing became one and the same unit..."
At least divisions and corps are about the same in the various countries (though in WW II the US used regiment when Commonwealth and Empire [gasp] used brigade).
Mark
Ottawa
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