Air Force Special Operations Command’s recent network of so-called “power projection wings” is starting to come back to fruition.
An Air Force press release revealed Wednesday that its special operations branch is within the means of reshaping three wings — two of which had not yet been made public — in a bid to organize for a faster-paced, unpredictable way of war.
Those units are the first Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida; the twenty seventh SOW at Cannon AFB, Recent Mexico; and the 492nd Special Operations Wing, which can move from Hurlburt Field to Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, Air Force Special Operations Command spokesperson Lt. Col. Becky Heyse said Thursday.
AFSOC already uses “power projection” to explain its ability to conduct operations overseas. What’s recent is how the command is looking to arrange and wield those units.
The wings will pull together a variety of special operations missions, from airborne strike and surveillance to ground forces. Each shall be loosely affiliated with a combatant command overseas, like U.S. European Command or U.S. Central Command, to construct regional expertise and grow to be a go-to group of airmen for that area’s hardest missions.
The move is a component of AFSOC’s try and reimagine what its airmen can do after a long time at war in U.S. Central Command. Up to now, that has led to further integration of nontraditional fields like cyber and a push to chop a few of the troops that coordinate airstrikes on the bottom, amongst other shifts.
At Davis-Monthan, the trouble to arise a brand new wing also marks a brand new chapter in air-to-ground combat because the Air Force prepares to retire its A-10C Thunderbolt II attack planes by the tip of the last decade.
The Air Force first noted its intent to create the organization in its fiscal 2024 budget request, which referred to the unit because the “492nd Power Projection Wing” at Davis-Monthan.
Wednesday’s release offered more insight into how the organization will come together over the subsequent five years.
When the 492nd Special Operations Wing relocates from Florida, it’ll hand over its current training mission and as an alternative herald several different units:
- One OA-1K armed overwatch squadron from Hurlburt Field
- An unnamed MC-130J Commando II transport squadron from Cannon, likely the 318th Special Operations Squadron
- A brand new MC-130J squadron
- The twenty first Special Tactics Squadron from Pope Army Airfield, North Carolina
- The twenty second STS from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington
- A brand new 492nd Theater Air Operations Squadron from Duke Field, Florida, which can coordinate Air Force special ops missions world wide
- The thirty fourth Weapons Squadron, a combat search-and-rescue training unit from Nellis AFB, Nevada
- The 88th Test and Evaluation Squadron from Nellis, which is vetting the brand new HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopter
Three A-10C squadrons at Davis-Monthan will shutter, and their nearly 80 “Warthogs” retire, as those units move in.
Along with keeping jobs on the Tucson installation after the A-10 leaves, the Air Force hopes that moving squadrons to Arizona will help protect special operations forces from the consequences of natural disasters — just like the hurricanes that decimate the Gulf of Mexico and East Coast regions every year — in order that airmen can deploy overseas when called upon.
Davis-Monthan was also a gorgeous option due to its proximity to hundreds of thousands of acres of coaching range space in Arizona, the service said.
The Air Force didn’t say whether another bases were considered to host the 492nd SOW. Officials will make a final decision on moving the wing to Arizona following an environmental study.
Heyse said the first and twenty seventh SOWs will largely remain unchanged as a part of the brand new approach to power projection wings. Each organizations fly a various set of platforms, including the tiltrotor CV-22 Osprey, MQ-9 Reaper drone, AC-130J gunship and more.
The brand new OA-1K armed overwatch planes will replace the U-28 fleet on the twenty seventh SOW after nearly twenty years in service.
Meanwhile, the 492nd’s current training missions will scatter.
Its training unit for the AC-130J Ghostrider gunship will as an alternative fall under Air Education and Training Command at Kirtland AFB, Recent Mexico, starting in fiscal 2025. The unit in control of training for the U-28 Draco reconnaissance plane will shut down, because the Air Force retires that fleet for the OA-1K and plans to maneuver the schoolhouse to Will Rogers Air National Guard Base, Oklahoma.
Officials haven’t decided what’s going to grow to be of the training unit that handles the C-146 transport aircraft, Heyse said. And the schoolhouse for other AFSOC support staff, like medics and security forces, will fall under a brand new Air Commando Development Center at Hurlburt.
The middle launched at a July 14 ceremony in Florida.
Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md.), the Washington Post, and others.