Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing

by Tom Clancy

  And so you get your first introduction to the most exciting combat unit in the U.S. Air Force today, the 366th Wing. Note that I say “Wing.” Not “Fighter Wing” or “Bombardment Wing,” but just “Wing.” The 366th is made up of five flying squadrons, including a mix of fighters, bombers, and tankers, thus, its unofficial title of “Composite Wing.” As such, it is controversial, since single-type aircraft wings have been the norm in the United States Air Force since World War II. Mixing up different kinds of aircraft in the same wing makes hardcore traditionalists very nervous. The traditionalists are wrong . . . in this case. If the Air Force is to meet all of its worldwide commitments, especially with the huge drawdown in Air Force strength since the end of the Cold War, they’re going to need an edge. The 366th and the composite wing concept is just such an edge.

  THE COMPOSITE WING CONCEPT

  The 366th is the product of Air Force experience in Operation Desert Storm . . . as well as what might have happened during Operation Desert Shield in August 1990 if Iraq had continued south into Saudi Arabia after the invasion of Kuwait. In that anxious time, because of its long reach and ability to react quickly, airpower was critical to the defense of the Saudi oil fields. And yet, except for a pair of United States Navy (USN) Carrier Air Wings (CVWs), American airpower was slow to reach the area; and the two CVWs would have had a hard time stopping any Iraqi advance south. It took weeks to deploy enough air units to block an Iraqi strike into Saudi Arabia or the Emirates. Worse yet was the condition of their units when they arrived. Munitions and supporting equipment they would need to sustain an air campaign were scarce.

  The official badge of the 366th Wing, the “Gunfighters.” U.S. Air Force

  When the forces were at last deployed, there were doubts about how effective they would be in this “come as you are” war—without time for the kind of detailed planning and meticulous preparation military organizations love. As it happened—fortunately—General Chuck Horner had six months (August ’90 to January ’91) to get his forces and supplies in place, plan his strikes, and train his forces before he initiated offensive air operations. But the next dictator with expansionist ambitions may not be so foolish as to give us six months to get ready.

  Time. Time is the enemy if you are responding to a fast-breaking situation. Time always seems to be on the other guy’s side. Given time, that dictator might gain recognition for his actions and (alleged) grievances in the halls of international organizations like the United Nations. He might also have time to dig in his forces and make their position too costly to recapture. Time can kill you. The British effort to retake the Falkland Islands from Argentina in 1982 ultimately hinged on their ability to rapidly move a handful of Harrier and Sea Harrier jump jets into the area to provide air cover for their forces. The planes had to travel eight thousand miles by ship. And the hard-fought air campaign barely resulted in victory.

  Time . . . Quick response of integrated, combat-ready airpower in a come-as-you-are war . . .

  These thoughts buzzed around the collective brains of ACC. In Desert Shield we were lucky, they knew. But they also knew we needed something better than luck. One idea they tried came from the USAF’s past—composite wings. These units have gone by many names. In World War II they were Air Commando Wings. During the Cold War they were Tactical Reconnaissance Wings. Whatever the name, they were created and used to solve an immediate problem.

  In Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War at Al Kharj Air Base, the 4th Composite Wing (Provisional) was made up of an F-15C squadron from the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW) at Bitburg Airbase (AB), Germany, two squadrons of F-15Es from the 4th TFW at Seymour Johnson AFB, South Carolina, and a pair of Air National Guard (ANG) F-16 squadrons from New York and South Carolina. Another, even more unusual, composite unit was based at Incirlik AB in Turkey. Dubbed the 7440th Composite Wing, it was made up of no less than a dozen squadrons and detachments flying several different kinds of aircraft, a miniature air force unto itself. The 7440th was charged with running the air effort out of Turkey during Desert Storm (under the operational code name of Proven Force). And it represented the American effort in northern Iraq during and after the war, when it became the covering element for Operation Provide Comfort, the Kurdish relief effort in northern Iraq.

  After the war, the lessons from Desert Storm were carefully analyzed to see what might have been done better, faster, and more efficiently. For the USAF leadership back in the Pentagon, one obvious lesson was the need to rapidly move integrated, combat-ready airpower into a crisis area, where it would either help defuse the developing crisis or actually begin combat operations, while follow-on forces arrived to take over the main effort.

  As a result of these studies, the concept of special-purpose composite wings for specific missions was resurrected. Many different people within the Air Force had a hand in making this happen. General Mike Dugan, who was USAF Chief of Staff prior to Desert Shield and Desert Storm, proposed the idea to the USAF Air Staff. Following the war, the idea gained support from officers like Chuck Horner and Colonel John Warden who conducted a study of the concept. The final decision came from then-USAF Chief of Staff General Merrill “Tony” McPeak in the fall of 1991. As part of his general reorganization of the Air Force in 1992, McPeak authorized the creation of the 23rd Wing at Pope AFB, North Carolina, and the 366th Wing at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho. The 23rd was charged with supporting the rapid deployment units of the XVIII Airborne Corps (the primary ground component of CENTCOM), particularly the 82nd Airborne Division at nearby Fort Bragg, North Carolina, while the 366th Wing was formed to provide a rapidly deployable air interdiction force to deter or defeat enemy forces, and to provide a nucleus for other arriving air forces in an area. Both units were “stood up” in January 1992, being formed on the shells of two wings that were in the process of being shut down.

  Getting the two wings up and running has created great challenges, the largest of which has been the cost of operating a unit with five different kinds of aircraft, ranging from fighters and bombers to tankers. Adverse publicity from a midair collision at Pope AFB didn’t help either. In March 1994, a pair of 23rd Wing aircraft, an F-16 and a C-130, crashed into each other. The wreckage of the F-16 then struck a C-141 loaded with paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne, killing twenty-three and injuring dozens more.

  After the crash, composite wings took a lot of flak from critics, who charged that the wide variety of aircraft flying in the pattern had something to do with the accident. The charge was absurd, and the critics knew it: Nellis AFB, Nevada, is the largest and busiest air force base in the world. During exercises, Nellis often has over a dozen different aircraft types in the pattern at one time, and has not had a midair in anyone’s memory. The reason the critics were upset had little to do with the tragic accident. They just hated the idea of composite wings.

  Despite the difficulties, composite wings appear to be working—working so well that a third such unit, the 347th Wing at Moody AFB, Georgia, has been formed to work with the XVIII Airborne Corps. Meanwhile, the 23rd Wing completed a highly successful deployment to Kuwait during the crisis that erupted in the fall of 1994, when a pair of Iraqi Republican Guard Divisions moved into the Basra area. Two of the 23rd’s squadrons, one each of F-16Cs and C-130s, rapidly deployed to the region as part of a much larger airpower deployment, with virtually every kind of USAF aircraft contributing (several hundred aircraft were involved). Though the 23rd did not fly combat sorties, this first real-world use of a composite wing has to be judged a success. The Iraqis backed off. This, in fact, is the ultimate goal of airpower: to be so formidable that a potential foe chooses not to fight.

  THE GUNFIGHTERS: A UNIT HISTORY

  The Air Force has always tended to form new units and disband existing ones with a reckless disregard for the niceties of military tradition. Thus, tracing the lineage of Air Force units can become a frustrating exercise, since the identifying unit numbers jump around so much. But following the story of the 366t
h is not at all frustrating; it is a unit with a long and proud service history.

  As you walk into the wing headquarters building at 366 Gunfighter Boulevard (yes, that’s really the address!), you are surrounded by evidence of that history. Photos, plaques, and citations cover the walls. The men who look out from those pictures seem almost to say to the new members of the wing, “This is what you must live up to.”

  The wing started life as the 366th Fighter Group at Richmond Army Air Base, Virginia. Flying P-47 Thunderbolt fighters, they moved to Thruxton, England, in January 1944, and began to fly missions over the continent in March of that year. During 1944, they flew cover for the Normandy invasion and subsequent breakout, right through the Battle of the Bulge in December. They flew their last mission on May 3rd, 1945, and became part of the postwar occupation force until their inactivation on August 20th, 1946.

  The 366th Fighter Group was reactivated on January 1st, 1953, at Alexandria Air Force Base, Louisiana, as part of another unit, the 366th Fighter Bomber Wing, flying the P/F-51 Mustang and F-86 Sabrejet. After a series of European deployments, the Group converted in 1956 to the F-84F Thunder-streak, then in 1957 to the F-100 Super Sabre. At that time, the 366th Fighter Group was inactivated, with its flying squadrons being absorbed by the 366th Fighter Bomber Wing. The wing conducted an overseas deployment to Turkey and Italy during the Lebanon Crisis in 1958. Shortly afterwards, it was redesignated as the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW), but was inactivated again within a year. Cold War tensions in the early 1960s caused the 366th’s reactivation, at Chaumont Airbase in France on April 30th, 1962. Flying F-84Fs again, they stayed at Chaumont for just fifteen months, then moved to Holloman AFB, New Mexico, in July 1963.

  In February 1965, the 366th transitioned to the aircraft they are most closely identified with, the F-4C Phantom II. After spending a year getting accustomed to their new aircraft, they moved in March 1966 to Phan Rang Air Base in South Vietnam, and began their first combat operations since 1945. In October 1966, they moved to Danang Air Base and began to fly against targets in North Vietnam. On November 5th, two crews from the wing’s 480th Tactical Fighter Squadron (TFS) scored their first kills against North Vietnamese MiGs. The kills came hard, though, because of reliability problems with U.S. air-to-air missiles. In April 1967, the crews of the 366th began to fly with new 20mm Gatling gun pods slung under their Phantoms’ bellies, and began to shoot MiGs out of the sky with regularity. When the slaughter of the MiGs was over in May 1967 (they scored a total of eleven kills during the period), the automatic cannons had earned the 366th the nickname they would carry from then on: “Gunfighters.” In December 1967, the 366th converted to the -D model of the Phantom, continuing to fly out of Danang. For their air-to-air successes the previous year, they received a Presidential Unit Citation in December 1968. With the withdrawal of other USAF units in 1969 and 1970, they became the only wing stationed in South Vietnam. The wing was highly active during the 1972 Easter Invasion of the South, which forced a move to the Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base in June of that year. During the period, they scored five more MiG kills over North Vietnam, earning another Presidential Unit Citation, awarded in 1974.

  Aircraft from the 366th Wing fly over the Pyramids with fighters of the Egyptian Air Force during Operation Bright Star ’93. With the wing deployed to Cairo West Airfield, Bright Star allowed it an early opportunity to test deployment plans in a “real world” environment. Official U.S. Air Force Photo

  In October 1972, the wing abandoned its aircraft and equipment to other units at Takhli, and headed back to the United States to what has been their home ever since—Mountain Home AFB, Idaho. There they took over the F-111Fs and equipment of the inactivated 347th TFW, and in 1975, became the first Tactical Air Command (TAC) unit to win a Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombing competition, code-named High Noon. In August 1976, the wing deployed a squadron of F-111Fs to Korea to take part in a “show of force,” following a border incident in which several U.S. soldiers were killed. Following the squadron’s return in September of that year, the 366th sent its fleet of F-111Fs to the 48th TFW at RAF Lakenheath, England, in February 1977, under Operation Ready Switch. These were replaced by F-111As from the 474th TFW at Nellis AFB. Following the aircraft swap, the wing took over the training and replacement function for the F-111 community. They continued this mission throughout the 1980s, as well as taking on a new mission as the keeper of the Air Force’s newest electronic warfare aircraft, the EF-111A Raven. Starting in 1981, the wing took delivery of these aircraft and trained to take them into combat. Eventually, the Ravens of the 366th went into action with the 390th Electronic Combat Squadron (ECS), providing jamming support for Operation Just Cause, the December 1989 invasion of Panama. But about this time, the planned post-Cold War drawdowns began to hit the 366th, with the 391st ECS being inactivated. Then, in August 1990, portions of the remaining Raven squadron, the 390th ECS, deployed to Taif Airbase in Saudi Arabia. There they served throughout Operation Desert Storm and the period just after. By March 1991, the bulk of the Squadron’s aircraft and crews had returned to Mountain Home, where they awaited what seemed to be an inevitable inactivation under the planned Bush Administration force drawdown.

  Then in April 1991, General McPeak’s decision to remake the 366th into a composite wing was announced, and the people at Mountain Home began the process of turning an EW wing into the most powerful combat wing in the Air Force. In July 1991, Brigadier General William S. Hinton, Jr., took over the wing to supervise the transition. By the end of 1991, a small force of F-16s and F-15Es had arrived, and the squadrons began to form up. At the same time, the 366th continued to support the postwar no-fly zone over Iraq with the remaining EF-111As, deployed to Saudi Arabia for Operation Southern Watch.

  As 1992 rolled along, the last of the wing’s EF-111As were transferred to the 429th ECS of the 27th TFW at Cannon AFB, New Mexico; and in March 1992, the new composite wing squadrons were activated within the shells of the 366th’s old squadrons. The 389th became the F-16 squadron, with the 390th and 391st being equipped with F-15Cs and F-15Es respectively. At the same time, new Operations and Logistics Groups were activated, joining the existing supporting units of the wing. In July, the 366th took control of the 34th Bombardment Squadron, equipped with B-52Gs and based at Castle AFB, California. While geographically separated from Mountain Home, the 34th is owned and operated by the 366th. The final squadron of the new organization came into being when the 22nd Air Refueling Squadron (ARS) brought their KC-135R tankers to Mountain Home in October of 1992. Now complete, the 366th began to train as a combined unit and to explore their new capabilities and equipment.

  Over the next year, the wing continued to mature, though not without some changes and challenges. In July 1993, Brigadier General David J. McCloud arrived to take over from General Hinton, bringing with him the experience of two previous wing command tours. The highlight of the year was an overseas fall deployment to the Middle East as one of the core units of Operation Bright Star ’94. Unfortunately, the 366th lost some ground at the end of 1993, when Secretary of Defense Les Aspin decreed the immediate retirement of the entire B-52G force. This included the 34th BS at Castle AFB, which was the last such unit to stand down (in November 1993). Despite the loss, Air Combat Command was solidly behind the composite wing concept, and provisions were made to replace the B-52s.

  As 1994 rolled around, there were big changes ahead for the 366th, starting with the arrival of a brand-new batch of Block 52 F-16Cs (with their powerful F-100-PW-229 engines), fresh off the Fort Worth assembly line. These were equipped with the new Texas Instruments AN/ASQ-213 HARM Targeting System (HTS) pods, as well as HARM missiles to conduct defense suppression missions. And in April 1994 the 34th BS was reconstituted at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, equipped with the B-1B Lancer. Other additions included the Joint Tactical Information Data System (JTIDS) data link systems to the F-15Cs of the 390th FS, and AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles for every aircraft in the wing’s t
hree fighter squadrons.

  The wing was still assimilating these changes in the winter of 1994 when a training deployment (Operation Northern Edge) took the 366th to Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, for Arctic operations with units from the Pacific Air Forces (PACAF). Then in April, the wing flew to Nellis AFB, Nevada, to become a core unit for the most important training exercise in ACC, Green Flag 94-3. Joined by units from all over ACC, the 366th spent two weeks testing out their planned concept of operations (CONOPS) in a real-world EW environment over the Nevada desert. This would be the last exercise for “Marshal” McCloud as commander; he turned over command of the Wing in August to Brigadier General Lansford “Lanny” Trapp, Jr.

  Meanwhile, the 34th BS was standing up at Ellsworth AFB, watching nervously over their shoulders as their host unit, the 28th Bombardment Wing (BW), endured a Congressionally mandated readiness test known as Operation Dakota Challenge, to evaluate the continued viability of the B-1B within ACC. By late in 1994, the new squadron was ready for their own test, and it took part in a Global Power/Global Reach deployment to the Far East. Flying non-stop from Ellsworth, with the aid of midair refueling, two 34th BS Bones took part in the fiftieth anniversary of the retaking of the Philippines, dropping full loads of 500 lb./227.3 kg. bombs on a Leyte bomb range, then returning to Anderson AFB, Guam. After running training and “presence” missions to Korea, they returned to Ellsworth AFB on October 27th, 1994, less than six months after the 34th had stood up.

  The 366th Wing is a unit on the move, headed into its sixth decade of service. From the aircrews who fly the missions to the enlisted airmen who turn the wrenches, pound the keyboards, and load the weapons, you can sense a feeling of pride in belonging to an elite team, the Gunfighters.