The 45th Separate Guards Special Purpose Regiment is a Russian airborne outfit. The Russian Army often refers to them as a ‘Commando” Regiment.
Archive for the ‘Forces Focus’ Category
Forces Focus – 45th Separate Guards Special Purpose Regiment
Sunday, April 15th, 2012Forces Focus – Chris Coppola: A Pediatric Surgeon in Iraq
Saturday, April 7th, 2012From the Conversations from Penn State series, this is an interview with former Air Force orthopedic surgeon Chris Coppola on his experience in Iraq.
War is a collection of very personal experiences. It’s interesting to hear from a different perspective than what we generally encounter.
Forces Focus – USAF CCT
Wednesday, March 14th, 2012A little bit about Combat Control for ya…
Forces Focus – NRA LOD Covers USAF Emergency Management
Sunday, February 5th, 2012Air Force Specialty Code 3E9 (Emergency Management) has been known By other names over the years. For example, when I was a kid, I remember they were called Disaster Preparedness. Interestingly, they are kind of like EOD in that they are part of Civil Engineering even though it isn’t a good fit and this is recognized with a special careerfield badge that reveals their true focus, bugs and gas. They are the CBRNE specialists of the USAF.
Specifically the careerfield, “Prepares, plans, trains, educates, and equips Air Force personnel to respond to, maintain mission capability, and recover from the full spectrum of physical threat events including major accidents, natural disasters, weapons of mass destruction, and wartime chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-yield explosive (CBRNE) attacks. Provides technical expertise to commanders during full spectrum threat response operations. Performs detection, monitoring, warning, and reporting of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear (CBRN) events.”
If you were in the Air Force prior to the current conflict you were probably pretty familiar with them. We regularly trained in MOPP 4 conditions (even in SOF) and Ability to Survive and Operate (ATSO) was an important part of Operational Readiness Inspections. Maybe it was all institutional momentum from the Cold War, but it was drilled into Airmen enough that they could do it.
Now, NRA’s Life of Duty has prepared a report focusing on this small community of specialists and why they are more relevant now than ever. Here is a teaser.
A Peak at Smokejumper Kit
Saturday, January 7th, 2012Forces Focus – Israel’s New “Depth Command”
Thursday, December 29th, 2011The IDF, which recently announced an update on Austere Shield, is establishing a new command to supervise “depth” operations, the “Depth Corps Force”. The new command authority will be commanded by a Major General. It’s first commander, MG Shai Avital, will be the former chief of Sayaret Matkal unit, who will be responsible for coordinating and executing multidisciplinary missions outside Israel’s borders.
NRA Life of Duty – Smokejumper
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011NRA’s Life of Duty is profiling America’s Smokejumpers with in-depth look at the individuals who fight some of our nation’s deadliest wildfires.
Forces Focus – 42nd Route Clearance Co Partners with Bundeswehr
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011While this isn’t an EOD project, it is a counter-IED exercise pairing the US Army’s 42nd Route Clearance Company and the Bundeswehr’s 441st Mechanized Infantry Brigade Rout Clearance Team in a classic Engineer mission.
Although in typical AFN fashion the clip is short on details, it does remind us how important our engineer forces are in providing route clearanceIt also shows that new equipment has been developed for this mission and some of it was adapted from EOD.
Thanks from SSD to all the folks in the Counter-IED business!
