On this Day in 1991: The AC-130A Spectre “Azrael” was sent to the Al Jahra highway between Kuwait City and Basrah, Iraq, to intercept the convoys of tanks, trucks, buses and cars fleeing the battle. Facing numerous enemy batteries of SA-6 and SA-8 surface-to-air missiles, and 37mm and 57mm radar-guided anti-aircraft artillery, the crew attacked the enemy skillfully, inflicting significant damage on the convoys. Learn more here thanks to the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
According to an update on the Tiger Stripe Products website, AFSOC personnel are testing the All Terrain Tiger camouflage pattern.
UPDATE 25 June 2015:
Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) personnel begin Testing & Evaluation of All Terrain Tiger™ (ATT™). Details pending.
Who could blame them? Despite the Army’s transition to the Operational Camouflage Pattern, the Air Force continues to issue the four color grey-based digital tigerstripe camouflage pattern it adopted in 2006. Granted, deployers are issued kit in OCP and Air Force personnel assigned to AFSOC, select Battlefield Airmen and Security Forces personnel assigned to Global Strike Command wear MultiCam. However, the garrison uniform remains digital tigerstripe. It’s also used for may deployments includimg contingency operations.
All Terrain Tiger was actually envisioned by TSP as an operational alternative to the USAF’s digital Tigerstripe pattern. While All Terrain Tiger may end up being used for specialized applications on deployments, patterns such as this are often also used by OPFOR for training.
For more info, visit, tigerstripeproducts.com/products/all-terrain-tiger.
Think of it as an overview video for the GWOT. There are is a lot of AFSOC rotary wing in this video.
This video was created by the AFSOC Public Affairs Office. What do you think?
In the early 1960s the United States Air Force established a Special Air Warfare Center at Hurlburt Field, Florida the modern home of AFSOC. There, they trained Air Commandos in irregular warfare, a concept that the USAF has paid lip service to over the past ten years but done little actualize. To create this new Special Operations Air Warfare Center, AFSOC transformed the existing Special Operations Training Center and added a much needed, expanded aviation advisor capability.
BG Jon Weeks assumed command of the new Special Operations Air Warfare Center last week which also, interestingly enough, now also includes the 919th Air Force Reserve Special Operations Wing at Duke Field as well as two Air Guard units in Mississippi and Alabama.
Headquartered at Hurlburt Field with operating locations at the nearby Duke Field and Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, The Air Warfare Center will organize, train, educate and equip special operations forces; lead major command of counter-insurgency and irregular warfare missions; test and evaluate weapons programs; and develop tactics, techniques and guidelines for special operations missions.
