IYAAYAS
AMMO (US Air Force)
Ammo is also a commonly used abbreviation for ammunition.
The Munitions Systems Specialist career field(AFSC
2W0X1, previously 461X0), commonly referred to as AMMO,
is the weapons and explosives branch of the U.S. Air Force.
AMMO is responsible for maintaining the Air Force's entire munitions
stockpile. Various duties include shipping and receiving, building, testing,
operating, protecting, inspecting, storing and performing maintenance on all
types of munition systems, both conventional and nuclear. AMMO personnel also
operate and maintain a wide variety of equipment and electronic gear, from 40
foot tractor-trailer combination vehicles and all terrain 10,000 pound
forklifts, to small arms weapons, to AGM-65 guidance testing units and computer
databases. AMMO troops often work daily with many versions of F-4, F-15, F-16,
F-22, F-117, B-1, B-2, B-52, A-10, and AC-130 aircraft, along with rarer
opportunities to support aircraft from sister services, such as the A-6, F-14,
F-18 and AV-8, as well as aircraft from foreign services.
After graduating from Basic Training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio,
Texas, airmen assigned to the field attend a 9 week tech school at Sheppard Air
Force Base, Texas, were they recieve a basic knowledge of the career field. Upon
graduation from tech school, the new AMMO specialist is sent to their assigned
duty station.
Due to security and obvious safety concerns with the possibility of
millions of pounds of explosives accidentally
cooking off
and damaging a large portion of a base's facilities,
the bomb dump is usually well isolated from the rest of base. At some bases,
such as Andersen AFB in Guam, the ride to work can take as long as twenty
minutes, compared to a 4 or 5 minute commute for people in most other career
fields.
AMMO has nine separate and distinct working areas
within the career field.
These are:
Equipment Maintenance -
"Trailer Shop" - the hub of all maintenance on the job-specific trailer
equipment that is unique to AMMO, such as the MHU-141 and the MHU-110.
PGM - Precision Guided Munitions, or
"Missile Shop" - maintenance of missiles and guided
bomb packages.
Flightline Delivery - Line delivery drivers are
dispatched by Munitions Control and are responsible for the safe and expedient
handling and delivery of munitions to aircraft. Drivers are also held
responsible for the accounting of their movements and their transactions via
radio and paper logs. Personnel in this field are often referred to as "Line
Swine".
Conventional Maintenance - This office is
responsible for unguided munitions, dealing with everything that their base's
aircraft can carry, from
chaff and
flares
to cannon ammunition and regular unguided "dumb bombs".
Munitions Control - The nerve center. Nothing
happens without the controllers knowing since they are the office that
dispatches workorders to all other areas. Supervision relies heavily on good
controllers to give them quick, efficient reports of what's happening.
Controllers tend to be higher ranking and senior AMMO personnel, and have
diverse backgrounds in AMMO.
Storage and Handling - Works closely with
Inspection and Conventional to deliver large quantities of raw materials for
both inspections and bomb build exercises. Storage troops will often be found
driving 18-wheel tractor trailers and forklifts, ranging in capacity from 2 to
25 tons, transporting various munitions items for the respective clientele.
Inspection - All munitions items at various times
need to be inspected for safety and compliance with technical instructions.
Specialized NCOs and Airmen called Munitions Inspectors accomplish this.
Inspectors attend an Inspector school, which lasts approximately 3 weeks and
most times is conducted at the AMMO Schoolhouse, located at Sheppard AFB, Texas.
CAS/AFK - Sometimes labeled as separate areas, CAS
stands for Combat Ammunition System. CAS troops (used to) perform inventories,
keep storage plans, and update movements of munitions within the storage area.
Since the implementation of CAS 1.0, which is an online program instead of a
database, troops from all the shops now work with CAS directly. There is no
longer a CAS shop.
Notes: Ammo troops are
not limited to working in one shop their entire career. They move from shop to
shop. In some cases a troop works all nine areas in a career, and sometimes may
work only one or two.Sometimes these areas may be merged together in accordance
with the mission of that base. Flightline delivery and Equipment Maintenance are
sometimes one shop; and Conventional Maintenance and PGM are sometimes merged
into one shop.Sometimes larger Munitions Flights have specialized shops like
Plans and Training/Mobility.
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AMMO??
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