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505th Command and Control Wing News

AMMOS celebrates 1,000th graduate milestone

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Brianna Vetro
  • 57th Wing Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. --  A group of 18 Airmen graduated from the U.S. Air Force Advanced Maintenance and Munitions Operations School (AMMOS) Combat Mission Generation Course hitting its 1,000th graduate milestone at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, Oct. 30, 2024.

The students were selected to participate in the 16-week course, grouped into five wings represented by two officers and two enlisted. At the end of the rigorous course came a final multi-day scenario. This capstone exercise was the culmination of everything the students learned through previous months of learning, training and practice.

“We take mission generation professionals and we run them through a large scenario of what it would look like to generate aircraft, people and equipment in a timing and tempo that would be relative to what we think conflict might look like in INDOPACOM,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Clark, the commandant of AMMOS.

The course begins with students planning flight schedules at their home base to get ready for deployment. They then receive a ‘prepare to deploy’ order and organize everything—aircraft, personnel, and equipment—to move out to the second island chains.

“They work together as a team as if they were the leadership team of a fighter generation squadron, an air mobility squadron or a bomber generation squadron that’s planning how to execute whatever exercise we’re running them through,” continued Clark.

Once there, students follow detailed mission orders and practice adapting to different situations, including breaking up and reassembling their forces, all while simulating what future combat scenarios might look like.

“We’ve had 24 hours to essentially build a flying program which we can provide to our simulated group commander as to how we’re not only going to get after aircrew requirements but also the maintenance side of that logistically,” said Master Sgt Justin Bezerra, the lead production superintendent assigned to the 2nd Maintenance Squadron. “The planning that goes into it takes a lot of coordination with operators as well as maintenance personnel.”

Throughout the course, students progress through a series of exercises that mirror the military’s readiness cycle. It starts with an in-garrison exercise focused on preparing at their home base. Then they move to setting up the 'theater'—working with agencies to prepare the locations they expect to deploy to.

Next comes the deployment phase, where students simulate receiving deployment orders and organize aircraft, personnel, and equipment for a deployment. Once deployed, they practice actual flying missions, similar to what they would do in real combat environments.

Finally, after the deployment, students learn how to bring forces back in a way that allows them to recover and rebuild readiness for the future.

“We do that over 16 weeks, but the reason the capstone is so significant is we do all of that again in one week, in one exercise,” Clark said. “Just like what Red Flag is for aircrew, this is like a Red Flag for all of the ground support that’s required to generate the mission. It’s a way for our students to get reps and sets on the scenarios and the decisions and what they’ll need to think through to solve those really tough logistics problems.”

This presentation is the first of five ‘episodes’ the students need to work through in order to graduate the Combat Mission Generation Course.

“Every exercise has been a beast, and it’s designed to be that way,” said Bezerra. “It’s been an honor to be selected for this course. Day one you walk into the course and you look around and the pool of talent and experience here between the officers and the enlisted side of the house is absolutely incredible. We take that experience into every exercise.”