Beginning Oct. 1, active-duty agile combat support airmen will begin to deploy under a revised system that seeks to keep airmen with their own units and sets a standard battle rhythm.
Under the redesigned Air Expeditionary Force system, installations will deploy more airmen from the same unit under a 1:2 deploy-to-dwell ratio. That means airmen will deploy for six months, and then have 12 months at home. The old system used so-called “tempo bands,” which determined dwell-deploy ratios based on an airman’s specialty. Those old ratios varied wildly. Some airmen had a 1:1 ratio, meaning they spent just as much time deployed as they did at home, and others had a 1:5 ratio.
And under the old system, deploying airmen often came from bases across the Air Force and met each other downrange. That meant they served alongside other airmen and under commanding officers they didn’t know. The new system will mean airmen will deploy alongside the fellow airmen and supervisors they have worked with for months or years, the Air Force said.
“This new construct will facilitate even better teamwork and unit performance during deployed operations,” Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said in a Sept. 5 release. “I visited a deployed squadron last year that was manned by 81 airmen from 41 different bases. While we’ve proven we can be successful with that approach, we believe this new AEF model is a more efficient way to get the job done.”
Under the new model, the Air Force expects it will better understand its available capacity to deploy airmen each year and will be able to give airmen a better idea of when they will be deploying.
For some airmen who have been deploying under the 1:1 ratio, the new battle rhythm will mean more time at home. But airmen who previously deployed less frequently may be more vulnerable to deployments. The Air Force said not all airmen will be selected for deployment in their vulnerability window.
Unit commanders will work to ensure the mission is covered at home bases while deployed units are away, said Col. Stephen Hart, chief of the War Planning and Policy Division.
“For example, if a commander has 10 airmen accomplishing a daily task and he determines he needs six airmen at home at all times to accomplish that task, then he would posture his forces to ensure six were committed to the installation mission and four were available for a deployment rotation,” he said. “Since units are typically faced with two deployment periods across an 18-month cycle, the unit would be tasked for two airmen per period, leaving eight at home station to accomplish the mission.”
While the goal of the new deployment system is to keep dwell-deploy ratios to 1:2, some airmen in the highest-demand specialties still may have to deploy on a 1:1 ratio, or six months in the field followed by six months at home.
In a Sept. 10 interview at his Pentagon office, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James Cody said battlefield airmen — who include combat controllers and tactical air control party airmen — and other airmen in small career fields might still have to deploy more frequently. But the Air Force is aware that those kinds of career fields are on its chronic critical list, meaning they are continually strained, and that frequent deployments continue to strain them.
“We are certainly struggling in some of those battlefield airmen career fields,” Cody said. “But it will be cyclistic based on the demand signal from combatant commanders, and what we’re asked to do around the world.”
Cody said the size of units deployed under the new system will vary, based on the Air Force’s requirements.
Welsh approved the new AEF system in April 2013.
