Photo By Senior Airman Kevin Tanenbaum | A Combat Controller watches as a C-17 assigned to the 57th Weapons Squadron, Nellis...... read more read more
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The USAFWS has expanded its integration phases for the 17A class and beyond by focusing on specific lines of operation to create these leaders in the modern era of joint warfare.
This change in focus comes directly from Air Force senior leadership whose priority is to make students self-sufficient leaders in all areas of warfare.
“The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army must be ‘joined at the hip’ with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps,” said Gen. David Goldfein, U.S. Air Force chief of staff. “In order to do so, the Air Force must create leaders who can stand up and lead these campaigns.”
The USAFWS has transformed its method of teaching academics in order to incorporate these priorities into the current Weapons School Integration design.
The primary change to the WSINT curriculum is a building block approach utilized to teach student’s skill sets across specific scenarios, and then building upon these skills by incorporating larger and more difficult problems to solve as the course progresses, said Maj. John Walsh, 17th Weapons Squadron chief of integration.
The academic structure is much like college programs in which students start at the 100 level and progress to senior-level 400 courses.
“We reshuffled the missions and reorganized everything under lines of operations with simpler problems sets overall to deal with the 100 missions,” said Walsh. “Then as students’ progress to the 200, 300 and 400 sets, we continue to grow threats, the complexity increases and the numbers increase in order to prepare them. Giving the students the skill set to move on to the next level.”
Instead of having students focus solely on their respective air frames and air power, the new curriculum focuses on joint integration and synchronizing effects across all domains of air, space and cyber space, said Walsh.
“Now it’s more of a focused event, focusing specifically with integrated deployment and planning joint doctrine,” said Walsh. “Then we give them broader exposure to joint capabilities, allowing students to incorporate those skills more effectively during flying days.”
Allowing students to grasp these overall processes of joint war fighting beyond their own field of expertise offers a broader exposure to students.
“We want our students to understand, they're not going to go out and solve a problem with just their own MDS, or just air assets,” said Walsh. “There will always be a need for air, space cyber assets, there non-kinetic effects and joint capabilities to help solve any problem that we are faced with in the future. The changes to WSINT better prepare students for that.”
While the change has been difficult, under the leadership of Col. Michael Drowley, USAFWS commandant, the entire Weapons School has aligned in strategy to create a curriculum that will serve to create experts of air power and leaders for the future of warfare.
“Our strategy is nested in the guidance that flows from the U.S. Constitution to the 57th Wing strategy,” said Drowley. “In addition to our overarching guidance, we are practitioners of warfare and students of war. It is foundational to our purpose.”
| Date Taken: | 06.06.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 06.06.2017 18:10 |
| Story ID: | 236582 |
| Location: | NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE , NV, US |
| Web Views: | 261 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, USAFWS updates curriculum for current era of joint operations, by SrA Kevin Tanenbaum, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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