Photo By Tech. Sgt. Tristan Viglianco | Two Airmen from 49th Maintenance Squadron attach a munition to a forklift during the...... read more read more
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The 9th Munitions Squadron held the second annual Air Force Combat Operations Competition (AFCOCOMP), May 14-16, 2019, here.
AFCOCOMP is a one-of-a-kind munitions building competition, which tests participants on the skills required of ammo troops during warfighting operations.
“The events are designed to test them for accuracy, safety, and teamwork,” said Master Sgt. Robert Kamberg, 9th MUNS combat advisor. “It all ties back to their readiness and training. As a career field we need to be able to deploy at any time to build bombs accurately and safely.”
The competition featured seven teams hailing from Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina; Moody Air Force Base, Georgia; Luke Air Force Base, Arizona; Misawa Air Base, Japan; RAF Lakenheath, England; Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota; and the defending champs Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico.
“We had them compete in a small bomb event, large bomb event, forward deployment event, an ammo relay, a munitions assembly conveyor build, a line D event, and adaptive phasing,” said Kamberg. “These were designed to hit all aspects of our career field with forward deployment and adaptive basing focusing on working in a deployed location.”
Attending AFCOCOMP and seeing the results allows teams to know what is going well with their training at home station and what they may need to implement in the future to become more lethal warfighters.
“Getting to see the team train and come compete is great,” said Chief Master Sgt. Branden Okura, 48th Munitions Squadron superintendent. “I’ve got to watch the process from start to finish and seeing the different events and how we perform will allow us to make our training even better when we go back.”
Okura’s team is from Lakenheath and they are clearly doing something right in their training. They dominated the competition placing first in five out of seven individual events and winning the overall competition, which means they were presented with the coveted Sierra Trophy.
The reaction to AFCOCOMP has been very positive from the different bases who have gotten a chance to compete in it.
“Ammo is a pretty small career field, so bringing in teams from around the world and getting to see people is great,” said Kamberg. “We also get a chance to beef up our training and I think it makes us more lethal warfighters.”
| Date Taken: | 05.17.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 05.17.2019 17:25 |
| Story ID: | 322886 |
| Location: | BEALE AIR FORCE BASE, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 147 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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