MARINE CORPS AIR STATION CHERRY POINT, N. C. - Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 252 sent a detachment to Fort Campbell, Ky., for a two-week alternate mission rehearsal exercise Monday.
The VMGR-252 detachment will practice assault support, logistical support, air-to-air refueling, close-air support and multi-sensor imagery reconnaissance for units on the ground.
The training will be conducted jointly with the Army’s 160th Special Operations Airborne Regiment and the 5th Special Forces Group, as well as other 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing assets for aerial refueling missions.
“We’re going to be executing our directed mission sets for Afghanistan and are being evaluated during those,” said Capt. Andrew B. Myers, the operations officer for the detachment. “We have an evaluator from our aircrew training unit out of Cherry Point, and as the crews are conducting their missions, he’ll be evaluating whether it was successful or unsuccessful and ultimately doing a wrap-up at the end to determine whether or not the unit is ready to deploy.”
Larger units conduct integrated training exercises in which they practice mission sets and determine combat readiness. The AMRX fulfills the same function for smaller units.
“The novelty of the AMRX is basically that the unit can establish its own training goals,” said Myers. “If the mission is for a fixed wing air-to-air refueling, we are evaluated on whether or not we meet our time on target, we get the requisite fuel to the receiver aircraft, and that our planning factors have been hit.”
The detachment is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan this summer.