Electronic warfare

 

US Air Force sets sights on new spectrum warfare wing

The U.S. Air Force plans to create a new wing focused on electromagnetic spectrum warfare come springtime.

While plans for the new wing — the 355th Spectrum Warfare Wing — have previously been discussed, officials Tuesday provided the most in-depth details regarding its creation, functions and timeline.

The wing, which is tentatively set to activate in March 2021, will enable “fielded forces to continually contest and on demand attack adversary [command, control, communication, computers and intelligence] functional structures controlling their key processes,” Lt. Gen. Chris Weggeman, deputy commander Air Combat Command, said during a virtual conference Nov. 17 hosted by AFCEA’s Alamo chapter.

“Their mission is to execute the U.S. version of Chinese nodal warfare,” the officer explained.

The wing will fall under the purview of the Air Force Warfare Center — which performs operational test and evaluation, tactics development, and advanced training — instead of the new information warfare command, 16th Air Force, which has operational control of electronic warfare.

The wing is a direct outgrowth of the Air Force’s yearlong study on electronic warfare, called the Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team, that was briefed to service leadership in January 2019. Specifically, two items identified in the study that led to the wing’s creation is that the Air Force’s electromagnetic spectrum capabilities atrophied over the past decades and there will need to be greater reliance on the spectrum in the future, according to Brig. Gen. Marty Reynolds, vice commander of the Air Force Warfare Center, who spoke during the same conference.