Difference between revisions of "CDF Air Service"

Revision as of 01:07, 19 January 2006

This article is about a branch of the armed forces of Sober Thought. For discussions about armed forces generally, see Category:Armed forces.

The Air Service of Sober Thought is the air force of the Community Defence Forces. Its twin primary responsibilities are to transport Land Service troops overseas to face the enemy while simultaneously preventing the enemy from entering Sober Thought airspace. All other responsibilities are mere extensions of this cardinal rule.

Branches, sub-branches and types

The Community Defence Forces in general and the Air Service in particular need different kinds of troops to achieve their objectives. These specialties are indicated by insignia on the upper part of defenders' shoulderboards.

Of the branches common to the CDF as a whole, all but the Justice & Police Branch are present in the Air Service. From these generic branches, the following air-specific types of units are created: Intelligence & Reconnaissance, air intelligence flights and squadrons & strategic reconnaissance squadrons and tactical reconnaissance squadrons; Maintenance, air maintenance flights and squadrons; Signals & Electronic Warfare, composite electronic squadrons, AWACS flights and squadrons, electronic warfare flights and squadrons; Search and Rescue, SAR crew, detachments and squadrons; Health, medical segments, detachments and flights, and; Supply, supply sub-units of air maintenance squadrons.

There are five branches specific to the Air Service. Propeller Pilot, Jet Pilot and Helicopter Pilot are theoretically branches even thought in some ways they relate to one another better as sub-branches. Navigation is common to all three means of propulsion and is not further subdivided. Air Weapons is a single branch but is divided into sub-branches and types according to the types of weapons and means of controlling them.

Movement among the three pilot and one navigation branches is fairly common, but movement in the air weapons branch is mainly among sub-branches and types (based on weapons systems) rather than within the Air Service as a whole. More so than the Land Service but less so than the Naval Service, Air Service units are made up of several branches each.

Units, sub-units and formations

The basic building block of the Air Service is the squadron, although the virtually independent flight or detachment exists in Naval Air Divisions described below. If the distinction between units and sub-units can become blurred in the Land Service, it is practically non-existent in the Air Service.

Squadrons are raised whole as units, then either broken down, combined or left complete. When squadrons, flights or detachments serve alone, they have the supporting ground crew directly responsible to the commanding officer of the squadron, flight or detachment. However, when squadrons serve together in wings and air groups, the squadron's usual officers -- all pilots, navigators or air weapons officers -- return exclusively to their role as aerial combattants and the ground crew are hived off to serve under a small number of ground-only non-combattant officers.

What constitutes a formation in the Air Service is much clearer. For every hundred million in national population, the service creates one Strategic Air Corps under Air Service command, one Army Air Corps under a Land Service's field army command and one Naval Air Division under Naval Service command.

Strategic air operations

A Strategic Air Corps as originally raised organises its squadrons into two fighter air divisions, a bomber air group, a reconnaissance wing and a tanker wing. It is responsible for landward air defence, strategic bombing and strategic reconnaissance. As wave after wave of SACs have been added, the Strategic Air Force can be rearranged to provide fighter corps, bomber divisions, tanker air groups, etc., if desired.

Air support for land operations

Main article: CDF Army Air Corps

Each field army of the CDF Land Service has a corresponding Army Air Corps responsible for providing local air defence, ground attack, local transport, theatre transport and intercontinental transport.

The commanding officers of the Army Air Corps and the field army discuss together how best to organise their complement of specialised squadrons, then delegate those units to the next level -- land corps' air division and field corps HQs. The latter two in turn retain one air group under their direct control, then delegate those units to the final level -- land division's air group and field division HQs. The latter two may temporarily delegate a wing or squadron to a brigade or brigade group, but this is rarely ongoing. Remember too that the top commanders always have the right to reshuffle the deck as it were on their direct and indirect subordinates.

Air support for naval operations

Main article: CDF naval aviation

The totality of the CDF Naval Service ships build for each wave of one hundred million national population supports one Naval Air Division. Unlike its Land Service counterpart, naval-dedicated squadrons are far more stably assigned to units and formations.

The 90 fixed and rotary wing aircraft of the Carrier Air Group are stably organized into three wings with six short fighter, two helicopter, one tanker and one composite electronics squadrons. The Coastal Defence Air Group's three virtually independent wings each have two maritime patrol, two fighter, one helicopter SAR and one composite utility squadrons. Each of the nine landing ships has one composite helicopter squadron, theoretically organised into a group of three wings of three squadrons each.

The remaining two wings of the naval air division exist only on paper at even the squadron level. The naval escort helicopter wing nominally has one squadron based on cruisers, two on destroyers, and one on frigates and tenders. Similarly, the naval transport helicopter wing nominally has one squadron based on troopships and another on supply ships. In practice, the squadrons are broken down (into flights of 2 or 4 helicopters, and detachments of a single helicopter) and directly subordinated to the senior naval officer afloat on each of the vessels individually.

Aircraft types

Main article: Community Defence Forces aircraft

There are about three dozen or so models and variants of aircraft currently on active duty in the Community Defence Forces. They are variously under the operational command of the all-regular Air Service and Naval Service, or regular Land Service or militia Civil Guard.

Nicknames are assigned to CDF aircraft according to certain rules offering a distinctive and appropriate mnemonic. Basic airframes always bear the same number regardless of role which is indicated by one or more letters. H for helicopter, N for naval variant of landbased model or both can be applied to any of those below.

Frontline combat aircraft airframes 1-39

• B for bombers like the B-10 Bob strategic bomber
• F for fighters like the F-1 Faust and its many variants
• G for ground attack like the G-8 Gordon tankbuster

Frontline transport aircraft airframes 40-69

• T for undifferentiated transports like the HT-55 helicopter transport.
• TC for cargo transports like the quad-engined jumbo jet TC-63 strategic transport
• TL for liquid fuel transports like the TLN-61 Toulon carrier-based tanker
• TP for passenger transports like the TP-60 executive jet

Miscellaneous aircraft airframes 70-99

• E for electronic warning, control and countermeasures like the RE-78 Remy carrier and coastal based AWCAS
• R for reconnaissance like the propellered RB-78 Romeo carrier and coastal based ASW aircraft
• S for search and rescue like the HUS-77 Hudson search and rescue helicopter
• U for multi-use utility like the HU-70 gound-based general purpose helicopter