1. Definition: A force package is a predefined standardized grouping of manpower and/ or equipment to provide a specific wartime capability.  It is not unusual for a force package to be referred to as an UTC or an UTC package.  In this lesson, force package and UTC package will be used interchangeably.

2. Main Components of a force package:

a. Unit Type Code (UTC).  This is a 5-digit, alphanumeric computer code.  The assignments of a UTC categorizes each type of organization into a class or kind of unit having common distinguishing characteristics.  The first character of the code indicates its functional group.  Common Air Force designators for deployment capability are listed [at the end of this document – see Table 1].

b. Title.  The package is further defined by a 31-character title.  [Title format is different for packages with aircraft and non-aircraft UTCs.]

c. Mission Capability (MISCAP) Statement.  The MISCAP statement is a short paragraph, which describes the mission the UTC is capable of accomplishing and describes significant employment information and may or may not be classified.  The MISCAP contains:

1) Brief explanation of mission capabilities.

2)  It contains the type and amount of workload the UTC is capable of performing.

3) Statement concerning the types of bases to which the unit can be deployed (e.g., bare base, collocated operating base and main operating base etc.)

4) Response Capability

5) Other UTC’s which are required to support the defined capability

6) Classification

d. Manpower Force Element listing (MFEL).  [dictates personnel required for the UTC.]  Lists duties and then designates the AFSC and grade, as well as quantity, of airmen required for each duty.

e. Logistics Detail (LOGDET).  Includes:

• Description
  • National Stock Number (NSN)
• Quantity
• Movement Characteristics
  • Weight
  • Size

Table 1. Common Air Force designators for deployment capability

Core competencies are at the heart of the Air Force’s strategic perspective and thereby at the heart of the Service’s contribution to our nation’s total military capabilities.   They are not doctrine per se, but are the enablers of our doctrine. They begin to translate the central beliefs of doctrine into operational concepts

Additionally, what distinguishes the Air Force’s core competencies from the core competencies of other Services are the speed and the global nature of its reach and perspective. In this context, the competencies represent air and space power capability embodied in a well-trained and equipped air force. The US Air Force’s fundamental service to the nation is its ability to develop, train, sustain, and integrate the elements of air and space power to execute its core competencies across the spectrum of peace and war.

Air and Space Superiority

… rarely is an end in itself but is a means to the end of attaining military objectives. It is an important first step in military operations.  It provides freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack. Success in air, land, sea, and space operations depends upon air and space superiority.

Air and space power is so flexible and useful, there will be many demands that it be diverted to other tasks before any measure of air and space superiority is secured. That is a false economy that ultimately costs more in long term attrition and ineffective sorties.

Precision Engagement

Increasingly, air and space power is providing the ability to forgo the brute force-on-force tactics of previous wars and apply discriminate force precisely where required.  Precision engagement is the ability to command, control, and employ forces to cause discriminate strategic, operational, or tactical effects.

The Air Force is clearly not the only Service capable of precise employment of its forces, but it is the Service with the greatest capacity to apply the technology and techniques of precision engagement anywhere on the face of the earth in a matter of hours or minutes.  The fact that air and space power can concentrate in purpose—whether or not massing in location or concentrating in time—challenges traditional understandings of precision and creates opportunity for a different approach to harnessing military power to policy objectives.

Information Superiority

… is the ability to collect, control, exploit, and defend information while denying an adversary the ability to do the same and, like air and space superiority, includes gaining control over the information realm and fully exploiting military information functions.

[T]he Air Force is the major operator of sophisticated air- and space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems and is the Service most able to quickly respond to the information they provide.  One of a commander’s primary tasks is to gain and maintain information superiority. Dominating the information spectrum … ultimately shapes the adversary’s perception of the situation and courses of action.

Global Attack

All military Services provide strike capabilities, but the ability of the Air Force to attack rapidly and persistently with a wide range of munitions anywhere on the globe at any time is unique.

The decline of both total force structure and worldwide bases has decreased the size of our forward presence and forced the US military to become primarily an expeditionary force. The Air Force, with its growing space force, its intercontinental ballistic missiles, and its fleet of multirole bombers and attack aircraft supported by a large tanker fleet, is ideally suited to such operations. When combined with our inherent strategic perspective, Air Force operations can be both the theater’s first and potentially most decisive force in demonstrating the nation’s will to counter an adversary’s aggression.

Rapid Global Mobility

… refers to the timely movement, positioning, and sustainment of military forces and capabilities through air and space, across the range of military operations.

[R]apid power projection based in the continental United States (CONUS) has become the predominant military strategy. Sealift forces provide mobility and in many instances provide more total lift capacity, but it is the particular competence of air and space forces to most rapidly provide what is needed, including weapons on target and an increasing variety of surface force components,  where it is needed. Now, bombers, fighters, missiles, airlifters, and  space systems can transit global distances in minimum time to directly achieve strategic objectives, whether to dissuade, deter, contain, inhibit, disrupt, destroy, supply, or support.

Agile Combat Support

[A] force that is poised to respond to global taskings within hours must also be able to support that force with equal facility.  This includes all elements of a forward base-support structure: maintenance, supply, transportation, communications, services, engineering, security, medical, and chaplaincy.

Each of these areas must be integrated to form a seamless, agile, and responsive combat support system of systems. Emphasis on compact and multiuse equipment, increased dependability and less redundancy, enhanced supply commonality, and the ability to reliably reach back to nondeployed units and agencies for support previously required in-theater will all be central to true agile combat support.

Principles of War (extended) (Reference: AFDD1)

    Joint Publication (Pub) 1 refers to [these principles] as “those aspects of warfare that are universally true and relevant.”  The  principles of war:

…apply equally to all of the US armed forces.

…are guidelines that commanders can use to form and select a course of action. 

…are no substitute for sound, professional judgment—but to ignore them totally is equally risky.

…should not be considered individually without due consideration of the others.

… when combined with the additional fundamentals of air and space power, provide the basis for a sound and enduring doctrine for the air and space forces of America’s joint force.

Unity of Command

… ensures the concentration of effort for every objective under one responsible commander. This principle emphasizes that all efforts should be directed and coordinated toward a common objective.

Air and space power’s theater wide perspective calls for unity of command to gain the most efficient application. Coordination may be achieved by cooperation; it is, however, best achieved by vesting a single commander with the authority to direct all force employment in pursuit of a common objective.

Objective

… is concerned with directing military operations toward a defined and attainable objective that contributes to strategic, operational, or tactical aims. In application, this principle refers to unity of effort. … [P]olitical and military goals should be complementary and clearly articulated.

Unlike surface forces, modern … air and space forces can pursue tactical, operational, or strategic objectives, in any combination, or all three simultaneously.  From an airman’s perspective, then, the principle of the objective shapes priorities to allow air and space forces to concentrate on theater or campaign priorities. …

Offensive

… is to act rather than react and dictates the time, place, purpose, scope, intensity, and pace of operations. The initiative must be seized as soon as possible. 

The principle of the offensive holds that offensive action, or initiative, provides the means for joint forces to dictate battle-space operations.  Air and space forces are best used as an offensive weapon.  … Airpower’s ability to mass and maneuver and its ability to operate at the tactical, operational, or strategic levels of warfare—or to simultaneously operate at all levels—provide JFCs a resource with global presence to directly and almost immediately seize the initiative.

Mass

… calls for concentrating combat power at a decisive time and place. At the operational level, this principle suggests that superior, concentrated combat power is used to achieve decisive results.

Mass is an effect that air and space forces achieve through efficiency of attack. Today’s air and space forces have altered the concept of massed forces.  Today, a single precision weapon that is targeted using superior battlespace awareness can often cause the destructive effect that in the past took hundreds of bombs. 

Maneuver

… calls for action to place the enemy in a position of disadvantage through the flexible application of combat power.  Like the offensive, maneuver forces the enemy to react, allows the exploitation of successful friendly operations, and reduces our vulnerabilities.

The ability to integrate a force quickly and to strike directly at an adversary’s strategic or operational center of gravity (COG) is a key theme of air and space power’s maneuver advantage.  … [T]he versatility and responsiveness of airpower allow the simultaneous application of mass and maneuver.  Air and space maneuver is uniquely able to achieve mass while moving with unmatched agility.

Economy of Force

… calls for the rational use of force by selecting the best mix of combat power.  At the operational level, this requires minimum effort be made towards secondary objectives that do not support the larger operational or strategic objectives.

While this principle was well developed before the advent of air-power, it responds precisely to the greatest vulnerability of air and space power employment: the misuse or misdirection of air and space power, which can reduce its contribution even more than enemy action. Ill-defined objectives can result in the piecemeal application of air and space forces with the resultant loss of decisive effects.

Security

… requires that friendly forces and their operations be protected from enemy action that could provide the enemy with unexpected advantage.

[Base security] must be a particular focus of operations during peace support or crisis situations when forces operate from austere and unimproved locations, in small units, or in crowded urban settings and face threats to security from individuals and groups as well as possible military or paramilitary units.

Critical to security is the understanding that air and space power is no longer just aircraft, missiles, and satellites but information warfare tools as well. Thus security embraces not only physical security, but also security of the information medium. 

Surprise

… leverages the security principle by attacking at a time, place, or in a manner for which the enemy is not prepared.

The speed and range of air and space forces, coupled with their flexibility and versatility, allow air forces to achieve surprise more readily than surface forces.  When combined with stealth and information technologies, air and space forces today can provide shock and surprise without unnecessarily exposing massed friendly forces. Surprise is one of air and space power’s strongest advantages.

Simplicity

… calls for avoiding unnecessary complexity in organizing, preparing, planning, and conducting military operations.  [G]uidance, plans, and orders are as simple and direct as the objective will allow.

Simple guidance allows subordinate commanders the freedom to creatively operate within their battlespace.  … [S]traightforward plans and unambiguous organizational and command relationships are central to reducing [complexity]. The premise that airmen work for airmen and that the senior airman (the commander of Air Force forces) works for the JFC is central to simplicity.

Tenets of Aerospace Power (Reference: AFDD1)

Air and space power is intrinsically different from either land or sea power, and its employment must be guided by axioms different than those of surface forces.  The fundamental guiding truths of air and space power employment are known as tenets, which in addition to the principles of war, should be understood by every airman. 

While the principles of war provide general guidance on the application of air and space forces, the tenets provide more specific considerations for air and space forces.

Centralized Control and Decentralized Execution

… of air and space forces are critical to force effectiveness.  Centralized control allows commanders to focus on those priorities that lead to victory.  Delegation of execution authority to responsible and capable lower-level commanders is essential to achieve effective span of control and to foster initiative, situational responsiveness, and tactical flexibility.

Flexibility and Versatility

Air and space power is flexible and versatile.  Flexibility allows air and space forces to exploit mass and maneuver simultaneously to a far greater extent than surface forces. At the operational level, flexibility allows air operations to shift from one campaign objective to another, quickly and decisively. Versatility in air and space power stems from the fact that it can be employed equally effectively at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of warfare. The versatility of air and space power, properly executed in parallel attacks, can attain parallel effects which present the enemy with multiple crises occurring so quickly that there is no way to respond to all or, in some cases, any of them.

Synergistic Effects

Air and space forces produce synergistic effects.  The proper application of a coordinated force can produce effects that exceed the individual contributions of the individual forces employed separately.

Persistence

… suggests continued efforts.  The goal of persistent operations may be to maintain a continuous flow of materiel to peacetime distressed areas; surveil adversaries constantly to ensure they cannot conduct actions against our wishes; assure targets are kept continually out of commission; or ensure that resources and facilities are denied to an enemy or provided to an ally during a defined time. 

Concentration

Air and space operations must achieve concentration of purpose.  Airmen must guard against the inadvertent dispersion of air and space power effects resulting from high demand.

Depending on the operational situation, [this dispersion] may court the triple risk of (1) failing to achieve operational-level objectives, (2) delaying or diminishing the attainment of decisive effects, and (3) increasing the attrition rate of air forces consequently, risking defeat in detail. 

Priority

Air and space operations must be prioritized.  [D]emands for air and space forces will likely swamp air commanders in future conflicts unless appropriate priorities are established.

The air commander should assess the possible uses of air and space forces and their strengths and capabilities to support (1) the overall joint campaign, (2) air operations, and (3) the battle at hand.

Balance

Air and space operations must be balanced.  Balance is an essential guideline for air commanders.  An air commander should balance combat opportunity, necessity, effectiveness, efficiency, and the impact on accomplishing assigned objectives against the associated risk to friendly air and space forces.