ATSO: core skills available guidance

TIG Brief: The Inspector General, July-August, 2003 by Steve Reed

The ability to survive and operate (ATSO), a major graded area of an ORI, is just as important in a major command like Air Force Space Command as it is at Kunsan Air Base, Korea. Only the challenges are different. Kunsan's biggest challenge is bedding down and training the incoming forces. These forces come from AFSPC bases as well as the installations of other major commands. AFSPC's challenge is that we mostly provide follow-on support. We don't have the personnel, weapons systems and equipment packages that lead wings provide. Our supporting role creates a challenge to ensure ATSO training and exercises are conducted. However, the responsibility of ensuring readiness remains the same.

This article addresses two issues regarding your ATSO responsibilities: common core skills and available guidance. Then it offers tips for conducting exercises.

COMMON CORE SKILLS

Look at this as any ATSO task completed by any airman regardless of job series or assigned unit type code (UTC). For example, any unit could exercise these common core skills:

* Proper wear of chemical protective equipment. (How do I wear my mask so it won't fog?)

* Understanding current alarm signals and mission-oriented protective postures. (What is this new Alarm Green?)

* Contamination avoidance and contamination control. (Why do I put plastic on equipment outside? How and when do I decontaminate myself or my equipment?)

* Ability to process through a contamination control area or perform self-aid buddy care. (How do I use the buddy system?)

* Ability to perform post-attack reconnaissance. [How do I identify, mark and report a UXO (unexploded ordnance)?]

AVAILABLE GUIDANCE

ATSO training and exercise requirements are found in various Air Force directives. For example, the command supplement to Air Force Instruction 90-201, Inspector General Activities, Air Force Space Command Policy, paragraph A5.5.1 asks, "Are appropriate plans established and actions demonstrated to sustain, defend, survive and recover force capability within the assigned theater of operations ...?" So, at a minimum you should have plans or procedures that include pre-, trans- and post-attack procedures, relocation procedures, black out, hardening, etc.

AFI 10-2501, Full Spectrum Threat Response (FSTR) Planning and Operations, covers more requirements. It states "NBCC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical and Conventional) defense task qualification training conducted at the unit follows NBCC defense classroom training on wartime mission essential tasks." You should know what your wartime tasks are and should train on those tasks beyond the training that is provided by the Civil Engineer Readiness Flight. Imposing NBCC training requirements, through in-house or upgrade training, upon already heavy training schedules does increase the degree of difficulty. However, a certain level of training and performance is expected of you as you step off that plane at Kunsan. The bottom line: If you see only the inside of your MCU-2MP gas mask once or twice a year, then you probably have a training deficiency. AFI 10-2501 also covers exercise requirements and requires an attack response exercise be conducted at least every 15 months in NBCC low-threat areas and the scenario is required to test your mobility commitments (can your deployed troops operate in a high-threat area?).

Air Force Manual 10-2602, Nuclear, Biological Chemical and Conventional (NBCC) Defense Operations and Standards, provides units with outstanding guidance on developing, training and exercising in an NBCC location. This manual provides NBCC defense tasks at the installation, unit, supervisor and airman level.

Exercise Tips

I'd like to conclude by providing some exercise tips--not based on directives, but based on being on the receiving end of many local and higher headquarters exercises. When planning for installation exercises consider realism and simulations.

Realism. Provide realistic enemy or missile attack scenarios and provide periods for Alarm Black operations long enough to consider work-rest cycles and reconstitution of assets. Ensure "kills" are based on realism. Do evaluators "kill" personnel because they didn't get their protective mask on in 9 seconds (even though the missile hadn't impacted yet)? This may not be a reason to "kill" personnel but it may show a task qualification training (TQT) deficiency.

Simulations. Installations will often simulate operations that result in not being able to identify if the unit has the capability to operate in a contaminated environment. Avoid these pitfalls of simulations:

* Simulated plastic covers on everything. (For example, a 3x5 card in the window of a truck saying "Simulated Covered"). Result: False sense of capability of managing assets. Consider, as an alternative, putting an opaque piece of plastic over the entire exterior of the windshield. This will require the removal and storage of the material prior to use of the vehicle.

* Off-limits facilities and off-shift personnel. It's understandable why units allow this simulation. However, how often do you address these in realistic terms?