Vilseck is home to the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment and an infantry brigade and Aviano hosts an air support operations squadron which supports the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team based at Vicenza.
The upgrades are part of a $100 million package for U.S. major military construction projects in Europe for use in wars to the east and the south.
This month the U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft marked its two millionth flight hour "just four years after passing its first million-hour mark, and the first million hours took 16 years to reach." [4] Its missions are overwhelmingly in support of the war in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon announced on January 20 that "airdrop operations in Afghanistan reached an unprecedented level in 2010 with a record 60.4 million pounds of cargo airdropped.
"[T]he 60.4 million pounds is nearly twice the previous record year of 2009, when more than 32.2 million pounds of cargo were airdropped, U.S. Air Forces Central statistics show."
"Since 2006, the annual amount of airdropped supplies and equipment has practically doubled every year. Air Force Central statistics released yesterday show that 3.5 million pounds were airdropped in 2006, 8.12 million in 2007, 16.57 million in 2008, 32.26 million in 2009 and 60.4 million in 2010."
The air dropping of equipment to U.S. and NATO troops is conducted by C-17 Globemaster III, C-130 Hercules and C-130 Super Hercules planes which operate out of the Bagram Airfield and the Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan.
In the words of the director of the Combined Air and Space Operations Center's Air Mobility Division, "This continued sustainment of our warfighting forces is key to counterinsurgency operations, which require persistent presence and logistics." [5]
The website of U.S. Air Forces Central states:
"The Combined Air and Space Operations Center Weapons System, also known as the AN/USQ-163 Falconer Weapon System, commands and controls the broad spectrum of what air power brings to the fight: Global Vigilance, Global Reach, and Global Power. Located in the Air Forces Central theater of operations, the CAOC provides the command and control of airpower throughout Iraq, Afghanistan and 18 other nations....The CAOC is a true joint and Coalition team, staffed by U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and Coalition partners." [6]
In the middle of this month NATO deployed two Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft to Afghanistan, "where crews will be tasked with tracking the Alliances' missions against Taliban insurgents." [7]
Also this month it was revealed that the U.S. is adding to its drone fleet of Predators and Reapers with the introduction of the Gordon Stare, more advanced in scope and sophistication than its predecessors, able to relay up to ten real time video streams. "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see everything," stated a Pentagon official recently. [8] It hasn't been reported whether the new drone will be equipped with the devastating Hellfire missiles launched from Predator, Reaper and Grey Eagle unmanned aerial vehicles.
The U.S. has recently deployed M1 Abrams tanks to Helmand province, the first heavily armored American battle tanks used in the over nine-year war. The move permits "ground forces to target insurgents from a greater distance - and with more of a lethal punch - than is possible from any other U.S. military vehicle. The 68-ton tanks are propelled by a jet engine and equipped with a 120mm main gun that can destroy a house more than a mile away." [9]
General David Petraeus, commander of all foreign forces in Afghanistan, has intensified the counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan to record levels. Special operations raids and assassinations more than tripled last autumn.
Early this month Secretary of Defense Robert Gates ordered an additional 1,400 Marines deployed to Afghanistan, "temporarily," raising the number of U.S. troops in theater to the current authorized level of 101,000.
Last year the number of nations officially providing NATO troops for its International Security Assistance Force operations in Afghanistan grew to 48, exactly a quarter of United Nations members. That tally excludes the armed forces of Afghanistan and Pakistan and other countries that have assigned forces to NATO for the war effort, including Bahrain, Colombia, Egypt and Kazakhstan.
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