Dyess Airmen participate in CAPEX

by Senior Airman Kia Atkins
7th Bomb Wing Public Affairs

6/29/2015 - DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, TEXAS -- Twenty Dyess Airmen from the 7th Munitions Squadron participated in the Pacific Air Forces' 2015 Combat Ammunition Production Exercise at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, May 31- June 6.

CAPEX evaluates a host unit's mission readiness. It also provides training in mass, live munitions production supporting combat sortie generation. The exercise evaluates combat ammunition production techniques and determines if current munitions planning is adequate to support wartime operational plans and wartime consumption rates based on War and Mobilization Planning.

"The scenarios we were tasked with were derived from real-world operation plans and validated that ammo troops can be deployed from anywhere in the world to support any airframe and merge into an effective team to meet any mission requirement," said U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Jeremy Luster, 7th MUNS non-commissioned officer in charge of conventional munitions maintenance.

More than 250 Airmen from Dyess, Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, Kunsan Air Base, Republic of Korea, Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea, Kadena Air Base, Japan, Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska and Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, worked together to build various live munitions in large quantities during this annual exercise.

While participating in the exercise, Airmen were assessed on their ability to safely produce and transport hundreds of bombs in real-time, while meeting all demands of a wartime exercise scenario.

"This exercise was a great training opportunity for us. It's a great way to validate munitions tactics, techniques and procedures as well as ensuring we have the capability to do what the Air Force needs us to do--build bombs," Luster said. "We're specialists; we can build bombs for any aircraft."

The exercise required Airmen to build the types of munitions needed if they were tasked to the Pacific region. Overall, the Airmen built more than 1,100 munitions.

"It was a great opportunity to showcase our ammo pride," said Tech. Sgt. Brandon Lee, 7th MUNS conventional munitions maintenance supervisor. "We all came together as one and built munitions. It didn't matter where we were from, we all worked together to show what we could do."

After the munitions were built, they were torn down and restored as components in Anderson's stockpile.