Тактическое авиационное командование ВВС США: история и расформирование

Inactive US Air Force command

Tactical Air Command (TAC) is an inactive United States Air Force organization. It was a Major Command of the United States Air Force, established on 21 March 1946 and headquartered at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. It was inactivated on 1 June 1992 and its personnel and equipment absorbed by Air Combat Command (ACC). Tactical Air Command was established to provide a balance between strategic, air defense, and tactical forces of the post–World War II U. S. Army Air Forces followed by, in 1947, the U. S. Air Force. In 1948, the Continental Air Command assumed control over air defense, tactical air, and air reserve forces. After two years in a subordinate role, Tactical Air Command (TAC) was established as a major command. In 1992, after assessing the mission of TAC and to accommodate a decision made regarding Strategic Air Command (SAC), Headquarters United States Air Force inactivated TAC and incorporated its resources into the newly created Air Combat Command.

Even with the active war in Korea raging, in the early 1950s Europe received a higher priority of air power than Korea by the Truman Administration and the Department of Defense. Deterring the threat of a Communist takeover of Western Europe was considered more important to the long term survival of the United States than a Communist victory in Korea. In September 1950, NATO's Military Committee had called for an ambitious buildup of conventional forces to meet the Soviets, subsequently reaffirming this position at the February 1952 meeting of the Atlantic Council in Lisbon which had established a goal of ultimately fielding 96 divisions in the event of a conventional war in 1954. In support of this, the United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), which consisted of 16 wings totaling 2,100 aircraft, was programmed to expand to 28 wings, 22 of them in NATO's Central Region alone, backed by deployed Strategic Air Command units sent from CONUS. Routine photo reconnaissance flights over Cuba revealed that the Soviet Union was, in fact, in the process of placing nuclear armed missiles on that island. In response, the United States let it be known that any use of those missiles against any country in the Western Hemisphere would be considered as an attack on the United States and a full nuclear response on the Soviet Union would be the result. The United States and the Soviet Union stood eyeball to eyeball at the brink of a nuclear exchange.

While the invasion forces gathered in Florida, Kennedy ordered the U. S. State Department to develop a plan for civil governance in Cuba. Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff favored an invasion, but U. S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy vehemently opposed that plan and instead advocated a blockade. The President listened to his brother, and on 22 October 1962, appeared on television to explain to America and the world that the United States was imposing a strict quarantine on offensive military equipment being shipped to Cuba. Kennedy also warned Khrushchev that the United States would regard any missile attack from Cuba as an attack from the Soviet Union and would retaliate against the Soviet Union. Twenty four additional USN F4H 1 aircraft, subsequently redesignated as F 4Bs, were loaned to USAF for additional evaluation. This evaluation resulted in a USAF decision to acquire their own version of the F 4, designated as the F 4C. Following its initial flight in May 1963, the F 4C entered USAF service with TAC in November 1963. The F 4 would prove to be one of the most numerous jet fighters ever operated by USAF, with over 2800 examples acquired for service in TAC, USAFE, PACAF and the Air Force Systems Command (AFSC), to include later versions such as the RF 4C, F 4D, F 4E and F 4G. In 1960, DoD also combined a USAF requirement for a new fighter bomber to ostensibly replace TAC's F 105 fighter bombers with a USN need for a new carrier based air superiority fighter, then launched a competition among aircraft manufacturers for the final design. In 1962, General Dynamics and Boeing were selected as finalists with the General Dynamics variable geometry wing Tactical Fighter Experimental (TFX) design eventually winning out. Designated as the F 111, the Navy version was known as the F 111B and the USAF version the F 111A, with the first flight of the F 111A taking place in December 1964 and the first production models delivered to the USAF in 1967. Additional variants such as the FB 111A for SAC and the F 111E, F 111F and EF 111A for TAC and USAFE, plus the F 111K for the RAAF followed. Meanwhile, the Navy's F 111B program was canceled after five examples when it became apparent that its performance characteristics were unsuitable for an aircraft carrier based fighter and interceptor, with many of its design features and systems being incorporated into the successful Grumman F 14 Tomcat. In all, 562 F 111s of all series were built. USAF also acquired a number of other USN aircraft originally designed for aircraft carrier use and pressed them into USAF service. This included the transfer of the piston engine Douglas A 1 Skyraider in its A 1E and A 1H variants being retired from the Navy inventory in the mid 1960s for close air support, rescue aircraft escort, and special operations duties in Vietnam, as well as the Navy's LTV A 7 Corsair II light attack bomber in new production numbers, the USAF versions of which were designated A 7D and A 7K. In the case of the A 7, the USAF was initially reluctant to take on yet another Navy designed aircraft, but on 5 November 1965, Secretary of the Air Force Harold Brown and Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General John P. McConnell, announced that USAF had decided to order a version of the aircraft, designated A 7D, for TAC. The first A 7D made its initial flight in April 1968, and deliveries of production models began in December 1968. When A 7D production ended in 1976, LTV had delivered 459 to the U. S. Air Force. These aircraft continued in TAC service until supplanted by F 16 Fighting Falcon or A 10 Thunderbolt II aircraft. Most A 7Ds and all A 7Ks were later transferred to Air National Guard (ANG) units operationally gained by TAC, remaining in ANG service until 1993 when they, too, were replaced by the F 16 or A 10.

Air Force Special Forces units became part of TAC in 1961 when a counter insurgency force was activated at Eglin AFB, Florida. Aircraft of these units consisted of a combination of propeller driven World War II and Korean War vintage fighters, modified trainers, Douglas B 26 Invader attack bombers and an eclectic collection of cargo and utility aircraft. Originally activated as a Combat Crew Training Squadron, the unit was upgraded to a wing and designated as the 1st Air Commando Wing. In 1964, TAC ordered a squadron of specially modified C 130E aircraft to support U. S. Army Special Forces and Central Intelligence Agency teams operating deep inside enemy territory. As the war in Vietnam intensified, additional air commando units were organized in Southeast Asia. In 1968, these units were redesignated as "Special Operations" squadrons.

In response to what has become known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, TAC pilots and support personnel found themselves deployed to places like Da Nang AB and Phan Rang AB in South Vietnam and Takhli RTAFB and Korat RTAFB in Thailand. Initially, TAC began deploying squadrons of F 100 Super Sabre, RF 101 Voodoo and F 105 Thunderchief aircraft to these overseas installations under the cognizance of PACAF. As the American effort in Southeast Asia increased, TAC used a process of deploying squadrons to PACAF operated bases in South Vietnam and Thailand, with the squadrons being attached temporarily on rotational deployments or being permanently reassigned to the PACAF wing. For the next decade, TAC would be consumed by operations in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. On a daily basis, flight crews trained by TAC would hurl themselves and their planes at targets across the area of operations, to include over the skies of North Vietnam. As the command responsible for training aircrews for overseas duty, TAC maintained Readiness Training Units in the United States to train pilots and other aircrew members for fighters, reconnaissance and troop carrier (redesignated tactical airlift after 1 July 1966) squadrons in the Pacific.

In early 1977, strong congressional pressure to reduce USAF management "overhead", and the personal conviction of the Air Force Chief of Staff that substantial savings could be realized without a reduction in operational capability, resulted in the disestablishment of Aerospace Defense Command (ADC) as a USAF major command. ADC was inactivated on 1 October 1979, with its "atmospheric" resources e. g., its Regular Air Force and Air National Guard F 101, F 102 and F 106 fighter interceptors; ground based warning radars; and associated bases and personnel) subsequently transferred to TAC under a sub entity named Air Defense, Tactical Air Command (ADTAC). ADC's EC 121 Warning Star airborne early warning aircraft had already been retired by 1978 and it never received that aircraft's replacement, the E 3 Sentry AWACS, that began entering the TAC inventory in 1977. As a result of changes in USAF doctrine and tactics, AWACS was always intended as strictly a TAC airframe nominally operating from forward deployed locations and incorporating many of the lessons learned from employing the EC 121 in its Big Eye, College Eye, Rivet Top and Disco roles with PACAF's 7th Air Force during the Vietnam War. The new command was, essentially, a transition organization between ADC, and the transfer of the continental air defense mission from a combination of the Regular Air Force and the Air National Guard to one totally residing in TAC gained assets of the Air National Guard by 1990.

The 57th Fighter Weapons Wing at Nellis AFB, Nevada began giving Regular Air Force units some of the most intense combat training ever achieved through the Red Flag program, beginning in 1976. This would later expand to include the Air Force Reserve, the Air National Guard, aviation squadrons of the U. S. Navy and U. S. Marine Corps (augmenting their Naval Fighter Weapons School / TOPGUN program), and various NATO and Allied nations. The origin of Red Flag was the unacceptable performance of U. S. Air Force pilots and weapon systems officers in air combat maneuvering (ACM) (air to air combat) during the Vietnam War in comparison to previous wars. Air combat over North Vietnam between 1965 and 1973 led to an overall exchange ratio (ratio of enemy aircraft shot down to the number of own aircraft lost to enemy fighters) of 2.2:1. In fact, for a period of time in June and July 1972 during Operation Linebacker, the ratio was less than 1:1. The aggressor units at Red Flag were originally equipped with readily available T 38 Talon aircraft loaned from the Air Training Command (ATC) to simulate the Soviet Union's MiG 21. Northrop F 5 Tiger II fighters, painted in color schemes commonly found on Soviet and Warsaw Pact aircraft, were added shortly thereafter and became the mainstay until the F 16 was introduced in the mid/late 1980s. The Red Flag exercises, conducted in four to six cycles per year by the 414th Combat Training Squadron evolved into very realistic large scale aerial war games, the purpose being to train pilots and navigators/weapon systems officers/electronic warfare officers and air battle managers from the U. S., NATO and other allied countries for real combat situations. This includes the use of "enemy" hardware and live ammunition for bombing exercises within the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR).