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Ammo rearms the fight

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Vernon Cunningham
  • 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan --  A select group of men and women of the 455th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron gathered together around a munitions assembly conveyor to execute a semi-annual assembled munitions serviceability inspection at Bagram Airfield Dec. 28, 2011.

Munition systems specialists, known as Ammo Dawgs, receive, inspect, issue, assemble and test, maintain, inventory and transport guided and unguided munitions. They use and maintain munitions test sets and munitions-specific trailers, loaders and tractors. Ammo Dawgs ensure the war fighting readiness of explosives from small arms or egress components to ejections seats and 4,500 pound bunker penetrating bombs.

Staff Sgt. Alex Brzoska, 455th EMXS conventional maintenance supervisor, said the Ammo mission is to be a war fighter. One aspect of this is to arm the fight by ensuring munitions will function as designed when the trigger is pulled.

"We build bombs from scratch," he said. "We receive the bomb body and the components for assembly. Then every six months we have to verify that what we built is still accurate. We undo all the components to make sure it is still serviceable."

During the AMSI, Ammo Airmen disassembled armament within their stock and verified that all the components were still functioning. The inspections are performed twice as often here as in the United States due to the dirt, sand and weather conditions that exist.

The team members visually inspected each component of the MK 82 bomb bodies and KMU-572 tail kits which lay in front of them. Also, electronic fuses and laser detector kits were inspected. In addition, they ran an integrated built-in test using the AN/GYQ-79A test set to test electronic features.

All bombs passed the AMSI. Throughout December, the Ammo team inspected 22 bombs and performed 355 post load visual/IBIT inspections on bombs that were unloaded from aircraft due to aircraft maintenance.

Airman 1st Class Zachary Coleman, 455th EMXS munitions systems specialist, said he enjoys his job at Bagram Airfield.

He said, "It is a good feeling to know that whenever troops on the ground call in an air strike, the bombs that we build work dead on and save lives."

That feeling is shared by many of his fellow Ammo Airmen.

"It's very satisfying," said Brzoska. "You're keeping people alive. It's very gratifying."