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Military service mark of the United States Air Force

The United States Air Force (USAF) is the aerial and space warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven American uniformed services. Initially established as a part of the United States Army on 1st August 1907, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the U.S. Armed Forces on 18 September 1947 with the passing of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the youngest branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the fourth in order of precedence. The USAF is the largest and most technologically advanced air force in the world. The Air Force articulates its core missions as air and space superiority, global integrated ISR, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.

The U.S. Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The Air Force, through the Department of the Air Force, is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force, who reports to the Secretary of Defense, and is appointed by the President with Senate confirmation. The highest-ranking military officer in the Air Force is the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, who exercises supervision over Air Force units and serves as one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Along with conducting independent air and space operations, the U.S. Air Force provides air support for land and naval forces and aids in the recovery of troops in the field. As of 2017, the service operates more than 5369 military aircraft, 406 ICBMs and 170 military satellites. It has a 161 billion USD budget and is the second largest service branch, with 318,415 active duty personnel, 140,169 civilian personnel, 69,200 Air Force Reserve personnel, and 105,700 Air National Guard personnel. Following the outbreak, the USAF was the most impacted Military Service of the US.

Before Outbreak[]

USAF F-16A F-15C F-15E Desert Storm edit2-e1295023325673

USAF aircraft of the 4th Fighter Wing (F-16, F-15C and F-15E) fly over Kuwaiti oil fires, set by the retreating Iraqi army during Operation Desert Storm in 1991

The United States Air Force has been involved in many wars, conflicts and operations using military air operations. The USAF possesses the lineage and heritage of its predecessor organizations, which played a pivotal role in U.S. military operations since 1907.

The United States Air Force has its origin in the formation, on 1 August, 1907, of an aeronautical training within Signal Corps (corps of transmissions) of the US Army. It will have to wait forty years before gaining independence on 18 September 1947 despite the many attempts made by air force officials during the inter-war period.
The decisive role played by aviation during the Second World War - in particular the fact that it alone was able to implement the deterrent weapon: the atomic bomb - determined the creation of the USAF from the United States. Army Air Forces, semi-autonomous corps which gathered in mid-1945 more than 2.25 million men and had approximately 20,000 aircraft. The USAAF carried out 2,362,800 sorties during this war, dropped 2.15 million tonnes of bombs (1.613 million in Europe and North Africa, 0.537 million tonnes in Asia / Oceania) and lost 22,948 aircraft. In 1950, the Korean War - which gave rise to fears of a new world war - favored the adoption of a policy of rapid expansion. There were 710,886 USAF sorties and 1466 aircraft lost in the conflict.

For ten years, the USAF maintained very important tactical and strategic forces (1000 bombers in the late 1950s - B-36, B-47 and B-52) and a rapid renewal of fighter aircraft by increasingly more sophisticated (F-84, F-102, F-4 ...). The beginning of the 1960s saw the massive arrival of the ICBM which dethroned little by little the bombers piloted within the framework of the deterrence; there was a maximum of 1,054 intercontinental missiles in service in the 1970s.

When the United States embarked on the Vietnam War, military reinforcement was largely in favor of the Tactical Air Command. During this period, from 1962 to 1974, the USAF deployed a maximum of 1840 aircraft - in 1969 - sent to the Republic of Vietnam a maximum of 58,434 military - in 1968 - also deployed in Thailand a peak of 35,791 men in the same year, made 5,226,701 sorties, used 6166 million tons of bombs, shot down 137 aircraft of the Vietnamese People's Army and lost 2255 aircraft.

The end of operations in South-East Asia led to a rapid reduction in the number of troops from 427 squadrons and 904,000 men in 1968 to 258 and 559,000 in 1979. Its workforce was 510,000 personnel in 1991 during the Gulf War, which saw a demonstration of the power of aviation that destroyed a large part of the military-industrial complex of Iraq with extremely reduced losses using a wide range of advanced air-ground armaments. The disappearance of the USSR led to a reduction in defense budgets in the West and a sharp decline in the number of troops and the fleet. In 1992, a major reorganization of the Air Force commands took place.

During the Outbreak[]

RQ-4 aides Japan earthquake relief operations

A USAF RQ-4 drone shortly before takeoff for a reconnaissance mission to infected Maryland territories.

Most of the missions carried out during the first days of the infection in the United States consisted of the delivery of medical resources to the states on the east coast where the first cases were detected; This is how several C-130s and C-17 Globemasters are used for cargo or equipment transport missions to the Baltimore red zone.

However, with the deterioration of the situation and the explosion of homicides and violence, the American government will have to repatriate many troops on foreign missions (continental Europe, Afghanistan and Asia), an another mission for USAF transport planes.

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