Expeditionary Test

摘要

The Air Force's "kick down the door" concept―better known as the Global Strike Task Force―got a major test in the Pentagon's Millennium Challenge 2002 combat experiment. US officials pitted USAF's notional task force of stealthy F/A-22 fighters and B-2 bombers against an enemy armed with advanced long- range surface-to-air missiles in an anti-access scenario set five years in the future. The task force enjoyed major success, reported Lt. Gen. William T. Hobbins, 12th Air Force commander and head of the air and space component for the experiment. "The Global Strike Task Force, using the stealth of the [F/A-22] and the B-2, was able to get inside the Millennium Challenge, which went on until Aug. 15. US Joint Forces Command sponsored the overall wargame, which featured some 13,500 personnel. It was mandated by Congress as both a live and simulated experiment. "This was the first major joint experiment ever conducted," Army Gen. William F. Kernan, then JFCOM commander, told reporters Sept. 17.