Air Force adds two more electromagnetic spectrum-focused squadrons
The Air Force established two more squadrons focused on electromagnetic spectrum operations, part of its newest wing.
The 563rd Electronic Warfare Squadron, based at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, was activated on April 25th and will deliver modern software applications. The 388th Electronic Warfare Squadron, based at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, will stand up on May 2 and be responsible for evaluating assessing adversaries’ capabilities and identifying vulnerabilities.
Both units will be beneath the 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing, established in 2021 as a result of the Air Force’s landmark electromagnetic spectrum study to reinvigorate spectrum within the service. The wing has three primary missions: rapid reprogramming, target and waveform development, and assessment of the Air Force’s electronic warfare capabilities.
The activation of these two squadrons follows the creation of two detachments last year that will help plant the seeds for building the 950th Spectrum Warfare Group, focused on enhancing the Air Force EW assessment programs.
The creation of these squadrons — there are anticipated to be a minimum of four additional units the future — is based off an assessment of the threat and a need to be able to achieve the three core missions of the wing, its commander, Col. Josh Koslov, told reporters Wednesday.
The 563rd is described as becoming the first digitally native squadron in the Air Force, with a focus on developing software capabilities for electronic warfare, Koslov said.
“They’re the first folks that have focused specifically on software for EW, not either a weapon system or some sort of, in the electronic warfare field, waveform type of thing,” he told reporters.
One of the key areas that squadron will be taking on is building a capability for operational-level tools used to plan, integrate, synchronize and collaborate electronic warfare effects, which Koslov said are currently nonexistent.
Those coders will work to develop those technologies for the joint force to execute operations in a wartime scenario, and help the Air Force comb through the vast amounts of data about threats and go faster in the production of combat capability to attack the enemy.
The 388th will seek to improve the Air Force’s capabilities and drive waveform development.
“The combatant commands are expecting the Spectrum Warfare Wing to provide effective capabilities to achieve global objectives. That’s what the 388th is going to be doing,” Lt. Col. Timothy West, who will assume command of the 388th, told reporters. “Within the wing as we’re building capabilities, we’re making sure that we are extending the best capabilities downrange there and integrated capabilities, and that the combatant commands have the confidence that what we provide to them will achieve effects in the battlespace.”
The unit will be very tied in with the intelligence community to identify and detect threats, and connected to data transport layers to be able to pass that threat information and execute operations quickly.
Through exercises and other venues, the wing has worked to establish processes by which all the squadrons can work together to execute the wing’s missions, according to officials.
“Those three missions work together as gears in a machine in order to provide the Air Force and the joint force and the coalition force greater electromagnetic spectrum operations readiness,” Koslov said.
