Aircraft Armament Systems Specialist

Aircraft Armament Systems Specialist. 462/2W1. The Weapons and Munitions profession in the United States Air Force began long before the invention of aircraft or the Air Force. Special handling and storage of gunpowder are an example dating back. Now it is more sophisticated and the Air Force's Weapons and Munitions career field developed from air components of the United States Army Ordnance Corps. It quickly expanded into an entire profession with many specialties as air power rose in military warfare, especially during World War I. Generally, service people in this profession are enlisted. Their work is highly technical and dangerous, deserving of respect as they handle, load, or perform maintenance actions on nuclear or conventional weapon systems or explosives., The book The Ordinance Department, Planning Munitions for War shows the Pre-World War ll era ordnance profession's 9-month training course, outlining the precursor to the various weapons career fields. Once Word War II started, the Army Air Force split the single ordinance specialist into several Military Occupational Specialties (MOS), such as the 662 Aerial Torpedo Mechanic and 967 Aircraft Loading Technician. These two would later become the 462 series under the Army MOS system, then eventually reclassified under a new system as the 2W1 series. The Army MOS codes were retained by the Air Force until 1954 when the still young Air Force went to a 5 digit system, the Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC)., The AFSC 462X0 was changed to 2W1X0 in 1993, when the Air Force implemented a new AFSC system, reducing the 203 enlisted codes to 176. This method assigned a first digit, the Career Group, a second digit, the Career Field, and the third digit, a Subfield to each profession. For the Weapons Profession, 2W1 means the 2 falls in the Logistics and Maintenance Group, the W is for Weapons, and the 1 is for Weapons Loaders. For other 2W AFSC's, a zero stands for AMMO, a 2 stands for nuclear weapons, and so on., Typically a 2W1/462 is referred to as a Weapons Troop and they focus on the support of military operations. They are responsible for maintaining the guns and highly technical launch and release systems for Air Force aircraft. It is up to them to ensure weapons can launch safely and hit an intended target. They make sure that weapons can be deployed without danger to aircraft or fellow troops.