321st AMOS hits a homerun during Home Plate 25-3

Published May 28, 2025
By Lt. Col Bradlee Seehawer
321st Air Mobility Operations Squadron

Members of the 321st, 621st, 183rd and 349th Air Mobility Operations Squadrons gathered in the 321st AMOS weapons system suite May 2-9 for Home Plate 25-3, the next iteration of the 321st AMOS “Masterminds” long-running internal exercise series.

As experts in air mobility command and control the AMOS spends months of the year augmenting Air Operations Centers across the globe, planning and executing Rapid Global Mobility across the theater. They maintain qualifications in the AOC weapon system and require upgrade and proficiency training to ensure their skills stay sharp. During the winter and spring months there aren’t as many Joint Chiefs of Staff exercises, allowing the squadrons to build Home Plates to test their abilities.

”It was revealing to see the scope and magnitude of how the CRW deploys. It was mind-blowing to see how quickly we can get out the door.''

Esteban Ochoa, 321st AMOS unit deployment manager

This is the third Home Plate exercise this year, the first time the Masterminds have executed three internal exercises in a fiscal year since 2022. The increase comes in response to the Defense Secretary’s calls for an increased focus on readiness and lethality. It’s also a testament to the process improvements the Masterminds have made over the past two years to leverage outside AOC experts and dedicate personnel to help guide the mission planners as they build their exercise.

Despite the extra hands, the exercise still serves as a reflection of the individuals planning it. For Maj. Wes Williams, 621st Contingency Response Wing deputy chief of innovation and Home Plate 25-3 mission planner, there was never any doubt that this Home Plate was going to incorporate artificial intelligence. He leveraged the capabilities of Pytho AI, an AI model purpose-built to support military wargaming and exercises.

Man types on keyboard — (courtesy photo)

“Unlike a typical AI model, Pytho allows you to specify what local data you want the model to use," Williams said." Utilizing publicly available regulations and doctrine the model can provide a good outline for how to structure the scenario to meet our learning objectives. Then, because the exercise takes place in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command we can specifically reference articles from the USINDOPACOM website to build injects or open source news articles to help bring realism into the scenario. As good at is, upgrading the tool to process Controlled Unclassified Information would have allowed us to meet even more of our training objectives.”

Many of the products produced by Pytho were distributed in Mattermost, an application framework that serves as the collaborative tool of choice across the Air Forces Transportation enterprise. The Airmen of the 321st AMOS who fly tactical missions with members of Team Travis use Mattermost to distribute mission information and communicate with AOC mission planners. Incorporating the use of the tool into Home Plate was a natural evolution of the scenario and created a more immersive experience.

Further adding realism was Unified Devil 25-3, a wing-wide readiness exercise that took place during Home Plate and tested how every mission set in the 621st CRW would deploy in response to a contingency. It was the first time the 321st AMOS generated, employed and sustained in a readiness exercise to such an extent.

“It was revealing to see the scope and magnitude of how the CRW deploys,” said Esteban Ochoa, 321st AMOS unit deployment manager. “It was mind-blowing to see how quickly we can get out the door.”

321st AMOS main lobby — The 321st Air Mobility Operations Squadron main lobby at Travis Air Force Base, California, May 6, 2025. Pictured are multiple awards and honors that the squadron has received since its inception. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Scott Warner)

The scenario for Home Plate 25-3 was based on Operation DAMAYAN, the 2013 disaster relief mission that helped the Philippines recover from a devastating typhoon. During that operation Masterminds deployed to the 613th Air Operations Center to help plan the disaster relief missions that delivered 2.4 million pounds of relief supplies and equipment. Thankfully not part of the real-world inspiration for Home Plate, the scenario evolved into a high-intensity conflict with a peer competitor in the region to test the full range of capabilities in the AMOS.

The full range of capabilities included C2Core, a new joint all-domain command and control capability for the AOC. Built upon the Master Air Attack Planning Toolkit, the software was added to the AOC baseline in late 2024. The 321st AMOS was among the first Falconer weapons system to embrace it and explore how to plan both airlift and air refueling missions from a single piece of software.

“Building missions in C2Core was great,” said Staff Sgt. David Alvarado, 321st AMOS air tasking order integrator. “I’ve never seen missions added to the ATO so easily. It made everything so much simpler and streamlined.”

People gather around a desktop computer — Members assigned to the 321st, 621st, 183rd and 349th Air Mobility Operations Squadrons look over details during Exercise HOMEPLATE 25-3, at Travis Air Force Base, California, May 6, 2025. The 321st Air Mobility Operations Squadron hosted the next iteration of the 321st AMOS “Masterminds” long-running internal exercise. As experts in air mobility command and control, the AMOS spent months of the year augmenting Air Operations Centers across the globe, planning and executing rapid global mobility across the theater. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Scott Warner)

At the end of the week the Masterminds debriefed their experience to Col. Jason Herring, 621st CRW commander, who praised their efforts and recalled the AMOS’s participation in Operation UNIFIED RESPONSE, the 2010 disaster relief operation in response to an earthquake in Haiti. For two months the AMOS helped moved cargo, fuel, and patients to help Haiti rebuild, another reminder that for fifty years the squadron has been a Community of Ready Warriors and an important part of the Contingency Response mindset that thrives across the wing.

“I truly believe we have the right people here that have the skills to push the squadron forward,” said Tech. Sgt. Ian Southerland, 321st AMOS Home Plate 25-3 air refueling planner. “The future of the AOC requires the dedication to become masters in our functional specialty and then go even further to prepare for the next fight. Whatever comes, we’ll be ready.”