Why don't all members of the Air Force have to be fully qualified to be a rifleman in case of hostile events?

Sorry, to many CBTs no time for shooting...

The Air Force and its raison d'être is "Air Superiority". I am sure I have heard that somewhere... Lol...Aside from AFSC exception, we are not ground troops by historical design.

Now having said that, I am COMPLETELY on board to be fully qualified and capable to handle weaponry. It used to be annual requirement and has somehow fallen to the wayside. When needed, troops still get the "proper" training, but I think it is a skill set that needs to be kept current.

Coming from the Army, I know first-hand that there are fewer things in the world more fun than range time.... Cleaning weapons afterward, not so much. :)

Mission Requirements and the LIMFACs known as time and funds.....It is hard enough for our CATM to get our own personnel fully qualified with all of all of our weapons, along with all of the personnel who require quals that our personnel must do. If they had to constantly qual all personnel, the staffing would go up exponentially, as would the budget. Never going to happen, and the bulk of our personnel don't have the "true need". Would it be great? Absolutely. Would I personally like to see it? Absolutely. Never going to happen.

Budgets. Where do you spend money, what has priority. USAF priorities differ from Army and Marines.

It's for the same reasons the Navy no longer trains sailors on the M4/M16 (just M9 and shotgun) because for most AF personnel it doesn't make sense and it is a wasteful expenditure. Keeping up weapons proficiency for that many people takes up alot of money that the AF would rather, and should, spend elsewhere. That is why your position exists, to secure forward locations so that the AF personnel inside are safe.

This same question was being asked within the Air Force 25 years ago when I first started. The base I started out at had a lot of folks who had recently transferred off of the Ground Launched Cruise Missile units in Europe and had a lot more ground combat training than the average USAF member had. They always had an issue with the basic USAF doctrine of relying solely on SF and having everyone else hide under something.

Although there are exceptions, I think a majority of USAF members would like more weapons training, but I think several of the factors others here have mentioned have come into play.

We are not a ground combat force. So thus much of our time and funding is directed elsewhere. Even our deployment CAST training is not detailed ground combat training. It is just a brief overview so when the Army Sgt yells "stack on me" we at least have some idea of what he wants us to do. Even when we do deploy most of our bases have Army or Marine units stationed there.

I do not think that we will ever get to the point where every airman is a rifleman, but in today's asymmetric terrorist world we cannot guarantee that an attack might not be just as likely at a stateside base as one in Afghanistan. It would be nice to see training and exercises that teach more than just hiding under a desk.

I've seen infantrymen in rifle companies and other combat MOSes struggle to qualify and make embarrassing blunders as well. It happens. The only real cure is range time and off-range drills, but for most organizations at a unit level that means drawing weapons out of the armsroom and taking time off from whatever else they'd be doing.

Depending on the purpose and mission of the unit, that's simply not going to happen in a lot of cases. That's why in a perfect world there will always be force protection or an escort element staffed by people who remember how to insert their magazine.

I was in the AF for twenty years, and a Desert Storm vet. It was so upsetting to me that many of the airmen that I served with in Saudi Arabia couldn't shoot their way out of a wet paper bag. To make matters worse the day after we arrived in Rhiad they (USAF) took our M-16's from us. I spent the next four months there empty handed and they wonder why I was paranoid. AF really needs to rethink their position on that

I see both sides of the argument; as an enlisted flight line worker I qualified expert on the M16 and M4. As an officer I qualified on the M9, but the writing was on the wall from the start: if I was responsible for the defense of the installation, we'd lost the war, and were simply trying to survive. In the Air Force, SF provides Force Protection. That's doctrine. Me as an Intelligence officer maneuvering on the battlefield is ridiculous when my mission set provides so much more to the overall fight from inside the hardened facility (RPA ops).
But here's the other side: I made sure I understood how to maintain and operate the weapons I'm qualified in, and I maintain that proficiency on my own time, on my own dime. I own the civilian version of each one (and some others), and I regularly visit my local range to keep my skills sharp. It's not like riding a bicycle, your skills stagnate. I'm committed to serving in the profession of arms, and in the case of the Air Force, that means going beyond the requirement to ensure you're prepared for the fight you hope never comes.

Since I've been a Jarhead and a Flyboy, I can tell you that there are Marines who lack basic weapon handling skills as well. I had a secondary MOS as a marksmanship instructor and eventually moved to the range full time. Basic rifleman is something used as a propaganda tool. Sure, non-grunts, POGs, whatever you want to call us do receive training as all Marines do in bootcamp and MCT and we glorified it as Marine Corps history, but times have changed for all services. When you get to the FMF, depending on what your "POG" job is, you may play games a few times, just so you don't forget the basics. Some folks only fire their assigned weapon during quals and a lot of them suck or go UNQ(but hey now everyone uses optics and not iron sights so it's becoming moot). If your MOS ties you into a GCE, you'll get to have fun with the groundpounders or in support of them and so will get more in depth training and trigger time. Heck, you may even specialize in something (woohoo demo calc!). Now what I saw weapons handling wise from airmen was no different. There were guys who could not shoot at 25m inside the fancy setups most bases have and some who were locked in. A SSgt tried to insert his magazine into his ejection port (yes, I switched firing positions after seeing it). I also witnessed a Marine try to load into the barrel of a M-9. I've seen men and women from both services baffled by a speed loader and some who knew it like their own forehead. I'm pretty sure the 03's don't want the guy in the potshack covering his flank anymore than you would want that comm guy covering yours, but that's what that training is for. Hopefully you corrected him/her and gave them the basics to at least load, point and shoot, enough so to give support in the event zombies attack. Fortunately todays battle sphere entails joint operations and layers of defenses provided to massive airfields. If a human wave attack has breached the perimeter and made it to the flightline, I'm pretty sure the guys turning wrenches won't be situationally aware as to what is going on unless you have personnel posted around the ramp just for that...and I'm certain that's why SFs, MPs and MOAs are cruising around the airfield. Besides, have you tried climbing into an overwing fairing with a M-4 slung? it's all about manpower, time, mission and money, if you can devise a program that would allow training, maybe during your wing ORE, your commander may be keen to follow through on it.