NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. -- Since 2003, the Advanced Maintenance and Munitions Operations School, or AMMOS, has provided graduate-level education to equip Airmen with the skills to solve complex sortie generation issues, maintain aircraft fleet health and enhance unit readiness.
Located at Nellis Air Force Base, AMMOS is shaping the next generation of leaders who will sustain the high-end fight as the character of warfare evolves and the U.S. Air Force shifts to meet the demands of near-peer competition. In response to current threats in the Indo-Pacific theater, the school is implementing key changes to better posture its graduates for great power competition.
“Our mission hasn’t changed, but the threat has,” said Lt. Col. Steven Ortner, AMMOS commandant. “We’re accelerating how we train officers and senior noncommissioned officers to lead in high-end conflicts against peer adversaries. Logistics must be faster, more agile and more resilient.”
In any future conflict, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, the Air Force must project airpower across vast distances, from island chains to dispersed, potentially austere, operating locations. The success of that effort depends on logistics: moving Airmen, fuel, weapons and aircraft quickly and safely in contested domains.
To meet these demands, AMMOS is realigning its mission focus to ensure tomorrow’s logisticians can sustain the fight in contested environments.
“AMMOS has changed vastly in the last five years, it’s both challenging and longer,” said Maj. Sean Bryant, AMMOS instructor. “While the course continues to provide students with the skills to master tactical production at their bases, it also prepares them to fight and win in the Indo-Pacific.”
To meet evolving operational requirements, AMMOS has updated its curriculum with theater-specific instruction tailored to the region’s unique logistical and geographic challenges. These updates feature cross-functional Agile Combat Employment, or ACE, scenarios that emphasize contested basing, mobile sustainment and the ability to regenerate combat power in denied environments.
To reinforce these concepts, students engage in real-time simulations and conduct after-action analysis of major exercises such as Bamboo Eagle and Red Flag. These exercises directly correlate academic lessons to operational objectives. The curriculum also integrates strategic airlift planning, including the forward movement of munitions, equipment and maintenance teams using aircraft such as the C-17 Globemaster III.
“Our graduates are learning logistics isn’t just support, it’s a warfighting capability,” said Senior Master Sgt. Cody Collins, AMMOS instructor. “If we can’t sustain the fight, we won’t win it.”
AMMOS is developing officers and senior NCOs capable of planning and executing complex logistical operations across a disaggregated battlespace. These capabilities are essential for countering anti-access and area denial strategies designed to disrupt U.S. mobility and logistics chains.
Since the beginning of 2025, AMMOS has been training 40 officers and senior NCOs annually, with plans to increase to 50 students per year in 2026. Graduates are equipped to identify and mitigate sortie production shortfalls, pre-position critical assets, and regenerate combat capability in contested environments. Through this expansion, AMMOS is directly supporting the Air Force’s ability to fight and win against a peer adversary.
The school’s role in Bamboo Eagle demonstrates these evolving capabilities. The department level exercise tests the Air Force’s ability to disperse, sustain and reconstitute forces across the southwestern United States, mirroring the disaggregation required in a fight in the Pacific.
AMMOS graduates played a critical role in planning and executing these movements. From Nellis, C-17 Globemaster IIIs forward-deployed maintenance kits, weapons systems and personnel to austere locations, ensuring each site had the equipment, manpower and resources to maintain combat operations.
“Bamboo Eagle shows how powerful warfighting logistics can be,” said Ortner. “These logistics operations are designed to complicate adversary targeting and maintain combat power from multiple locations.”
As the Air Force pivots to the Indo-Pacific, AMMOS graduates are becoming key enablers in the Air Force Generation model. Their ability to lead at the tactical and operational levels ensures airpower can be sustained even when traditional supply lines are cut or degraded.
“The next fight won’t be fought from a single location,” said Ortner. “Our graduates will be leading the teams who move the mission forward.”