Fuerza Aérea Venezolano

 

 

The Rys clawed its way over the knife-steep margin of the valley, rotors clattering, and Coronel Hector Tamoguchi rolled it into a dive down towards the muddy brown stream that no-one had ever graced with a name of its own.

 

“Pantera Flight, cleared hot,” the Cazadore Aérea FAC called from his observation site somewhere on the valley wall. “Storm Warning in three, two, one…”

 

Whether he said anything more was lost in the eruption as two Wellonese-built Hurricane UCAVs tore down the valley leaving sixteen 100Kg cluster munitions in their wake. The explosions saved Hector the trouble of acquiring the target through triple canopy jungle and he brought the Rys onto a new heading, straight for the remnants of the BLI camp. Speed built in the dive and the rotor noise diminished, the smart material of the blades automatically flattening them into the airflow to minimise drag. There were still huts and bunkers standing despite the onslaught, triple canopy made for pretty good improvised armour, and Hector started designating targets for the Granit pods clinging to the fuselage sides.

 

His wingman had argued for stand-off munitions, but Hector had overridden him, he preferred a weapon that let him see what he was doing, particularly in an operational zone where the counter-air threat was low.

 

“Fuego,” he whispered into the fire control system and a dozen Granits leapt from their pods, exploding into the camp to add to the confusion. Behind them the quartet of Bakkie canard-rotor/wings with the assault element would be rolling into the valley, but if Hector could finish the job before they were down then that was fine with him.

 

“Boat breaking downstream,” his sensor operator called and Hector flared and pivoted the Rys, the rotors beating hard once more as speed bled off.

 

“Select plasma gun,” Hector ordered the aircraft, the targeting reticle leaping to life in his visor. He centred it on the fleeing motorized canoe, but it exploded into flame before he could fire, the Petit Duc tactical UCAV firing from the hover where it sheltered in the canopy at the edge of the river, proving once more that if you fought smart then the jungle wasn’t the friend of Juanito Indio, it was his graveyard.

 

Hector kicked rudder and the Rys slewed back towards the camp. His wingman was just climbing away from his own pass and there were no obvious targets left, just flames and bodies.

 

“Payback,” Hector muttered, touching his fingers to his lips and then to the holo tacked to the canopy frame. “But not enough, never enough.”

 

Acknowledgements

 

My thanks to Dan Hebditch and James Boschma for comments and criticism during this article’s extended gestation. This article draws very heavily on James’ article on the Ejército Venezolano and the Insurrecto problem, the Wo-170 and Wo-171 are also James’ creations, Various weapons systems mentioned here are the creations of James, Dan Hebditch and others.

 

Index

History
Current Strategic Issues

Order of Battle

FAV Bases

Enlistment

Personalities

Aircraft

 

History

 

Twilight – the Colonels

 

When the Twilight War erupted in Europe and Asia most of Central and South America decided to stay on the sidelines and retain strict neutrality. This was more difficult for Venezuela than for other nations as Venezuelan oil production made them a strategic target. Historians working from surviving records have made a convincing case that elements within the Venezuelan government were selling oil to both the US and to Mexico, Cuba and the Soviet forces in Mexico and Texas. It is unclear from the evidence which side took umbrage, but the effects were devastating, with nuclear warheads targeting the major oil facilities and terminals. A low yield warhead targeted on Caracas appears to have been deliberately intended to decapitate the government and reduce the country to chaos. It was largely successful.

 

In the chaos, the heads of the Ejercito and Fuerza Aérea, in reality figureheads for a cabal of middle-ranking officers led by a rogue paratroop colonel, tried to put themselves in power. To their considerable surprise (and that of the government) several military units rallied to the defence of the civilian politicians, who were trying to coordinate relief efforts from the city of Maracay. Prominent amongst those was 2 Escadron de Caza, commanded by Coronel Felipe Jiminez. 2o Escadron was a shadow of itself with two aircraft, three pilots and a few dozen ground personnel, but those two aircraft were F-16 Falcons and possibly the most potent aerial force left in the South American continent. Over the course of the next three days Coronel Jiminez and his handful of men destroyed seventeen rebel aircraft, ranging from F-5s to Beech Barons and an ancient C-47 attempting a coup de main paradrop, they also undertook ground attack missions against the rebel ground columns and are judged by all the significant histories of the campaign to have been the single factor that kept the civilian government in power. Coronel Jiminez refused promotion from his grateful government, but became the de-facto head of the Venezuelan military

 

The aftermath of the nuclear strike combined with the coup and the low-intensity civil war which followed left the surviving government of Venezuela in no state to intervene outside its borders and when the Second Cisplatina War opened between Argentina and Brazil in 1998 Venezuela declared a policy of strict neutrality. In practice Venezuela’s neutrality leaked black gold as local commanders dealt under the counter to tramp freighters from either side, but neither Brazil nor Argentina were in a position to threaten Venezuela, an already nuked state being a target-poor environment.

 

Dawn – Latino Traders

 

Venezuela was slow to recover from the Twilight War. Venezuela’s industrialization had been driven by her status as the only Latin American member of OPEC and lacked the breadth and depth found in places like North America and Europe. The first priority of the government had to be feeding its people, but rehabilitating the oil fields and restoring some refining capacity was next in priority. Even with some oil flowing again the problem of restoring the Venezuelan economy was far from solved. Oil states are dependent on international trade and significant international trade was non-existent for many years after the nuclear exchange. An early priority for Venezuela as it started to find its feet again was therefore the construction or repair of sufficient shipping to allow it to find customers even if they weren’t yet up to reaching Venezuela themselves. Without really planning for it, the Venezuelans jump-started the economies of hundred of communities up and down the Atlantic seaboards of both North and South America (there was some Venezuelan presence on the Pacific seaboard, but damage to the locks of the Panama Canal meant that this was predominantly round the Cape traffic with the distances involved mostly considered prohibitive. The threat from pirates (or ‘customs vessels’ as New America insisted on describing its limited naval forces) saw the Venezuelan Navy the first of the services to expand again, deploying a class of long range patrol craft modelled on USCG high endurance cutters as escorts. The Air Force went with them, flying float-equipped ultra-lights as scouts off both the patrol craft and the tankers. The most significant action of this period was a battle in the Florida Straits between the New American privateers Racial Purity, Liberty and Manifest Destiny and the Venezuelan patrol craft Independencia, together with the 5000t tankers Palo Negro and Barquismeto. The battle cost the Venezuelans two ultralights and the Independencia, but sent all three New American vessels to the bottom. The success of the ultralights in sinking the Racial Purity with a napalm strike has always meant that the Venezuelan AF regards itself as part of the carrier aviation tradition.

 

Rebirth – New Threats

 

As Twilight faded from living memory Venezuela was once more a prosperous state, but the race memory of the nuking of the oil facilities by an unidentified trading partner made her very cautious of foreign involvements and consecutive governments were extremely happy to see Brazil taking on the role of regional policeman. They were less pleased by Mexican expansionism and focus swung back from the Navy, now less needed in a generally peaceful, lawful world, to the Ejercito and air force. As Mexican borders grew ever closer the Venezuelan government realised that their policy of isolationism could no longer guarantee their territorial integrity. Venezuela needed allies, but choosing an ally close to home would inevitably draw Venezuela into one of the two factions coalescing around the Brazilian or Mexican/Argentinian axes, and risk committing them in a continental war. Equally, while France, or increasingly Manchuria, would have been able to guarantee Venezuela’s independence as a nation, the cost would have been their own independence as a political force. Venezuela therefore sought allies from second rank states overseas, establishing links with Bavaria, Russia, Japan and, to a lesser extent, the United States.

 

Neutrality, backed by powerful allies, served Venezuela well for a century and a half, unfortunately in recent decades the strategic situation has evolved beyond that. Mexican expansion has swallowed up every state between it and Venezuela and the last near neutrals who could potentially ally with Venezuala as a bloc separate from either Mexican or Brazilian control went under with the birth of the Incan Republic. Venezuelan policy is increasingly dominated by the conviction that ‘we’re next’. The Incan-inspired insurgency in Amazonas has only convinced the Venezuelan military that time is running out and sub-rosa contacts with the Brazilian and French militaries have been increasing, not all of them with government approval.

 

INDEX

 

Current Strategic Issues

 

International Ties

 

The FAV retains overt relationships with few foreign air forces as a sop to Venezuela’s supposed neutrality. Former links with the Bayerische Fliegertruppe have withered since German re-unification and now only Russia is a significant partner, with a handful of FAV pilots serving on exchange tours with the Russian Air Force (several FAV pilots were decorated by both Russia and Bavaria during the CAW, equally several Russian exchange pilots have received Venezuelan recognition for operations over Amazonas). A very few aircrew, mainly from Grupo Aérea de Patrulla have served with the Japanese forces. Covertly, links are much wider, with a FAV coordinating cell operating within the French Aerospace Control facility on Ile du Diable. As a FAB cell also operates at Ile du Diable it can be assumed the Venezuelans and Brazilians are in regular contact. Equally, Grupo Aérea de Operaciones Especiales has growing, but largely unadvertised, links with the US Special Operations community

 

The Insurrectos

 

Even with the Mexicans poised at the border, the Insurrectos have been the FAV’s primary threat for the past decade. Routing them out on the ground is necessarily a job for the Ejercito and the intelligence services, but the FAV has been required to provide both movement and fire support for the Ejercito, particularly in Amazonas, at the same time that it provides security for its own installations and dependents. Initially the FAV attempted to fulfil these missions from within its existing structure, but it became rapidly apparent that it was less than perfectly suited to the role. However the FAV hierarchy was flexible enough to recognise this and to allow the evolution of Grupo Aérea de Operaciones Especiales under the control of younger officers with the flexibility to adapt to a less structured form of warfare. GAOE has become very successful in the last few years, but with that success has come tension within the FAV, with the organisation more divided than it has been at any time since the Twilight War.

 

Death Over the Jungle

 

On 27th August 2297 FAV scored a major own goal in the so-called Freedom Air Incident. Airborne monitoring by a FAV Zvezda showed an aircraft on a supply run between known Insurrecto airstrips on the Incan side of the border. A Grupo de Caza Grad flying the regular CAP orbit over Amazonas was tasked to intercept and launched a single Kristal LRAAM from within Venezuelan airspace. The missile impacted the target which was destroyed. Within a few hours, Incan media sources were showing the wreckage of a Vías Aéreas De La Libertad Mensajero passenger aircraft, and the bodies of those killed in the incident. Unfortunately for the Venezuelans these included a minor Australian starlet holidaying in the area, guaranteeing that the Anglo-speaking media would echo the story worldwide. The political fallout was considerable and the personnel involved in the attack decision, from pilot to operational commander, were forced to resign their commissions.

 

An investigation by Venezuelan intelligence eventually concluded that Insurrecto agents had hacked the FAV’s C4I system, deleting the information that would have identified the aircraft as a scheduled flight and substituting information that guaranteed it would be targeted. Unfortunately this was too complex a tale to be interesting to the media and the FAV has had to live with the ignominy of targeting a civilian airliner. A major upgrade in C4I network security was subsequently funded as a matter of urgency.

 

INDEX

 

Order of Battle

 

Ever since the Twilight War the FAV has combined the functional and operational divisions found in other airforces into the single Grupo Aérea structure and has made it work. All squadrons holding a particular role are assigned to the Grupo Aérea for that role and numbered consecutively within the Grupo (although some squadrons have retained heraldry and titles from the pre-Twilight organisation). Of late the system has been breaking down with the massive expansion of Grupo Aérea de Operaciones Especiales, which is felt by Grupo Aérea de Attaque, Grupo Aérea de Transporte and Grupo Aérea de Defensa to be infringing on their territory.

 

Grupo Aérea de Caza Coronel Felipe Jiminez” Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay   

   1e Escuadron “Dragones” BoRT-23 Shkval (16) 
                                               Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay
   2e Escuadron  “Caribes” BoRT-13 Smerch-M (12) 

Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

   3e Escuadron  Gavilanes” BoRT-16 Grad-M  (8)    

Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

Grupo Aérea de Attaque        Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

            1e Escuadron  “Diabolos” BoRT-17 Uragan-M (6)  

Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

            2e Escuadron  Los Linces”Andersson An-84 Rottkappchen  (8)       

Base Aérea 'Teniente Vincente Landaeta', Barquismeto

            3e Escuadron  Los Lupos” Andersson An-84 Rottkappchen  (8)       

Base Aérea 'Teniente Vincente Landaeta', Barquismeto

            4e Escuadron  “Halcones Komarov Ko-15 Stepnoj Orel  (12)         

Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

            5e Escuadron  Grifos” Komarov Ko-15 Stepnoj Orel  (10)  

Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

 

Grupo de Caballeria Aérea   Base Aérea 'Teniente Vincente Landaeta', Barquismeto

            1e Escuadron  “Caciques” Tikhonov Ti-4 Medved (7)           

Base Aérea 'Teniente Vincente Landaeta', Barquismeto

            2e Escuadron  Guerreros   Neuman Ne-76 Wiesel (16)      

Neuman Ne-77 Marder (4)

Base Aérea 'Teniente Vincente Landaeta', Barquismeto

           

Grupo Aérea de Patrulla       Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia', Barcelona

            1e Escuadron  Novi Taganrog Aerospace TAG-17 Trauler (12)         

Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia', Barcelona

            2e Escuadron  Andersson An-95 Rheintochter  (8)     

Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia', Barcelona

 

Grupo Aérea de Vigilancia   Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

            1e Escuadron  BoRT-22 Zvezda (4)   

Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

            2e Escuadron  Andersson An-83 Roggenhund (8)       

Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

 

Grupo Aérea de Operaciones Especiales    

Base Aérea 'Teniente Celestine Rivera', Amazonas

 

            1e Escuadron  Tikhonov Ti-5 Rys (8) 

                                    Tikhonov Ti-6 Bars (16)          

Base Aérea 'Teniente Celestine Rivera', Amazonas

            2e Escuadron  MK Aerospace Bakkie-Utility (12)      

            MK Aerospace Bakkie-Assault (8)     

            MK Aerospace Bakkie-Skycrane (4)  

Base Aérea 'Teniente Celestine Rivera', Amazonas

            3e Escuadron  Vickers-Foss Atlas R.6 (2)      

                                    Heorot Aerospace Seamew TR2 (6)    

                                    Ncome River Aerospace Blouvalk (12)

                                    Avions des Alpes Petit Duc (6)

                                    Royal Masiran Systems Hurricane (8)  

Base Aérea 'Teniente Celestine Rivera', Amazonas

            4e Escuadron  de Defensa     

Base Aérea 'Teniente Celestine Rivera', Amazonas

            5e Escuadron              Base Aérea 'Teniente Celestine Rivera', Amazonas

                        1e Pelotón de Cazador Aéreo 60 Men

                        2e Pelotón de Cazador Aéreo 60 Men

 

Grupo Aérea de Instruccion  Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia', Barcelona

            Escuadron del Academia

            Garcia Lunez Colibri-T (24)     

Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia', Barcelona

            Escuadron del Entrenamiento Combate       

Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia', Barcelona

            Escuadron del Entrenamiento Aerotransportado     

Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia', Barcelona

            Escuadron del Entrenamiento del Personal

Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia', Barcelona

            Escuadron del Entrenamiento de la Defensa

Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia', Barcelona

 

Grupo Aérea de Transporte   “Pegasos” Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

            1e Escuadron  Semyonov Se-20 (6)   

Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

            2e Escuadron  Wolniak Wo-170 Fledermaus (10)      

                                    Wolniak Wo-171 Vampir (4)  

Base Aérea 'Teniente Vincente Landaeta', Barquismeto

            3e Escuadron  Novi Taganrog Aerospace TAG-20 Verbljud (12)       

Novi Taganrog Aerospace TAG-27 Zhiraf (6) 

Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

            4e Escuadron  Various VVIP types    

Base Aérea 'Generalisimo Francisco de Miranda', Caracas

            5e Escuadron  Garcia Lunez Colibri-L (6)       

Base Aérea 'Generalisimo Francisco de Miranda', Caracas

 

Grupo de Defensa

1e Batallón de la Defensa, Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

2e Batallón de la Defensa, Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia', Barcelona

3e Batallón de la Defensa, Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

4e Batallón de la Defensa, Base Aérea 'Generalisimo Francisco de Miranda', Caracas

5e Batallón de la Defensa, Base Aérea 'Teniente Vincente Landaeta', Barquismeto

6e Batallón de la Defensa, Base Aérea 'El Libertador', Maracay

7e Batallón de la Defensa, Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia', Barcelona

 

Grupo de Logisticas               Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia', Barcelona

 

INDEX

 

FAV Bases

 

Base Aérea 'El Libertador',

 

Located in Maracay, Base Aérea 'El Libertador' is the home of the Fuerza Aérea Venezolano. FAV headquarters is based here, together with the headquarters of Grupo Aérea de Caza, Grupo Aérea de Attaque, Grupo Aérea de Vigilancia, and Grupo Aérea de Transport. All three squadrons of Grupo Aérea de Caza fly out of the base, as do a further seven flying squadrons, including most of the service’s large aircraft. A full three battalion brigade from Grupo de Defensa ensures the security of the base against Insurrecto attacks.

 

Named for Simon Bolivar, ‘El Libertador’ is the oldest continuously operated FAV base, having remained operational even during Twilight, however it is not the original base of that name. Maracay was formerly home to two FAV airbases, El Libertador and Mariscal Sucre. In the aftermath of the nuclear strike the FAV, together with surviving elements of the Ejercito’s co-located IV División Blindado and the surviving nucleus of the civilian government formed a cantonment around the more defensible Base Aérea ‘Mariscal Sucre’, seizing the area between the Lago da Valencia lakefront and the hills that was already dominated by the military bases, together with the lakeside agricultural areas south of Vista Alegre and the 3 kilometer long hilly peninsula projecting into the lake, which became the main dependent housing area for the senior echelons of FAV, Ejercito and government, which it remains to this day. As the situation stabilized in the first decades of the 21st century the FAV abandoned any plans to return to the original site of Base Aérea 'El Libertador' and transferred the more senior name to the former ‘Mariscal Sucre’.

 

By the early 2200s the base was again subject to considerable pressure from urban encroachment and the FAV was forced to take the decision to move flying activities away from the city. The only way to do this without abandoning Maracay altogether was to move them actually into the lake and a huge artificial island was constructed offshore from the peninsula, housing the complete airfield infrastructure and providing two runways large enough for spaceplane usage together with several smaller. The existing airfield site was retained, but redeveloped as support infrastructure and housing. It is known that at the same time as this redevelopment a series of deep command sites were constructed inside the hills of the peninsula. The FAV does not wish to go through this exceptionally expensive process again and FAV’s legal community are continuously vigilant in ensuring that civilian development does not encroach on the flight lines, unfortunately they have been less successful in ensuring that the development does not come close enough to shelter Insurrecto attackers. Isolating flightline activities in the lake has been successful at limiting opportunities for direct attack, but the base housing and support infrastructure are more vulnerable to Insurrecto threats. The lakeside perimeter does provide the base security force with some unique security concerns and the Armada provides an advisory team which is believed to include at least a squad of combat waders. Lago de Valencia remains a fragile ecosystem and has a distinctive odour that has prevented the development of any significant watersport and tourism industry. Various attempts at repairing the ecosystem over the past several centuries have ended in failure, sometimes under rather suspicious circumstances and there are strong suspicions that the FAV likes things just the way they are.

 

Base Aérea 'Teniente Vincente Landaeta'

 
Sited several kilometres north of Barquismeto, Base Aérea 'Teniente Vincente Landaeta' is the FAV’s frontline base in the event of hostilities with Mexico. It is assumed that the Mexican threat will include a hovermobile thrust through the mountains to the north and the base is therefore the home of Grupo de Caballeria Aérea and its gunships, together with two squadrons of Grupo Aérea de Attaque and an assault transport squadron from Grupo Aérea de Transporte. The base is extensively hardened against Mexican attack and its base defence battalion has more extensive air defence assets than that at other bases.

 

Base Aérea 'Teniente Celestine Rivera'

 

Based in the heart of Amazonas, Base Aérea 'Teniente Celestine Rivera' (named for the first FAV officer killed by Insurrectos) is the home of Grupo Aérea de Operaciones Especiales. The base is the newest in FAV and unique in hosting only a single Grupo. With the exception of a flight of 3e Escuadron the entire Grupo is based here and the exception is solely because there are no facilities at GAOE’s home base big enough to handle the new Atlases. Also uniquely, Grupo de Defensa is not responsible for the defence of the base. The 4e Escuadron of GAOE is actually a short brigade of two base defence battalions which also provides security for temporary landing sites in the jungle as well as a recruiting ground for GAOE’s Cazadores Aérea special forces unit.

 

The personnel for the Escuadron are recruited from Grupo de Defensa and run through a jungle warfare course on site. There are valid reasons for a specialist defence force for GAOE, but its increasing size is causing growing tension with Grupo de Defensa who perceive GAOE as cherry-picking their best men. Whichever Grupo it belongs to, the defence force is certainly required, harassment attacks on the base occur roughly on a weekly basis. Usually these take the form of stand-off missile attacks, but more direct attacks using man-portable rockets, MANPADS and mortars are relatively common. The continuous threat gives the base the air of a jungle firebase on a giant scale, and in fact it is used by the Ejercito as a temporary R&R facility for the Ejercito troops manning the smaller firebases scattered throughout Amazonas. There are usually around a battalion’s worth of Ejercito troops on the base at any one time and these are available to augment base defence if needed.

 

The base is actually located atop a tepui, a sheer-sided massif rising 500 metres out of the jungle. Falling away to 300 metre high cliffs on all sides, the base is regarded as invulnerable to conventional assault, however this isolation means that all supplies must be flown in, no ground access to the base is possible. The tepui are regarded as unique depositories of genetic diversity and there was a considerable uproar amongst scientists and environmentalists with knowledge of Amazonas when if became known that FAV had placed a base on one. Under considerable pressure from both the government and more media aware echelons of FAV headquarters, Grupo Aérea de Operaciones Especiales was forced to concede access to the base for a monitoring team from Universidad Central de Venezuela. Relations between the military and the scientists are best described as difficult.

 

Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia'

 

Based at Barcelona on the coast, Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia' is the FAV’s training centre and host to both elementary and operational flying training units. The maritime patrol units of Grupo Aérea de Patrulla are also based there. Basic and elementary training is hands-on in Argentinian-built Colibris, but operational training is primarily simulator-based, with only final check flights taken in aircraft borrowed from the operational squadrons. Grupo de Defensa’s ground troops are also trained on the base, as are all enlisted personnel and Grupo de Logisticas makes its home here, with almost all of its 2nd line and depot level maintenance workshops on site. Also located within the confines of the base are the main facilities of the state arms company Sistemas Venezolanos Del Armamento. Until recently base defence was the responsibility of a single battalion from Grupo de Defensa, but after the 2301 massacre of a busload of recruits by Insurrectos an additional battalion was raised to augment base security.

 

Base Aérea 'Generalisimo Francisco de Miranda'

 

Located in central Caracas, Base Aérea 'Generalisimo Francisco de Miranda' is the smallest FAV base, but as home to the government-VVIP tasked 4e Escuadron and the MoD liaison tasked 5e Escuadron its aircraft are some of the most prestigious targets for Insurrectos and base security is extremely tight as a result. The FAV is under continual pressure to give up the base as it represents the single most valuable piece of real estate in the capital and has done for three centuries, however there is simply nowhere that the base could be moved to while still maintaining the VVIP transportation mission that is its raison d’etre.

 

INDEX

           

Enlistment

 

The FAV is a primarily professional force, supplemented from the Ejército’s conscript cohorts. To the considerable annoyance of the Ejército, the FAV are allowed to select from the pick of the conscripts to man the units of Grupo de Defensa. In addition, conscripts who volunteer for an additional twelve months on their service obligation are able to transfer to the FAV’s technician training programmes. The conscripts provide around 30% of the FAV’s personnel, the remainder are professionals on five year (enlisted personnel) or eight year (officer) contracts. Around 25% of conscripts choose to convert their enlistment into professional contracts, which provides access into some of the trades with the greater long-term employment prospects.

 

Most FAV personnel training takes place at Base Aérea 'Teniente Luis de Valle Garcia’ in Barcelona, though advanced inter-service courses are based at the National Military Academy outside Caracas. The training facilities at Barcelona range all the way from firing ranges and assault causes to advanced simulators for all FAV aircraft. Grupo Aérea de Operaciones Especiales conducts much of its specialist training in Amazonas at Base Aérea 'Teniente Celestine Rivera'. Conscripts from Grupo de Defensa transferring to the 4e Escuadron of GAOE are strongly encouraged to convert their service obligations to professional contracts and only long service professionals may be recruited to the Cazadores Aérea special forces.

 

INDEX

 

Personalities

 

Coronel Hector Tamoguchi

 

Hector Tamoguchi is the commanding officer of Grupo Aérea de Operaciones Especiales and perhaps the single most controversial figure in FAV service. His father, Coronel Xavier Tamoguchi, was the commanding officer of the Peruvian Army’s 5to Brigada De la Aviación Del Ataque, which fought a doomed struggle against the Incan uprising, ultimately crossing the border into Brazil with its colours intact rather than admit defeat. To this day the Quinta Brigada remains one of the more active resistance groups engaged in cross-border operations in the Brazilian Amazon. The Tamoguchis, however, relocated to Venezuela, where they, including the 15-year-old Hector, became citizens in 2280.

 

As Incan revivalism proceeded to ever more extreme levels the Japanese and Chinese ethnic groups amongst the former Peruvian population, collectively labelled Hapun-runa by the Incans, found themselves subjected to both covert and overt discrimination and many chose to relocate to Bolivia, Columbia or Venezuela (those who relocated to Columbia have since had the opportunity to regret the decision and many have moved on to Venezuela). So eager was the Incan regime to be rid of people with no obvious Incan heritage that it actually paid them a bounty to relocate. These exiled Hapun-runa form a distinct sub-culture in Venezuela and their other destinations, one bitterly opposed to the Incan regime and largely aligned with the active resistance groups. It was little surprise when Xavier Tamoguchi emerged as a community leader for the Venezuelan Hapun-runa, it was an open secret that Tamoguchi was a paymaster/fund-raiser for the Quinta Brigada and his assassination in 2288 can be regarded as one of the first signs that the ‘liberation struggle’ along the Venezuelan-Incan border was moving into a more active phase.

 

By this time Hector Tamoguchi had enlisted in the FAV, and was following in his father’s footsteps as a gunship pilot. As the struggle in Amazonas erupted Hector was at the core of it as part of the Grupo de Caballeria Aérea, but he soon came to see that the hot-war focussed gunship squadrons were ill-suited to COIN. He therefore started to press for a specialist COIN unit to be formed, and thanks to several powerful patrons within the FAV hierarchy was eventually allowed to form a composite unit of gunships, troop transports and recon UAVs. Thanks to clever coordination with like-minded friends on the staff of IV División de Infantería de Selva the composite squadron was able to engineer several high-profile engagements in its first months of operations and its expansion into a full Grupo was soon authorized.

 

Over the next few years Grupo Aérea de Operaciones Especiales expanded to become the largest single Grupo in FAV and Hector Tamoguchi the single most powerful coronel in FAV, perhaps even the single most powerful officer in the Venezuelan forces in terms of personal influence. He became a frequent advisor to both the General Staff and the President on the prosecution of the war and was an outspoken advocate of cross-border operations in the media. It was inevitable that he would draw the attention of the Incan sponsored terrorists and on July 23rd, 2299 they struck back at him in particularly vicious fashion when a car bomb was detonated in the car carrying his wife and seven year old son, to twist the knife further the terrorists detonated the bomb moments after he had exited the vehicle and as he stood watching.

 

With his family gone Tamoguchi has become absolutely focussed on the struggle against the Insurrecto groups. His rules of operations already allowed hot-pursuit operations into Incan territory without recourse to higher authority, but members of Grupo Aérea de Operaciones Especiales have begun to joke that hot-pursuit is a dish best served cold. At the same time Coronel Tamaguchi has become a visible and vocal supporter of the Quinta Brigada, somewhat to the embarrassment of his patrons, who sympathize with the aims of the Brigada and the Peruvian exiles, but can’t quite ignore that it is essentially a terrorist group.

 

Both the FAV Inspector General and Venezuelan intelligence have started to quietly monitor the actions of Coronel Tamoguchi, afraid that his personal aims may no longer precisely match with the needs of Venezuela.

 

Teniente Maria Sanchez, CV

 

Maria Sanchez never set out to be a hero, she joined the FAV straight out of high school purely because it was a job she could get without going to the effort of searching for vacancies or deciding what she really wanted to do with her life. Even with the ongoing insurrection in Amazonas she assumed she would spend her military life stuck in a hangar fixing aircraft, which was okay with her, but things started to go awry when Grupo Aérea de Instruccion streamed her into the Loadmaster course straight out of Basic and even further off-base when she had to do the SERE course mandated for all flying personnel, jungles being something the city girl from Caracas had never been interested in spending time in. Then she was assigned to the transport squadron flying the Fledermaus just as Venezuela went on the offensive in Amazonas with the deployment of the Ejército’s IV División de Infantería de Selva.

 

Combat wasn’t what Maria had signed up for, particularly not insertions into hot LZs in an aircraft that was really too large for the job, but throwing troops out of the door and hosing treelines turned out to be something that she could do. When the bullets started flying she seemed to stop thinking and start doing, which got the job done and got her by.

 

Then came the cross-border mission aimed at a terrorist transit camp. The actual assault went well, but on the way back to Venezuelan airspace Palo-21 overflew a previously unknown Insurrecto camp and ate a Type 6 manpack SAM. The aircraft augered into a river canyon from low level and burst into flames. By the time CSAR support was on site there were Insurrectos all over what was left of the wreckage after the impact, fire and the river had had their way. Less than half the bodies of the crew of Palo-21 and the SF team were eventually recovered.

 

Like nearly thirty other Venezuelan families Maria’s parents received the official letter that their child was Missing, Believed KIA. Twenty-five more received the grimmer, but ultimately more certain news that their son or daughter was coming home in a coffin. Palo-21 became a symbol of the cost to Venezuela of the anti-Insurrecto campaign. Three weeks later the National Day of Mourning and the memorial service in Caracas Metropolitan Cathedral were starting to fade into the nation’s collective memory when Maria Sanchez staggered out of the jungle into an Ejercito outpost. She had been thrown clear in the impact and swept downstream by the river, losing her CSAR beacon somewhere along the way. With no more survival equipment than what was in her pockets, and only the vaguest idea of where she was, she had spent three weeks walking towards the east on the assumption that she had to reach Venezuelan territory before she got to the coast. She had a dislocated shoulder, a multitude of cuts and bruises from three weeks in the jungle and some mild scorching from the crash, but was in remarkably good condition for a woman whose memorial service had happened the week before.

 

Venezuela went crazy, but FAV protected Maria from the uproar until she had had a few days to recover. When she did make it onto the media circuit it was as a well-groomed naturally self-confident woman with the Cruz Venezolano on her new lieutenant’s uniform. The contrast with the shots of her staggering out of the jungle that had been taken by a fortunately positioned Ejercito combat cameraman couldn’t have been more marked. Maria became a positive symbol for the abilities of the FAV, transforming Palo-21 into an iconic turning-point in the battle against the Insurrectos (it didn’t hurt that the proto-Grupo Aérea de Operaciones Especiales was simultaneously stage-managing several showpiece operations). FAV exploited Maria for all the propaganda value it could get, rushing a ghost-written book on her escape into print that went straight into the best-seller lists in Venezuela and several other Hispanophone countries. A film followed, funded by the Brazilian media powerhouses of Belem. Released in both Spanish and Portuguese it was a significant success in both Venezuela and Brazil. Foreign dubs were less marked successes, but the money that poured into Maria’s bank accounts was very welcome.

 

After three months Maria’s value as an immediate PR asset had faded and FAV promised her a quiet assignment that would let her get on with her life. Maria was hoping for a nice staff job in Caracas, what she got was a position as an instructor at SERE School. Her protests that she was anything but a survival expert were ignored. She must, it was pointed out, have been doing something right during her time in the jungle. Maria was never a natural SERE instructor, skinning snakes and hunting edible bugs were skills the other instructors got across better, but Maria Sanchez, and that Cruz Venezolano ribbon on her uniform, were useful as a symbol that survival and evasion were possible even in the worst of crashes.

 

Over the course of several years Maria eventually came to the conclusion that there were worse jobs in the FAV than SERE instructor, just as GAOE raided SERE School for the cadre for the Cazadores Aérea. Maria found herself back in Amazonas, being run through the Ejercito’s SF Battle School and taught to kill with pretty much any weapon imaginable by instructors who made the most jungle-happy SERE instructor seem like a model of sanity. When the Cazadores Aérea structure finally settled, Maria found herself deputy commander of 1e Peloton. Her new posting has her working harder than she has ever had to in any previous post and the mission planning aspects of her job don’t come naturally to her, but when she is on a mission and thinking gives way to doing, Maria does what she has always done best: survive.

 

Maria has become an anomaly, a serving SF officer whose face is known throughout Venezuela. It still stares out of every FAV recruiting poster, although the dress blues and medal ceremony of the immediate post-Palo-21 campaign have given way to jungle fatigues, camo face-paint and a VR-95. Both Maria and the FAV hierarchy recognise the security risks that this exposure creates and Maria’s family was given back-channel financial support to relocate to Provinco do Brasil as a condition of her participation in the latest campaign. Maria herself has begun to take all leave abroad, usually in Europe or Africa, and always carries at least a holdout pistol somewhere on her person. Her eight year enlistment with FAV ends in 2304 and she is giving some thought to a post-FAV career. Her media contacts and exposure would probably let her break into a media career, but the security needs of anything Venezuelan-based might be impossible. One possibility that has attracted her is the possibility of becoming a foreign correspondent for a Venezuelan news channel, but she has made no firm decisions as yet. Her public exposure means that she has no trouble attracting male companionship, but she has yet to find one she feels is worth keeping.

 

 

 

Aircraft

 

The FAV uses a wide range of aircraft which are described here.

 


 

19 December 2008

 

Copyright David Gillon, 2008