OUR STORY

OCTOBER 2017

After two years of preparation, Matt "Icefire" Schuette started recruitment for what was then known as Carrier Air Wing Eleven, or CVW-11.

VFA-213, VMFA-232 and VFA-154 were the original three squadrons in the fledgling group.

While awaiting the release of the DCS F/A-18C Hornet and F-14B Tomcat, the newly-formed virtual Air Wing operated mostly F-5's to prepare for what was to come in the months ahead.

APRIL 2018

Membership grew quickly and VFA-97, a Navy Hornet squadron, was stood up in anticipation for the Eagle Dynamics' F/A-18C, scheduled to be released shortly thereafter.

JUNE 2018

The long-awaited moment had arrived and CVW-11 took delivery of their new Charlie Hornets, integrating them into their four active squadrons.

SEPTEMBER 2018

CVW-11 embarked on its first deployment, or cruise. This one was called "Operation Market Garden"

DECEMBER 2018

With the planned release of Heatblur's F-14B module, the VFA-41 Black Aces were added to the growing list of CVW-11's squadrons. VF-41 however, would like its brethren, train in F/A-18's until launch.

Real-life F-14 technicians and avionics specialists were in CVW-11 by this point, including one that was in VF-41 during his navy career. Several members were lucky enough to be part of the cadre of Heatblur's SME for the development of the F-14B—a relationship that stays strong to this very day.

MARCH 2019

In the spring and after a torturous wait for the Tomcat fans in the Wing, Heatblur released the F-14B module. VFA-213 and VFA-41 quickly became VF-213 and VF-41 respectively, to suit their new airframe.

JUNE 2019

CVW-11 started its F-14 dedicated RIO training program and opened recruiting straight away.

OCTOBER 2019

In the fall of 2019 a major change came to CVW-11. The F-16C had been announced and a decision was made to move away from the CVW-11 name and establish a unified, multi-branch command that would bring the Air Force into the Air Wing for the first time in its history. The United States Atlantic Command was born.

The F-16 squadron that would be assimilated was none other than the 157th FS Swamp Fox from the 169th FW, South Carolina Air National Guard. VFA-154 was transitioned to the newly formed squadron and soon after its colors were cased.

MARCH 2020

USLANTCOM added yet another squadron. This time utilizing RAZBAM's excellent AV-8b module. A second Marine squadron had now landed, and none other than Greg "Pappy" Boyington's Bastards, the VMA-214 Black Sheep Squadron.

NOVEMBER 2020

The Air Force added its own legendary CAS platform, the A-10C just in time for their upcoming Black Flag exercise, a yearly training campaign in the Nevada Map. The Maryland Air National Guard's 104th Fighter Squadron was the squadron of choice. In this case, a sound is worth a thousand pictures. (click or tap on the GAU-8)

MARCH 2021

Another major milestone took place when the rapidly growing USLANTCOM decided to respond to the announcement of the AH-64D by adding not only the first primary helicopter squadron, but the Army in general, changing the logo to the one that exists in its present form.

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The AH-64D was not released, but since the learning curve was so steep for helicopters, it was decided that the group would use KA-50's for the upcoming deployment in Syria in preparation for the Apache.

OCTOBER 2021

Matt "Icefire" Schuette, the founder and leader of USLANTCOM retired and passed the torch to its current leader, Mike "Strike" Marquez.

DECEMBER 2021

USLANTCOM enacted the Secondary Squadron program, allowing for pilots in good standing to add a secondary, part-time designation for less used aircraft such as our two CAS platforms (AV-8B and A-10C) or to be a part of our newly formed Aggressor squadron that uses aircraft from the Air Force, Navy, and PMC's to assist in ACM training for our primary squadrons.

MARCH 2022

A year and a full deployment later, the virtual Sixth Squadron, Sixth Cavalry of the Army's 10th Mountain Division, took delivery of their Apache's. In 6-6, Charlie Troop, also known as the Outcasts finally had their bird.

JUNE 2022

At the conclusion of Black Flag 22, the Navy staff decided to merge the two F-14 squadrons into one. A new squadron was chosen and the VF-31 Tomcatters joined the fray.

OCTOBER 2022

USLANTCOM debuted its new website with a desire to demonstrate our core values of professionalism and creativity in everything we do.

WHO WE ARE

First and foremost we are a community of people that are united by a common interest, and motivated by a desire to experience our love of military aviation in an immersive and entertaining way.

USLANTCOM exists not only to provide a DCS experience for individuals around the world that cannot be matched within a single-player paradigm, but to achieve that in an environment of teamwork, learning, and friendship. We do all of this under no illusion that the level of effort required is for everyone, but guarantee to those who do invest of their time and effort, that our pursuit to be the among best the DCS community has to offer, will pay dividends found in few other places.

USLANTCOM believes in training hard but not simply for the sake of training. We take the lessons learned and apply those lessons in large-scale missions that typically feature over forty people fulfilling various roles and offering a battlefield ambience over comms channels that is thrilling and immersive. These missions are typically housed in custom campaigns that occur every year. The following are some of the aforementioned, multi-mission campaigns we conduct:
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BLACK FLAG

Black Flag is our version of the Air Force's Red and Green flag exercises. Like those, Black Flag takes place on the DCS:Nevada map. We fly 6-8 missions that are aimed at the utilization of various skillsets, doing so in a cooperative environment with each other, our Aggressor squadron, and other human-voiced support units like JTACs, Ground Commanders, downed pilots, GCI, and more.

CRUISE

Cruise is our yearly deployment. We create a scenario that takes us to different theatre's against different enemies each year. These scenarios include heavily researched and meticulously crafted story-lines that stretch our creativity and effort to the limit. This event is often considered the highlight of our year for many.

RED VS. BLUE PVP EVENT

Over the holiday period each year, we split up the Wing into a Red and Blue team, and fight a four-mission pvp campaign against each other.
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IMMERSION

Immersion is at the core of so much of what we do. It is the impetus for so much of our effort, and the proverbial wage paid to those of us who put in many selfless hours to make our experience a special one. Though we could never approach reality, we deem the quest for immersion a priority.

As such, USLANTCOM would classify themselves as a MilSim group with some very important caveats. We do not labor under an illusion that we can slightly approach the years of effort and study that it takes to become a real-life pilot, but use the word MilSim in the context that it has been historically used by virtual groups since the beginning of gaming. We also understand that we are all volunteers, sitting at desks in air-conditioned rooms, and do not take that MilSim designation to an extreme that would see us do an over-abundance of superfluous tasks that DCS simply cannot give justice to or replicate in any convincing way.

Our goal of immersion is attained by a balanced approach, that in our case would put us in a category that is less "hardcore" than the most extreme groups, but more so than the vast majority of the rest.

We also don't take ourselves too seriously and do alternate activities on that range from flying WW2 or other historical missions, to races, dogfight competitions, and more—even playing non-dcs games together, movie nights, contests, and our annual "Commie Awards."