Good points all, Sylvan. Got a comment on one item:
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Originally Posted by
Sylvan
5. Not everybody carries a compass anymore (their fault, not yours). When relaying directions to ground elements, try to orient based on their positions. "To your 3 O'Clock"
Instead of "To the Southeast".
Totally understand the problem and where you're coming from but the far better solution is for the troops on the ground to have better situational awareness and a sense of direction. That means looking at their GPS, carrying the dumb compass, noting where the sun is (in the Stan, it'll always be south of you, comes up in the east, moves 15 degrees an hour and goes down in the west. At 1200 local standard time will be directly overhead). Stars are available at night, ridge lines are oriented in some direction. Streambeds, even if intermittent or even if the creeks are dry, are on the Map more to show you where low ground is than they are to show you water. Plenty of ways to get there. There's no excuse for a ground commander (dare I say everyone...) to not know where the cardinal points are in relation to where he is located. It ain't that hard...:cool:
I do know the difficulties but it's a training issue that can be easily solved. Use of "Your 3 o'clock" is better than nothing but can be disastrous if a guy is facing 180 degrees away from what looks like or should be his orientation -- or the guy hearing and reacting is not the guy you're talking to. :eek:
In this case, it's better for the Aviation support to force the cardinal directions on the ground guys. As you say, it's the ground pounders fault, not the airplane drivers...
Our problem is that is rarely the case.
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Originally Posted by
JMA
...where the air support is integral to the ground force unit/formation and working with the troops everyday simple left/right and clock face directions would be fine.
If it were, I'd agree. Our problem is that other than the Marines who do have integral air to an extent -- but only to an extent and even they may often get support from the Dutch, the French, The British, or an unfamiliar US Army or Air Force element. Our rotation and centralized control / pooling system mean that the likelihood of dedicated or familiar support for most units most of the time is very slim.
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If the support from people you have not worked with before then standard FAC (forward air controller) procedures need to be followed if only to ensure he doesn't put his load on your head.
True. However, the issue to me is not air support, it is one of training quality (and ours is poor... :mad: ). As I said "There's no excuse for a ground commander (dare I say everyone...) to not know where the cardinal points are in relation to where he is located. It ain't that hard." I'll add that "everyone" includes IMO Joe the rifleman with less than a year of service. People will say that's asking too much. No, it is not. And you don't ask for it, you demand it -- the vast majority of the kids are more than capable of doing it.
It's simply a matter of competence for worst case situations. Best case stuff is good but you cannot rely on it in most combat and you positively cannot in major combat operations or mobile armored or mechanized warfare.
Of course it makes sense.
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Originally Posted by
JMA
...Now what if fate hands out a card which places a brand new company in a situation where a brand new squadron (probably from another NATO country) comes overhead to support. That is a truly worrisome situation for all concerned.
Not terribly worrisome but it is a constant and it does have some minor adverse impacts.
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I can begin to understand why the Marines want to keep it all in the family in Helmand so to speak. It makes perfect sense.
Yep, makes sense. Also more effective. Unfortunately, it's costly and not terribly 'efficient.' We're bigger on efficiency than we are on effectiveness. :rolleyes:
The Marines are able to pull it off by dint of being fairly small but mostly by having a strong support group in the US Congress; the other services also have them but the Marines assiduously cultivate theirs and it has awesome power, enough to fight off those of the other forces...
I digress. Why we value efficiency over effectiveness I've never really understood. :o
My wife says it's about money -- but then she for some odd objects to my proposal to buy a certain additional weapon, not from any pressing current requirement but because it works really well and just in case I might need it... :wry:
Two Articles on CAS and COIN, from Armed Forces Journal.
"Updating Close Air Support," by LT. COL PAUL DARLING AND LT. JUSTIN LAWLOR.
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When Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal took command of Afghanistan, one of his first orders severely restricted the use of fixed-wing strike assets in support of combat operations. The newly appointed commander of the International Security Assistance Force, Gen. David Petraeus, has been reluctant to change the order.
The order received much criticism, with many complaining that restricting strike assets posed too great a danger to soldiers on the ground. The order, however, reflected an unspoken reality, namely that the doctrine, structure and airframes currently used for close-air support (CAS) are fundamentally flawed and are an expensive and ineffective framework for counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. Our current CAS structure is hampering our mission in Afghanistan and reflects a reversal of lessons learned not only by U.S. forces in Vietnam but also by countries around the world engaged in COIN for the past 40 years.
How did we get to the point where the one area where we have unquestioned dominance is deliberately neutered to the point of irrelevance? It wasn’t easy, but fixing it can be. We can not only dominate the air, but effectively use it to our advantage as long as the military acknowledges our current failures, uses an analysis of our successful past and encourages an effort by all service branches to adjust to a post-Cold War environment. We can fight better, cheaper and more effectively only when we understand where we are and from where we came.
"Reality Check," by MAJ. AARON W. CLARK AND LT. COL. J. BRAD REEVES.
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Misperceptions about close-air support (CAS) continue to plague the relationship between ground and air forces. CAS is a mission area where myth and reality often coexist.
The article by Lt. Col. Paul Darling and Lt. Justin Lawlor is a striking example of this mix. The authors claim that CAS doctrine and operational practices have not evolved sufficiently to meet today’s needs, especially in Afghanistan. Their assertion is unsupportable, and the mischaracterizations in the article do a disservice to the coalition forces putting their lives on the line every day using these highly evolved procedures. Contrary to points made in the article, joint CAS doctrine has changed dramatically since the Cold War, and especially since the first operations in Afghanistan in 2001. Command and control structures, tactics and systems have all undergone major adaptations that were either misrepresented or missed entirely in the article, leading to flawed prescriptions. We intend to set the record straight.
The "counterpoint" is hopeless, but I thought that it served as a useful illustration of the points that LTC Darling and Lt. Lawlor made.
I have no problem with the bulk of your comments
and agree that the Darling-Lawlor article is quite parochial and has some flaws while the Clark-Reeves article is not "hopeless" IMO (and I'm unsure why it was so tagged...). I further agree the Army can get rather dumb on the subject of CAS. However, in defense of that Army attitude you note, I would submit three points for your consideration.
- The strong USAF push for centralized control of ALL air in a theater. Yes, that's a Viet Nam legacy and Momyer didn't do the AF any favors but Horner also tried to do it Desert Shield / Desert Storm and Dave Deptula has his ideas (and not just on UAV control or ownership). While the underlying logic is understood and accepted, it is but one approach and needs can vary by theater and war. While the single manager idea is efficient, it may not always be the most effective employment and the very significant downside is that a message of an excessive control fetish is sent...
- The USAF has -- deserved or not -- a reputation as an organization (with acknowledgement that there are individuals and units that do not subscribe to the organizational models) for being excessively safety conscious, avoiding extreme low level CAS (pods not withstanding; the issue is attitude, not altitude... :wry:) and generally not favoring CAS as important to the service. This translates into a perception that it is as a mission not given adequate priority. Clark and Reeves address that issue and acknowledge the USAF could do more to eliminate that perception. Their comment about AGOS (I thought it was now JAGOG :confused:) is noted but that does not affect the vast majority of Army people who do not go to Nellis or the clones at Ramstein and Sill.
Part of the problem is shown here:
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Air Force Doctrine: Air Force Manual 1-1, Mar 92, Volume 1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, outlines the Air Force's framework for understanding how to apply CAS. Understanding the Air Force doctrine will greatly enhance our CAS operations. This doctrine states: "Close air support is the application of aerospace forces in support of the land component commander's objectives.... Close air support produces the most focused and briefest effects of any force application mission; consequently, close air support rarely creates campaign-level effects. Although close air support is the least efficient application of aerospace forces, at times, it may be the most critical by ensuring the success and survival of surface forces. " (emphasis added /kw)
My emphasis is to illustrate that, as we know, people tend to take away from the written word exactly what they wish to take away. The psychological impact of those words is beyond this non-psychologist but I bet it does little good for USAF internal 'support' of CAS...
- This attitude of distrust of the USAF by the Army is a result of the two foregoing items and is further evinced by the fact that the USAF did over several years for various reasons related to AF funding priorities attempt to get rid of the A-10. That bird was designed and optimized for CAS, it does it better than any other (with the possible exception of the SU-25) and it has the GAU-8 which makes the M61 truly look like the minigun you erroneously called it ( ;) -- sorry 'bout that, too good to pass up... ). Recent improvements to make A-10Cs a bird to be reckoned with but it is a fact that many fighter jocks originally (and allegedly still) vociferously objected to flying the 'mud mover' and that had Desert Storm not come along, the USAF probably would have gotten rid of all of them. Though the 95+ % OR rate did look good to Congress. :D
The issue is that the USAF had a dedicated CAS bird, that the service wanted to discard it and the perception thus arose that they wished to second rate the mission. To say that an F-16 can do the job of an A-10 'as well or better' simply does not pass the basic credibility test and the USAF lost cred in the process over the years.
None of this intended as AF bashing -- I'm a Grunt who supports and has a vague understanding of air dominance (or air superiority...) and appreciation for the fact that in several wars, I got strafed and bombed only very seldom and a long time ago. Rather it is intended to illustrate that much the nominal "outright hatred many in the Army seem to feel towards the USAF" has a basis in demonstrated or perceived USAF attitudes and parochiality as well as in Army parochiality and stupidity [NOTE to Army persons: I use the word "stupidity" advisedly because parochiality is stupid; unwillingness to use the skills and knowledges of others to enhance ones own capability is stupid and the US Army is king of the 'not invented by me' syndrome].
Ignorance plays a strong role on both sides...
Thoughts from a CAS Pilot
A friend of mine pointed me to this thread of comments with respect to CAS in Afghanistan. I have read and re-read this group of comments, and decided, probably unwisely, to add my own. I flew close air support for most of my 25+ years in the AF, and no one knows better than my Hog brothers and I that this was not THE AF mission. Having said that, the AF has come along way in the last several years. I would sumbit that the AF has moved towards the Army more than the Army has moved towards the AF.
With respect to the threads, I agree that the Darling article was trying to point out issues with CAS, and suggest the LAAR as a solution. However, many of the facts in the article are clearly wrong. Calling a rebuttal of the incorrect facts "hopeless", is something that I would expect to see at the UN with the Iranian President speaking, and not here on a blog where we hopefully deal in facts not emotion. CAS doctrine, TTP, manning, communications, weapons, and equippment have all changed since drastically since the cold war--for the better! The lack of change was the premiss for the Darling article. If the LAAR is a solution, then supporting it with the correct facts is the way to get it.
I value LtCol Darling's opinion, however, I suspect he was not a MVR Cdr, or he would have had a TACP available at least down to BN level. If he was part of a PRT or other non maneuver unit, then he would not have had a TACP. This is the wide area security issue the Army is struggling with right now. Right or wrong, the AF agreed to functionally align TACPs and JTACs with the units the Army asked them to--the manuever units. The Joint Force is making an effort to make more Joint Fires available to Army units at lower echelons, but this remains an issue, especially for units that do not technically own AOs as per Army doctrine. Since 2005 the intent has been to train JFOs to pick up the slack for the units that do not have TACPs.
The idea that 2000 JFOs is not that important when there were zero JFOs six years ago, may be part of the problem. A collective effort by the insitutional Army and Air Force created this new joint capability from scratch. Unfortunately JFO usage has been inconsistant across the force as this new capability hit the theater. If the deployed Army believes the JFOs are not important, then they will not be employed.
As for the LAAR, it has the potential to be part of the solution, just like JFO, TACP-CASS, Rover, Predator, Reaper, PSS-SOF, and training more Army youngsters in CAS without a Qualified JTAC.
I will be the first to say the AF needs to conitinue to focus on supporting the Army, particularly in AFG. Having flown A-10s in combat, including operation Anaconda, I have also seen first hand how these journal wars distort what happens in the AO. I have yet to meet a soldier who was on the floor of the Sha-E-Kot who has a negative thing to say about the A-10 performance during Anaconda (to my face), yet in the post event journal wars the AF was risk averse, would not go below 10K, etc. If the AF guys have thin skin about incorrect facts in journals, it is not without precidence.
I read Ken White's post with interest. Ken has obvisouly been around the block and I agreed with most of what he said. He was correct when he pointed out that cold war CAS doctrine stated that CAS was the least efficient use of airpower. In a target rich environment with thousands of enemy tanks, it made sense to presume that CAS would slow down the targetting process used in the classic AirLand Battle Doctrine because each flight would have to get a nine-line and clearance. When compared to an interdiction mission focused on massed enemy forces, CAS was probably less efficient.
Personally, I never liked the way that sounded because it gave the impression that it was a math problem and not a mission to save soldiers on the ground. In any case, when the fixed piece battles of the Cold War went away AF doctrine changed. Since 2003 AIr Force Doctrine Document (AFDD (1)) says this.
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"CAS can provide a tremendous tactical advantage when supporting
ground forces. Although in isolation it rarely achieves campaign-level
objectives, at times it may be the more critical mission due to its contribution
to campaign objectives. CAS should be planned to prepare the conditions
for success or reinforce successful attacks of surface forces. CAS can
halt attacks, help create breakthroughs, cover retreats, and guard flanks.
To be most effective, however, CAS should be used at decisive points in a
battle and should normally be massed to apply concentrated combat power
and saturate defenses." (AFDD 1, 17 Nov 2003, p 45)
If the AF Doctrine of 1992 is still driving the Army perception of the service, then the AF does not have a CAS problem, but a PR issue.
I suspect that my thoughts will not change the negative opinion's of those who have made up their minds about the AF, CAS, and the percieved lack of support to the Army. For those who are undecided, know that there are thousands of airmen who train hard every day with the sole purpose of supporting our brothers in the Army.
El Cid, thanks for the post and the doctrinal update.
Good to know the change in wording occurred. As you say, at the time the item I quoted was written, it made sense. While logically agreeing with its premise, my fear was that it, like a lot of 'doctrine,' could be misinterpreted or misused.
FWIW, One of my sons just finished his recent fourth tour in his second war as a leader of Grunts and he has nothing but high praise for the AF, JTACs and JFOs -- and he is particularly in love with the Hog, says it is hands down the bird most appreciated and is tied with or ahead of the Apache in the eyes of most. He puts the British Harriers way up there as well but goes to great lengths to say they all do good work. :cool:
I like to remind people that both Iraq and Afghanistan are relatively benign combat environments, that air superiority is really, really, nice -- but is emphatically not guaranteed. In a major war against a near peer opponent folks are likely to notice different things and have a quite different attitude. :wry:
Great catch this:
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I value LtCol Darling's opinion, however, I suspect he was not a MVR Cdr, or he would have had a TACP available at least down to BN level.
I missed that -- but then, I'm old. I did read the blurb on the AFJ Article:""Lt. Col Paul Darling is an infantry officer serving with the Alaska Army National Guard. He recently served as the provincial lead mentor with the Afghan National Police in Zabul, Afghanistan"" but had forgotten it when I read of the lack of FAC prob... :D
I think you're probably correct that the bulk of the USAF has moved closer to the Army while the far larger Army has not reciprocated too well; part of that problem is, IMO, unrealistic expectations (and lack of knowledge...) about what air can and cannot do. That is IMO the Army's fault. Sometimes being the biggest kid on the block means you tend to ignore all the other kids. That's usually not smart. :rolleyes:
The aforementioned Son, BTW has called in and successfully employed USAF/USN CAS without a FAC, JTAC or JFO. As have I. What is written is not what is war...