Old memories die hard...
On the Global Precision Attack, forgive me but years of pentagram watching have taught me to be leery of any service (all the services are guilty of this) innocently couching their mission sets in new terms. Assuming they are not challenged away by others, suddenly, a few years later you get a "...that's MY job; you leave it alone." We'll see.
Not sure how the switch to joint for terminal controllers is progressing. There was some Army resistance on the rationale that it was too much on the 13F plate (foolish); the personnel bureaucracy was rebelling at having to identify and select personnel and divert them to training and they set the standards high which will make selection even more difficult (valid but probably over cautious); they've got to get a school up and running (very valid); and, lastly, the bean counters gripe about having to equip these Army folks to 'support an AF mission' (that's also dumb but bean manipulators are like that...). Hopefully, it'll get sorted and get going, not really critical now but it could be in the future.
Having said that, do recall I said a Squad Leader -- not a 13F. That is an intra Army turf battle probably driven by AF concern on excessive dropping of stuff on friendlies -- no worries though, if we get in a big war, it'll be back to first Co Cdr and JTAC 13Fs -- then to Platoon Leaders and after a year, it'll be down to Squad leaders again.
I meant terminal attack control; that means requesting and pointing (given ROVER and, more importantly, other stuff in the pipeline, it's even easier than it used to be) -- the pilot will do the controlling. Airborne FACs can help but they aren't always available. Infantry folks used to call in air and direct strikes all the time -- until it got to be a peace time budget and turf issue. Last one I called was in June of '68; two sets of Fox 4s at 200 feet or so and two A4s at 50 feet, all with nape and HE -- right bird for the job helps. I know, I know, those days are gone, Angels 15, PGM, Litening AT, Sniper XR, the rotating shifts at Creech, etc, etc. Good stuff, life is mo' better -- until you run out of 'em...
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