Not pointy.

Not shiny.

Not Mach2+.

Not nuke capable.


Thus USAF sez, "That's not my bag, baby ...."

When you actually go in harm's way, and stick around long enough to be worth a damn, that happens.

Fast movers do neither.

"Be accomplished" is a rather loose metric.  A spasitc kindergartener can "accomplish" painting a portrait.  It won't hang next to the Mona Lisa. in a museum.

Slashing in at Mach .9 and dropping a bomb in the same zip code isn't the acme of CAS.

Yep, Jdam is a drive by shooting.

Sylvan, apparently everything you think you know about how CAS is being done, well, just isnt so.

Once on station we can usually drop within 20 seconds of being cleared...by the Army or Marines. Once we have a clearance, and no it doesnt have to be a jtac, we drop. No permissions required other than the guy with radio. Not that hard a concept to grasp. The only time I ever delayed a bomb was when a unit asked for something that would get them killed, this happened occasionall with units without JTACs...like when a GI asked for 2000 pounder 100 meters from their position, with no cover. I talked them into a delay fuse 500lb and a pull back into cover. Part of my job, because they arent the "experts in airpower" you deride.

You're not wrong...and its a welcome development. Whatever is most effective is best, I care about winning the fight not about airframes, service rivalries, or other extraneous BS. Best tool for the job, and either let our men fight or bring them home. All else is criminal.

Im getting tired of people who post their opinion like its fact. You are uninformed, at best.

What part of never had a bomb miss by more than 6 feet dont you get? Would you feel better if I soaked up a few bullets while I shacked every target the Army gave me just for cool points?

Maybe we should quit building ejection seats, and the Army should quit hiding behind things, because that would have more style.

I dont know wtf is wrong with people.

The occasions when you were there went splendidly.  Those are easy to count.  How do you count the number of times you weren't there?  How do you count the number of times the guy with the radio, JTAC or not, had to wait for Kiowas because CAS wasn't available?  How do you count the number of times artillery fire missions were denied because the AF was too slow at clearing the airspace above the CA?

When the bird is overhead with the JDAM or SDB, you are probably right.  That is not the normal condition.

And your expertise is?

When the 5% of the time the AF does actually show up at a useful time, they can drop a bomb.

Well boys, I say we declare victory, go home and buy F35s!

I know F-16 pilots who were very dedicated to the CAS mission, lived for it when that was their job.

Maybe the mafia at the Pentagon hates CAS, but there are Americans in the duty positions who despise the Pentagon "leadership", and know how to dedicate themselves to what needs to be done when the rubber meets the road.

Yeah, a lot of USAF pilots dream of splashing MiGs and Sukhois all day, but they know the reality is that we need bombs on target for the most part.

Most of the problems come from two services trying to serve TIC, where a lot of excess officers get in between what is needed by the guys on the ground, and the aviators.

On the SOF side, a lot of this is cut through with closer working relationships.

The Marines have it all under the same roof, where their aviators live and breathe to serve their land and surface forces elements.

the reason the marines have the MAGTF and the ARmy has 5700 aircraft is because the AF is so awesome.

I don't think it helps the issue to focus on inter-service rivalry.

In fact, I would change our whole organizational culture to integrate as expeditionary task forces without parent service loyalties getting in the way.

Maybe the Army and USAF need to remove their service name tapes, and simply use:

TF SLAYER

Do it before deployment while training up, on deployment, and have some type of memorabilia to designate the Task Force they can identify with, rather than their parent organization for that deployment experience.

Shit, use the system to generate revenue to buy more bullets and cool shit.

TF Reebok.

TF Coca-Cola.

TF Kentucky Fried Chicken.  

Or close down both, give nukes to the AF and just make the marine corps 1 million people.

Sure.  I can already do 20 real  pull ups but all the Army crossfitters would be screwed.

Only if they are Trans

There are very few things that you can count on in ARFCOM GD.  

One of the rare ones is if a thread title has "CAS" in it, Sylvan will be there.  I'm not sure how he knows, but he does...



It's like a fly being drawn to shit.  (That's just an analogy, not me comparing Sylvan to a fly, or CAS to shit )

If he can plan 4 or 5 days out to have an airframe there to drop it ....

The default answer  by officers in ANY service is "no".   Much more likely to end your career by what you DID, verses what you did not do.

The more officers in the chain of decision-makers, the more likely one of them will say "no", become unavailable, or take too long - effectively killing the request.

RQ-9s and their progeny are the future of CAS. Long endurance and a deep magazine of Hellfire's and other PGMs is what's needed, that is neither a Super Tucano, Scorpion, or A-10 follow on.

Reforming CAS tasking is the other side of the problem that also needs to be addressed.

MAJClem's post here is important...it goes to the crux of the problem with the way we actually fight, and the way the average Soldier or Marine on the line with a rifle thinks we fight. What you think is happening behind the scenes is not what is really happening.

First, we spent a good portion of the time boring holes in the sky with NO TASKING. Yep, you heard that right. Full on gas, hours of vul time, full load of weapons, waiting for taskings that never came. Not just a little, but a lot. Enough that they finally had us running BS pipeline patrol and otherwise trying to justify burning gas and spending flight hours for taskings that never came while on XCAS, non specific unit assigned CAS sorties. Do you really think we just werent available? Or that some Air Force general somewhere told the Army to pound sand on that request because, you know, its common knowledge the AF hates CAS.....

Think about it.

The number of drops and weapons employed was closely tracked and was briefed at every level up the chain...why do you think that is? Because every bomb we dropped, every effective sortie, is ammo for the brass to fight the only war the DOD really cares about, the funding wars. You are crazy if you think they will turn down an actual CAS mission, in combat.

Its a win win situation for the AF...if we drop we justify our existence and our funding, makes for awesome press conference video, etc etc.. If we follow the Army's ROE for CAS, and we do, if too much collateral damage happens it makes for some bad press but who is it really on, as far as the top brass is concerned? Who called in the strike? Under whose terms? Who was giving the orders, who cleared us hot, who gave us the target? Ground commanders, all.

Think about it...politically, who gains from CAS engagements?  The Air Force. Who risks most from CAS engagements? The Army and its ground commanders.

Yes thats right, the very thing that helps the grunt in the heat of the fight is huge political risk to the ground commander, and worse, a feather in the cap of the Air Force and their money grubbing generals. For the army brass, credit for victory has to be shared, while very little of the political risk is shared with the Air Force as long as they follow the rules they gave them.

Is it any surprise that the Army brass hates asking for CAS support, and much of the time just wont do it? Even when there is an assigned asset, overhead, ready to act,  which I was many times...WE STILL COULDNT GET CLEARANCE. We landed with far more weapons than we dropped, even over active TICs. Many many times I have been ready to drop, targets fixed and loaded, and word comes back over the radio from the grunt or JTAC denied per the boss. Usually CD concerns, or culturally sensitive area, too close to a mosque, any excuse they can think of etc. Then I get to watch them stack up outside the buildings SWAT style and get shot clearing structures and fighting positions I could have bombed into oblivion. If you think I might be bitter about that, you'd be right.

Im going to say it outright. Our fighting men are being lied to by their senior leadership who is covering their own political cowardice. They would rather have their own men hash it out in a firefight with all the physical risk and casualties that entails, because that us less risk to their career than an airstrike, alll the while blaming the lack of CAS on the Air Force, and the average soldier has no way of knowing different. They cant hide it from me however, I was there, it was my business, and I know how it works because I know where the taskings and permissions come from.

On artillery...I had to laugh though it really isnt funny. In hundreds and hundreds of hours of combat missions, do you know how many times I was asked to clear airspace for an artillery fire mission?

Zero. Ive never even heard of anyone being asked.

How long would it take to get out of max ord for artillery if I was asked? Even if I was on the deck, maybe 15 seconds.

If you were there, think about all the times the senior brass tied your hands, think about the denied artillery,even though the footprint is an order of magnitude smaller than an airstrike.

You are being played, and I dont like it any more than you do.

For CAS, yes.  worthless meat puppets re-enacting the 9th AF's drive across france expired a few decades ago.

Thank god there exists CCA which is actually useful and effective.

I avoided AF CAS not because of any money fight or bullshit like that.

I avoided it because it was dangerous and counter productive.

Dang.  That sounds very plausible.

Yep, just ask Sylvan.

And yet those restrictions placed on CAS are generally not imposed on CCA.  Why would that be?

So which is it: Was AF CAS never available or did you just not ask for it?

You were never asked to get out of the way of an artillery fire mission because the JFACC and his staff either deny airspace requests outright or slow roll them long enough for the targets to disappear.  The reason for denials is often aircrew safety.  I posted this in another thread but I have been specifically denied airspace to shoot GMLRS because the missile flight path came within 50km of a published route.  The AF has too much control of airspace and it cripples our artillery.  It shouldn't come as a shock to you that there are blue suiters who have the authority to say no to anything above the CA.  Those guys say no without ever bothering the pilots like you.  Alternatively,  they spend so long mulling it over that a Kiowa or ground QRF beats them to the punch.

I know that ROE affects a lot of what we can do and that the Army bears much of the responsibility for that.  The AF, however, constrict our use of airspace beyond any rational reason .  The ATO cycle also hampers effective use of what little CAS is generally available.  I am sure it is frustrating to RTB with bombs on the rack.  It is equally frustrating to lay a gun or launcher on target with the ability to end a fight almost instantly and be put in check fire due to aircraft two counties away from the flight path of the round.

 

It wasn't available when needed.  So I stopped asking for it.

Day late and a dollar short.

If you are in a TIC you will get E-CAS.  They love burning the fuel.  You quickly realize however that the meat puppet up there is just waiting for you to tell him where to kill.  Well, 15 minutes ago I had a pretty good idea.  Right now I don't.  With CCA you can tell them, "Check out 700M west of my position and tell me if you see anything"  They do and you can make the determination there and then how to proceed.  With AF CAS you are dropping on a position.  Maybe someone is there, maybe someone isn't.  AND you always run the risk of a bad grid getting relayed and you end up monkey fucking civilians or yourself.  And you aren't talking 30mm or a hellfire.  You are talking Mk82 or 84 level of getting fucked up.  

As for pre=planned CAS.  again.  96 hours out.  If you are doing any sort of operation based on intel 96 hours old, go ahead and hit yourself in the balls with a hammer.

I'm here for the brrrrrrrrrrrrrt

I figgered if you took time to make a new one you could get new engines and make a few parts too.

But since you asked, mogas with 104+® Octane Boost take care of fuel and DFAC sugar cookies for the SeaBees should keep them in parts for a while.

How cool would it be to mount that gun pod on a ground based vehicle!


Think how well it would work on left lane campers.........

IOW absorb the UASF back into the Army where it belongs.

I was there from esrly in until middle 04, and again in 05 and 06, and as late as that there were no such thing as published routes... There were no routes and no airspace control for military aircraft besides numbered kill boxes that you get assigned. When they started letting civilian flights into BIAP etc then a rudimentary air traffic control was set up for the airliners/ civilian cargo aircraft. Perhaps this is what you are referring to. Maybe when that started they put our transports, c-17s/c-130s and the like on those.

Before anyone gets defensive, dont think for a second Im arguing our generals were any more risk tolerant than yours...they were not, as evidenced by your airspace denial. Its sick, and like I was saying about ROE, borderline criminal. This is the stuff that has far more impact on our ability to win wars than weapons programs, sensors, and organizational structures, and its not even close. Ill say it again, Id be happy to split off the space stuff and the ICBMs calll that the Strategic Forces or something, and roll all the fighters bombers and transport aircraft into the army where they began. It would probably help, but its not going to solve the problem of generals who dont really want to kill, and civilian leadership in DC that doesnt want them to either. Oh, but go win anyway. You would think we would have learned our lesson on that kind "plan" in Vietnam, instead we doubled down and made it worse.

Route = Restricted Operating Zone (ROZ) or similar. They were either published in the ATO or stood up by the AF as needed without regard to airspace usage by anyone else.  The go from the ATO to TAIS and AFATDS. Any time a fire mission breaks an airspace control measure (ACM) it requires AF clearance to fire. Almost all fire missions cross at least one ACM, usually the coordinating altitude. TAIS is supposed to allow us to share artillery flight path info with the Joint Force. We can provide the exact flight path of any round we shoot. Unfortunately, the AF would not use TAIS so they operated everything manually attempting to clear airspace from the gun to the target all the way up to the max ord for the entire distance. That's a lot of airspace when you shoot a rocket 70km. The AF settled on clearing Keypads, which were huge chunks of airspace, all the way to max ord. That may be what you understand as killboxes in this context.  

It kind of surprises me that the pilots never see any of this. Every ATO mission you fly has at minimum a ROZ published. Your mere presence in the air shuts off all manner of options for the guy on the ground. Bad decisions are made by brass on both sides of the issue and I appreciate your candor.

nvm

Shit am I too late to add this...

Stryker 11A's old avatar...

You may have missed it but what do you do that makes you an expert?  Not stirring shit but much of the weapons system specific things you posted are not true.

Unbelievable. Sounds like a bunch of staff weenie BS so I dont doubt it. The truth is though, we flew anywhere from a minimum of 4 hours to as much as 12 hour missions, and given that taskings changed and the tanker plan often flexed for various reasons the truth is we were often all over the country...at any altitude we wanted from surface to the stratosphere so if the CAOC thought we were on some route that is laughable. They know better. Nobody, including us, knew where we were going to be in five minutes much less five hours. There was no coordinating anything, Ive dodged everything from transports to drones to helicopters. We just went where we were asked to go, at whatever altitude we needed to see what we needed to see. Ive been everywhere from Basra to Syria to north of Mosul and back on one flight. Everyone else is doing the same thing, so it is literally impossible to deconflict everything for even one aircraft much less hundreds. We have and air to air radar that allows us to see airborne conflicts and for artillery, well the big sky theory was in full force.

Once we had a huge, and I mean huge explosion go off near us West of Baghdad in 2004...Im talking thousand foot diameter fireball, created a mushroom cloud over a mile high like a tactical nuke. We were running a show of force ( dont get me started) down a MSR just to the South of it, and thank God we weren't directly over top of it as it was throwing chunks of stuff through the air over a mile all directions, we were about 1000 agl and offset by chance just enough. Made our two thousand pounders look like a grenade. Apparently it was some kind of giant stockpile of scud warheads, mines, etc. Another time I was asked to find a mobile motar team at a location that they were actively raining 155s on. We were even talking on the radio and It still happened, I guess I failed to mention Id be flying over it at a couple hundred feet and they failed to mention they were already shelling it. Fog of war and all that. Im not complaining, what Im saying is that if they are denying strikes for airspace that is silly because we were everywhere at any given moment.

I never worried about that kind of stuff. Unintentionally intercepting a friendly artillery round = not your day, war is dangerous. What is unacceptable though, and should never happen, is intentional targeting of friendlies...either by a pilot screwing up the CAS talk on and not positively IDing a target, or by ground forces shooting patriots at our own aircraft. Both have occurred at one time or another. Its a gut check to hit the pickle button and send a weapon hurtling down in proximity to friendlies, as it should be.

Running everything through a central clearinghouse called the CAOC is part of the problem. All the jags looking over the shoulder off anyone O-6 or higher isnt helping either.

What are you talking aboutexactly? I flew CAS in the 15E for the best years of my life on multiple deployments. I know the weapons pretty well.

This is true!

Well, you posted incorrect info on the A10. So, what was your job. Pretty simple. I was just curious

F-15E pilot. Enlighten me about the weapons and the A10. Always open to learning something

Like I said just curious.  Don't care about the brass and big AF  stuff. And I'm not going to get into the arfcom shit show that is CAS discussions. But, you're assertions that th mud hen has more loiter and such than the Hog is simply exaggerated. As a former Hog driver I was intrigued. That's  it.

This unit isn't intended to deploy down range, it's to provided dedicated aircraft for the JTAC weapons school at Nellis.  





http://www.nellis.af.mil/News/tabid/6431/Article/916393/af-to-grow-enhance-nellis-group-with-close-air-support-focus.aspx

With all due respect, and I really mean that, I dont think it is. Put eight lgbs and a jdam on your jet Ill be surprised if you can stick around as long in tha cas wheel. But the main point I was trying to make( especially since we usually have tanker support so loiter is less relevant) is that none of this makes a difference when you land with your bombs anyway.

And youre right its a shit show i had no idea but now I do. You are wise to avoid, I will be more so in the future.

Which is what I said I think on page 2.  It is interesting to note that the AF's premier Air to Ground training exercises are conducted where there are no army units.