panzersaurkrautwerfer

Nah. When you're planning to fight from hull down positions, the ability to depress your tank gun is quite important. I found the world's best hide site up on a hill side while playing OPFOR for my company. I managed to kill 2/4 of the attacking platoon but the other two tanks remained both unaware, and below my ability to depress the gun. If you're going to be much above ground level, or shooting at all below the horizontal plane of your tracks or so (not to say you could hit right in front of the tank, but picture firing down into a valley), gun depression becomes very important. US tanks have also always placed a pretty high priority on crew working space, and it's paid off fairly well in practice.

Early access is a very human thing to do, in that it is not evil or good by itself until the human factor enters the frame. Which is to say some early access is brilliant and worth being along for the ride. Kerbal Space Program is a stellar example of good early access, even in it's early forms it was a blast, and it's just gotten better. On the other hand, some are very well intentioned, but just, you're preordering and recieving a really buddy tech demo in return. Maia is a great example of that, good concept, some okay progress, but it's not really fun or good right now, much more of an interactive progress report than anything fun. And then you have some sod off terrible games that are just making a cash grab on a million promises without any meaningful plan to follow up.

Clarification: To establish I'm not a ghoul or wasn't saving the hand "for later" I happened to be heading to a base that had a US run forensics lab on it, and they wanted to try to get fingerprints off of the hand (and it was better described as "hand, fragment" on the bag, it was missing the whole thumb assembly). The backpack is just the standard issue "Assault Pack" I was issued, and I've never thought to get a new one (and I plan on keeping it once I separate because it is one of the few items I have had everywhere I went in the military). On Killing: Never had to do it. By the time I went to Iraq the direct fire shooting Iraqis sort of events were largely gone, the Iraqis had gotten their teeth kicked in and now only attacked via IED, mortars/rockets, and some limited shoot and scoot type attacks.* The most damage we'd gather evidence from the attacks or other illegal activities (like fingerprints found on weapons in caches) and then go do a SWAT team style arrest. They usually weren't expecting us to come for them in their house/did not understand our ability to find both them and what they had left at the attack scene so mostly it was dragging off confused terrorists into the night (we made a few bad busts largely thanks to informants being....special**, but the guys we tagged usually had left fignerprints on the bombs they planted, or we'd intercepted phone calls that amounted to "praise allah, I hope to kill many americans with this bomb I shall plant" and we found the bomb in their bathroom or something). On the occasion were the ambushes went bad and we had a shot at people, it was an oddly remote thing, like a sports team you liked scored a point. So you felt sort of good, but it was not elation, nor any sort of mixed emotions as the person killed was 100% bad guy trying to kill people you knew. The only "dead" person that bothered me especially deeply was we had a woman get dropped off at our JSS (Joint Security Station like a small FOB, but with Iraqi forces also working out of it). She had "tried to commit suicide" by dousing herself with gasoline (her husband set her on fire was both the subtext, suspicion, and given what we knew the most likely scenario), and her other family had wrapped her up in a blanket to transport her to us with the expectations we'd be able to do something for her. At that point we were no longer allowed to treat or evacuate Iraqis that had not been A. Injured by US forces, B. Were in a danger of death, losing eyesight, or a limb without immediate medical attention***. The blanket had fused to her burned skin, but she was not close enough to death to mandate we treat or evacuate her. So our only recourse was to have the Iraqis on our compound evacuate her to an Iraqi hospital. The Iraqi police unit refused to have anything to do with it. Like it just wasn't worth the attention, allah will sort it out, we're eating lunch/playing cards/almost time for prayer and simply cannot be bothered. Eventually after much screaming they tossed her in the back of one of their pickups and went somewhere. Maybe a hospital, maybe a ditch, maybe back to her husband, who knew. It was a singularly depressing occasion at the end of it. Re: Army of Volenteers You still have a wide range of why people sign up. The die hard I <3 America! type is not as common as you'd think. Marginally more patriotic than average is how I would describe the average US serviceperson, but in the "I love America as a societal/cultural concept" vs "I love the American government and its policies without question" sense. There were a lot of tattoos, flags, and pride in the country as a concept, but when all the junior enlisted were out, the senior enlisted, and officers talked a lot of "what the hell are we thinking" about what the country was up to at the moment. *The preferred method in our AO was using the old Russian RKG-3 Anti-Tank grenades. They'd pitch a few of them from an alleyway or a crowd then run like hell. Funny story about them sometime when I'm bored. **Another amusing story for some othertime. ***It wasn't a cold "Iraqis are not worth American medical attention!" system, but it was the realization that US bases had become the defacto hospitals for the local communities. At a time in which we were trying to build up the Iraqis enough to leave, it was deemed essential to only treat what we absolutely had to, to force people to start using Iraqi hospitals, so those hospitals would actually be ready when we left instead of just suddenly "poof" US forces leave and no one can handle anything more than a papercut.

It's pretty strongly disputed. Not trying to turn this into a pissing contest. I reasonably expect both BMP3 and Bradley to respond negatively to direct hits from 25 MM and 30 MM respectively. However the Sabot type rounds for the 25 MM are nasty, and will well and truly hole obsolete MBTs from angles other than rear. 30 MM can be potent, but it isn't that sort of potent, and I like the FCS and optics the 25 MM comes with a lot. 100 MM is going to be really useful, I'm just not entirely sure if I'll find it useful enough to make me prefer the BMP over the Bradley. In terms of Russian capabilities, again, the S26 and thermobaric infantry weapons stand out as the far and away better capabilities. Other than that I feel it strongly comes down to taste and how you fight. For instance, I'm disinclined to send anything into the water where the enemy might be in direct fire range, so I'm not really going to be going amphibious with Russian hardware often. conversely my tendency to bring IFVs fairly close to the enemy before dismounting, once the enemy is somewhat suppressed is less dangerous with the Bradley style troop ramp vs not-BMP 2 exit methods from Russia, which means I weigh that stupid door a lot more heavily than others might.

Re: Fear It's like if you have to cross as series of potentially busy streets to get to work or do anything. The anxiety builds from the "last time a bus almost ran me over crossing this one!" much more than the bus actually having almost run you over. During the event you're too focused on the act of not being run over so not much fear there, and outside of circumstances that are a lot like the road you almost got run over on, there's not the context to expect that bus. What can creeps up on you is when things start to align that look, smell and sound a lot like when the bus almost ran you over. The human brain is awesome at detecting patterns so if stuff starts to really look like that road and that bus it can trigger a response. Conversely that anxiety eventually goes away as it is readily apparent that the bus is no longer something to worry about. So in that regard there used to be stuff that I knew from Iraq to be bad signs (empty streets, piles of trash, guys filming stuff, loud noises etc) that would trigger low level anxiety back in the US (I wasn't flinching or hiding under tables, more like some corner of my brain stood to because something was up), but after a few July 4ths passed since I'd been to Iraq, fireworks and the like did not trigger any sort of response, and it has been a while since I had any sort of reaction. I imagine someone with a much more traumatic trip overseas might take a long time to unlearn the really bad stuff. But it's not like you live in eternal fear of all things, it's just much closer to anxiety. Re: Blood and gore Only if you knew the person. The smell of blood and generally body parts in general trigger some sort of "THIS IS BAD PLACE GO AWAY FROM BAD PLACE" response in the lizard corner of your brain. Once you get over that part, if there's no danger to you (the attack is over), and you're not especially attached to the body parts source of origin it's just unpleasant. I mean I carried a human hand from a suicide bomber around in my backpack (in a baggie). I still use that backpack lots without any real feelings that the hand is HAUNTING MY ARMY BACKPACK OH DOG WAY. The dead can't hurt you, blood carries infections pathogens, not bad juju so it's something best not to cover yourself in it, but it's not something to freak out about too much. The much more unpleasant part is when you have wounded and you need to do "something" about it. Because you're attached to the keeping someone alive and intact it's quite stressful when you're in a position where you cannot do anything for them (in my case just the practical reality that the medics were already working on them, and I had nothing to do with evacuating them). Re: Propaganda and dogma I received several times as much in the military, as I did in college. The yay Army stuff was way less aggressive than GO TEAM GO during football season, and the "You are in Iraq to help people" was only mentioned in passing compared to the more realistic "You are in Iraq to help train and equip the blah blah blah partner units blah blah blah in conjunction with other agencies blah blah restore blah to blah." Dissent was fairly freely expressed among peers. There really just wasn't much of a sense of being indoctrinated.

I did not. Just in toe to toe it's a worse weapons system than the 25 MM.

They're both asymetically balanced vehicles that you'll have to figure out which serves you better. I like the TOW 2B, better armor array, troop arrangement and the anti-light armor abilities of the 25 MM more than I like the 100 MM gun, the airburst on said gun, and amphibious crossing abilities. Otherwise will more highly weigh the BMP3's advantages an be able to easily justify that though. That said if the BMP3 explodes like it did in CMSF, there's going to be some sad faces for redfor.

I think we're sort of going metal on metal here. I doubt you'll stop being a zoomie infidel or some kind, and I will not abandon the true faith of the Green Machine. As a sort of weirdo peace offering, the USAF is not that bad at CAS, and it is much better than most military forces. I will simply contend I feel the same people, more closely managed by the Army would be more effective at the Army support mission. If that meant the USAF 303rd Fighter Squadron would fall under direct command of somesuch division/Army for operation Maple Storm when we annex British Columbia, then I'd be good. An Army Air Force would be pretty good too. So just to wrap it up: Still seems pretty airpower as an end vs a means to me. And speaking as a grounddude when I have the same capability organic (Shadow, Gray Eagle) to my organization it does not really feel much like support. Does not make a heap of sense though, and several other news agencies have investigated the accusations and declined to pursue for lack of substantiation. CIA will get stuff wrong, but unless it had a really good reason to blast the Chinese embassy, and specifically the Chinese embassy because it was the Chinese Embassy it seems really flimsy. I heard some crazytalk once it'd been to destroy NATO hardware that had been captured and was being prepared to be flown out in diplomatic bags. This seems more likely than the retrans, but again, there's terribly little evidence for either situation, while there's a fair amount for wrong building.

If we're doing stories: I worked in a Joint Operations Cell on Muthana airbase for some months as a very bored, very annoyed 1LT. We shared the building with our Iraqi counterparts, each unit had its own desk, the hypothetical utility being that if 1-63 AR from the US Army needed to talk to the National Police unit in Ghazalia or something, the representative from each of those units were in the same room. In practice the Iraqis hardly showed up, or showed up, watched porn on their phone, slept, or something along those lines. Correspondingly, the US element of the JOC increasingly turned to video games (I played the hell out of Company of Heros, CMSF and Halflife 2), movies, and reading books as we had to be there and we actually followed orders. There was an Iraqi Army Captain who was especially annoying to all of us. When he was awake, he'd press his face against the screen of his big ole' CRT monitor while singing to himself loudly and off key, watching some sort of music videos (alternating between "Allah is the best guy ever" type music and what seriously looked like Bollywood videos, dancers and all). When he slept, it was like a dumptruck full of running chainsaws going into a shredder level snoring. These two events were universal. As I arrived at 1945 to start my shift, these events would continue from whenever he showed up, to around 0800 when he relief arrived. One night after my movies were drowned out by snoring again (I could hear him through the headphones) and at the depths of my professionalism, I started launching rubber bands at him. I burned through the ones in my drawer, the SFC down the way joined in, and after scavenging some more rounds, I continued the engagement before I made an error and blasted him in the face. He woke up, deeply offended and then forgot about it and went back to rocking out to watching skanky music videos where you could almost see all of the woman's ankle! or something. The next morning I posted on facebook that I had "Shot an Iraqi in the face last night, and I felt nothing" and let that stay up for a few hours before explaining. Was good times. (As an addendum, I don't dislike all Iraqis, I just know I worked with on occasion an especially useless batch of them for a while)

In terms of stuff in game: 1. A lot of Russian stuff is amphibious with zero preparation. It's still going to be dangerous to use/slow crossing, but it's a capability nothing in the US inventory has. 2. There's no real US Air Defense assets outside of borrowed Ukrainian 2S6s and Stringers. The off-map stuff in terms of friendly fighters or PATRIOTs is only modeled by the scenario writer's inclusion of Russian aviation or not. 3. More airburst platforms, MBTs there is a parity, but the BMP3 does airburst, while the Bradley does not. 4. Better infantry assault type weapons (like thermobaric rocket launchers) Re: Supershort Patriot vs S400 thing. They're both pretty similar in terms of claimed performance, but unlike many systems (M1 vs T-90, BMP-3 vs M2 etc) their performance in regard to each other is entirely irrelevant, or much less relevant than the capabilities of the various SEAD/DEAD assets used by the US and Russia. Either way both platforms require a dedicated, well thought out plan to be dealt with, and their impact on the air space will be noticed

The real question is how will we address uncultured swine if he is being an uncultured swine. Re: Uncultured Swine: You are a unworldly cloven hoofed animal.

Not so much. UAVs are not effective in a situation that has red air, or major anti-aircraft defenses. They are however effective in making people in Pakistan explode, which has rather become a cornerstone of US foreign policy. This is by far the greater priority in UAV operations and design. In less Pakistan oriented missions they're also a very useful ISR tool, however it's worthy of note that the Army now has its own large scale UAV platforms, which is largely a reaction to the ability to better task and control something "in house" than relying on the USAF to do it when asked. Which really is a good template for armed Army fixed wing platforms. So again, not that good in a high intensity conflict (ISR yes, but a Reaper isn't going to survive a dance with any ADA platform), not really good for CAS, but great for flinging missiles at Pakistanis. So basically an act of war given the status of embassies. For a retrans station. I'm not as dedicated to the air war crap as some people, but that's pretty out of proportion, which is to say dropping a bomb on an orphanage because the enemy has a single rifleman on the roof. I'm more willing to believe the standard line about a mistargeting because that at least implies a somewhat understandable error, vs a target that frankly is of limited to no value (especially given the functionality of landlines or other means of communications within Yugoslavia). So either the CIA/USAF is stupid enough to knowingly cause a major international incident over a target with minimal utility, or it's merely dumb enough to make the same sort of targeting mistake that it has done on many occasions (for which I cannot really fault them given the fluid nature of building occupants, and issues identifying "a building" in a city full of them. So what you're telling me is the USAF is effectively useless against ground targets. Good to know the future enemies of America can look forward to losing three or so tanks for every hundred and twenty bombs dropped on things that might be tanks. Why should we bother funding the USAF for CAS missions at all then? You're painting a picture of platforms that couldn't find targets to save their lives, cannot tell friendly troops from hostile ones, and increasingly are using platforms that are not survivable, or well adapted to CAS. By your own examples and statements the USAF is unable to engage ground targets effectively, and is failing to fulfill it's obligations to the Army under the Key West agreements, and by that logic should yield the CAS mission, and associated funding to other agencies more inclined to do the job right. Hyperbole aside it's still possible to trick the human eye. But targeting pods go a long way in increasing the ability to discriminate target from not a target (as anyone who's looked through earlier generation thermal optics vs modern thermal optics will tell you), and they mysteriously receive a lot of funding and research priority after 1999. Perhaps this is just unrelated events, but there seems to be a connection between "we just blew up a lot of Serbian plywood" and "we are acquiring new optics systems"

Re: I'm a doctor Jim.... That's why I freely admitted to not being an engineer. Regardless of the physical process, the reality is the TIS type sensors cannot see the sort of IR emitters ground forces use for IFF and target designation. You can't calibrate them to see differently or something. Its why the new night optics the US Army is working on are cool, it sees both the "light" and the "heat" at the same time. Well aware. And the shift in targets was more productive because the ability to hide bridges, factories etc is pretty limited to the CIA getting it wrong where the Chinese Embassy was (maybe, unless we're talking about conspiracy type stuff). However if you're looking at the performance metrics regardless, several hundred targets were engaged with precision weapons that were not actually valid targets. There's nothing fancy optics are going to do against weather, but improved optics will do a lot in figuring out the classic tarp or tank dilemma. The weather certainly made life harder but 120 tanks claimed destroyed comes from target engaged/believed destroyed. The fact that a whopping three tanks were actually knocked out indicates the USAF might have had a problem figuring out what a target was in addition to finding it in the first place. Maybe if CAS was that important to the operation, calling it would have been a good option, the B-1 certainly didn't help. The issue might not be the ability to "hang" it might be the ability to provide assets to support the mission. So if the actual solution was multiple fighters over a period of time, then that's just what should be done instead of sending in something that's functionally blind to where friendly forces are. I mean this is pretty key. Close Air Support. CLOSE Air Support. The key word here that is worth remembering is "close. because close is worth emphasizing. An A-10 or even AV-8 can actually discriminate between target and not target. JTACs help, but again, as evidenced by Boning, if the flying thing cannot see what the JTAC sees (situational awareness) it isn't really coordination, close, safe, or a good idea. UAVs are cool as long as there is no one on the ground shooting back. And again, we're now not just talking about a platform that cannot see the IFF measures of ground forces, but now we're talking about a JTAC talking to a UAV that's sending back telemetry to Nevada. The USAF's investment in UAVs is still a furtherance of it's super plane mode war from sky, and more utility in terms of ISR than CAS.

You might not notice the actual capabilities though if the TC isn't dead. CITV can fill in for the GPS, although the gunner just became a spectator. Assuming again, the tank commander isn't dead or something.

I'd rather keep it out too. When you're dealing with up to Battalion sized operations, I'd rather just be able to leave my squads to get down to business as they clear a building instead of playing Battalion-Company-Platoon-Squad-Team leadership roles.

Re: IR Your thermal optics (tank/bradley optics, PAS-13, etc) cannot see things like IR chemlights, strobes, or IR lasers. The process for each of them is different, in effect NODs/IR emitters are working on the IR "light" emitted, while thermal is receiving the heat emitted by objects. I'm not an engineer, nor will pretend to be. But that's the easiest break down. If you see "night vision" style optics at work, you'll notice while the world is now green colored, the brighter spots are still light emitters because they're giving off IR emissions. IR chemlights/strobes/lasers are just IR light only emitters, which is super sweet when working in the dark against non-night vision equipped enemies as you can do all sorts of stuff with those, but everyone with night vision equipment (even older models that usually require an IR spotlight) will see you easily. Thermal optics will not see any of this because they do not have anything to do with "light" but it's all in heat emitters (you see the light bulb because it's hot, and it's warning things around it, not because it's emitting light).. Which is where the blue on blue came in, the B-1 lacked the ability to see the IR light strobes on friendly forces, but it could see their heat sources, so it assumed it had acquired hostile targets, and bombed the hell out of them. Many other more effective CAS platforms have the pilots flying with night vision goggles that can see the IR lights used by friendly troops, which is likely where the breakdown occurred, that the JTAC was unaware the B-1 lacked the ability to see IR lights, the B-1 crew did not understand they could not see IR strobes. The TTP used to get around this at least to some extent usually is clipping two 9-volt batteries together (negative to positive, positive to negative, try it at home if you've got 9 volts you don't want to use!) and short circuiting them, as it'll glow very right in thermal optics for some hours. Not as obvious as IR, but if the dudes you're looking at all have glowy rectangles on their heads, you might be about to bomb friendlies. Here's the greater problem of Kosovo: Quote shamelessly lifted from Wikipedia, but I imagine you could find the original with digging I'm too lazy to do if you care to dispute it. That many bad attacks, on decoys or dubious targets is a bigger problem than weather. Nothing outside of radar really sees through clouds especially well. And of those 117 not actually tanks, 202 not really APCs, and 430 not artillery pieces, something was seen, acquired and dropped on to no effect. The actually engaged targets covered the range of constructed decoys (tarps, heat source, and telephone poles apparently made up most of those), sacrificial targets (T-34s or old towed artillery left in the open) and just a lot of "we don't know what we bombed." This would be the driving focus behind targeting pods, being able to tell the difference between tarps and targets if you will. Krasnovian is old timey fake country for NTC if I remember right. I never dealt with them as that was before my time, and we've seen moved on to Atropians or something, but they're pretty popular stand ins for when you're describing generic conventional enemy forces. Gun runs can be called in pretty close. Not as close as smaller missiles, and they're not laser beams. And again, TICs can cover anything from "they're next door!" to "I see enemy and he sees me across this 4 KM wide valley" So if you needed a enemy tank platoon type target hit, or enemy troops in a fortified building, mavericks and JDAMs please. Dunno, seems that day if it'd been something else or nothing at all some US Soldiers might be in better shape. At the very least it's a system that was unable to discriminate between friendly and hostile forces as equipped, and it failed both the soldiers it was supporting, and the mission at hand. That much is not in dispute. High duration is an important attribute. However continued reliance on the B-1 for "CAS" is a way to avoid having to address the problems with other platforms, or of CAS as a system in terms of providing continued support. USMC rotary was: Baghdad Iraq 2009 I think. It was election day and the Army stuff was tasked out of our AO, so it was AH-1s or bust. This one was routed through higher HQ because of commo issues but we lacked Marines or aviators at said HQ. They also supported one of our Troops in some sort of cordon and search thing later, I think it was Feburary. Either way we didn't have Marines or JTACs, coordination was done through Troop FSO and Platoon leader. Fort Benning Training exercise. This was the one with the 2LTs on hand. They didn't seem too disturbed by the whole affair. USMC Fixed wing NTC 2008 That's about it. However USAF wouldn't play with us at all out there though because we were JTACless. We got a visit from the RAF then too, and they weren't too disturbed by our lack of Limey aviators. The fact the USMC would talk to us during the training event though does indicate an ability or at least not refusal to work without Marines on the ground.

Finally these are getting shorter: Re: Target pods It wasn't overcast that resulted in poor bombing results. It certainly did not help, don't get me wrong, but the greater problem was target discrimination. Targeting pods were pairing the advances in optics with the realization future conflicts were going to be against enemies that weren't going to be as obvious as a Soviet tank battalion rolling through Fulda. Re: TIC TIC is "troops in contact" there's a variety of flavors of contact, but they all involve troops being somethinged by the enemy (electronic warfare effects, obstacles and CBRN without actual enemy troops in sight are all forms of contact for instance). So to that end, in terms of CAS TIC could refer to the enemy 100 meters away....or it could refer to an Abrams company shooting up stuff from 2.5 KM out. In terms of weapons, effects and the enemy, in a COIN environment in much more restrictive on what we can do to the environment, and the targets much lower value. Flattening a building to kill a guy with an AK is usually not a prefered amount of force, and the expectations of real estate preservation are high enough that it can be mission detrimental. If that same building is full of Krasnovian regulars with AT weapons, MGs, and this is a full spectrum kinetic fight, if I turn the building into literal rubble, it's okay. SDBs are a great choice for murdering mortar teams, knocking out individual vehicles, etc, etc. If I'm facing down AFVs and larger infantry formations, I'd rather have the 500 LBS to make an impression. Also generally missiles are preferred for TIC. A hellfire knows where it's going and will try super hard to get to that point for instance. Gun rounds are totally slaves to physics once they come out of the tube. The CEP is a lot higher and 30 MM will ruin days. If we're talking about SDB or Hellfires, it's much better to know that the building on the left is about to disappear, everyone get down, than be somewhere in the area where it's going to start raining 30 MM. Of course this assumes the USAF doesn't just pickle on you anyway. Re; B-1 Look at the crew visibility from the cockpit of a B-1 vs an A-10. The reason the B-1 blue on blued friendly troops was it was unable to spot the IR strobes on the soldiers on the ground. Targeting pods use thermal optics, which cannot see the IR spectrum because it cannot see any sort of light, it just sees heat. However as per other CAS platforms, pilots flying using NODs, with the ability to see outside the flight deck can see IR strobes which pretty much resolves the question about which set of guys are our guys. Once the friendlies are identified (and IR strobes are the sort of thing you can make out for miles if you've got them on), then switching to thermal optics type systems for target acquisition is the preferred method. Additionally by totally lacking the ability to acquire the friendlies with eyeballs using NODs the B-1 cannot utilize the PEQ-15 type lasers the friendly forces would have had, that could have been used to direct the CAS onto target (this is something I've done with CCA "you see the building with the lasers pointed at it?" "Rog" "in there" "Rog." It's a lot easier than having a ten minute conversation about it, and GPS grids are marginal when dealing with things that are pretty close to each other (while the coordinates for two buildings will be different, it's much easier to unambiguously point to the building, than try to establish if the building on the right or left is grid 12345678 or 12345669). Which again points to the USAF using a suboptimal platform that cannot coordinate, and thus cannot fill the S part of CAS. I've been present for non-aviators calling for USMC fixed wing, and I've called for USMC rotary wing. Unless I forgot I'm a pilot, I do not think you are correct. Or at the least the USMC had a flexible enough operating procedure to recognize we did not have a FAC or JTAC type guy handy and the Army ground dude on the phone was as good as it was going to get. USAF wouldn't even show up unless it was their JTAC. Here's the genius of calling for CCA. There's a set format to talking to the birds, but here's more or less how it worked out: Helicopter enters your net after being pushed from higher He gives you who he is (callsign, weapons on board) You give your call sign(s), force disposition He acknowledges all, locates you You give him tactical task and purpose He sends back coordination measures if required Mission. So it'd look something like: CCA: "Any station this net, this is Bandit 64, we are two times AH-64 with eight hellfire, 38 rockets, and 200 rounds 30 mm each" Ground: "This is Demon White 1, we are four times tanks located vicinity OBJ Jabberwocky, stationary, defending. Enemy infantry to our front CCA: "Roger White 1. We see you. See bad guys Ground "Bandit 64 I need you to attack to destroy enemy infantry located 400 meters my front vicinity hill mass. Watch for my tracer." CCA: "Roger, watching for tracer....I see it, see target. Check fire on my mark, we'll be coming in with rockets" Ground" Roger Bandit 64" CCA" Check fire" <white ceases fire> This is just my sort of off the top of my head, but CCA was just that easy. And that's possible through the sort of working relationship that CCA has with Army units, and USMC units have through their attached aviation elements in the MEU type structure. USAF you can't trust with that because: a. They don't trust you because you're not a JTAC b. They really do not have the SA required to understand what you're doing c. If it's a B-1 it likely cannot see you.

The principle limitations coming out of Kosovo 1999 in terms of bombing performance: 1. Finding the target (targeting pods helped with this later on) 2. Hitting targets in places were collateral damage is unacceptable. The point isn't SDBs are magic CAS weapons, it's the practical reality that we may need to kill a 2S6 parked in a playground surrounded by orphans who've been doused in gasoline. If anything they're an excellent strike weapon, and a good COIN type CAS weapon, but against a high intensity type threat, the larger bombs would be preferred in a troop in contact type situation. Collateral damage is one of the many albratrosses the USAF has hung around its neck. SBD is just a more effective version of when they were dropping concrete filled bombs during operation Northern Watch in lieu of real bombs. This is a prime example of a thing a Marine or Army aviator would know. You know why I know this? It's part of the CCA capabilities briefing. CCA can see it when whey're operating with NODs for the obvious reasons (another reason to like them actually, and I believe part of the A-10's night profile). It's another sign of institutional failing to consider a B1 a great idea for a TIC type situation given it's sensor and pilot visibility issues. Which gets to why the A-10 is beautiful and should be loved and worshiped. It CAN see troops on the ground visually, and it is capable of performance envelopes that let it find dudes on the ground (or at least the IR strobes). This is another one of those USAF problems. You know how many JTACs a battalion has? One team. You know how many company teams a CAB generates? Four. You know the odds of the JTAC being with the Company that makes contact? .... Yeah. So given this reliance on a special JTAC team for normal operations, it is a weakness. And looking at the fact that each one of those companies DOES have a JTAC qualified FSO team is good, but the USAF won't train with them because they're not "USAF JTACS" I wish I was making this up. The key to any sort of support relationship is training together as much as possible, and at that focusing hard on the redundancy or contingency type coordination pieces. Any idiot (except for the dudes that hosed up at our live fire apparently) can do a CAS-like mission when the weather is clear, the JTAC is sitting on top of his HMMWV fully exposed with full up coms, but the USAF's insistence on this super optimal training situation goes beyond safety and well into smug superiority territory about effectively not telling them what we need, they'll let us know what we need. Which well and deeply breeds the sort of mistrust the USAF has rather extensively sowed. The Marines show up to our briefings too. And usually on time. They may be swarmy smug aviator types but you got the impression they at least knew what was going on. And again that understanding of what's supposed to be happening on the ground payed dividends. I watched brand new 2LTs call in USMC aviation with confidence once they got past "ZOMG THERE IS A THING IN THE SKY I HOPE CPT PANZERSAURKRAUTWERFER WONT THROAT PUNCH ME FOR BEING A D-BAG" factor. USAF? Nadda. They wanted the JTAC. We could talk to them through the JTAC, but they needed the majick sweet sounds of that USAF E-6 on coms to tell him things I guess. Re: CAS to the Army Oh it'll never happen. I'm also one of those heretics that believe the USMC and Army should merge, get the tactical type air, Navy and Air Force should be some manner of strategic branch, and then some sort of "purple" branch that covers the current multi-service logistics/cyberwarefare/SOF crap. It doesn't make sense that we separate the shooting people in the face service and replicate capabilities, while preventing services from doing certain missions they should be capable of as a matter of effectively job protection for the other branch. USAF's actual level of focus aligns fairly well with USN's level of focus, and would allow for even more consolidation of mission and personnel. Will positively never happen, as the sort of clout the Marines have will ensure we'll still have a USMC long after we've evolved into hyper intelligent peaceful beings of pure light, and the USAF has less clout but it historically has fought harder to keep armed aviation away from the Army than it did actual opponents. Re; M4 Sherman I am an avowed Sherman fan and shalt not listen to such heresy (I mean, I have a realistic view of it's actual capabilities, but it's not the terrible tank it gets credit for being)

Yep. Exactly what I'm referring to. While it's heavily touted as a CAS/COIN type weapon, it actually even further fills the USAF's palaceduster mission type. Not that it isn't useful, but again it's not "The USAF takes CAS as a mission seriously" it's "the USAF is capable of performing CAS when it has to" Which again as a CAS enduser is sort of an annoying propostion to fight through. Further the B-1B story illustrates the reliance on dedicated specialist teams by the apparent CAS master B-1 platform, and other similar fast movers. This is contrast to other ground-pounder acclimated assets that are much better able to operate with degraded marking assets, or other than specialist spotter teams.

My point was so important that it needed to be repeated. Apologies on double post

It hardly falls apart simply because they're still making the same Mexican restaurant quality hamburgers. You're losing sight of the fact that just because they have not performed the normal USAF preferred missions, does not mean their focus is not still the USAF centric missions. The A-10 retirement fracas and the "everything for the F-35!" mentality both are signs not of an institution adapting to the current operating environment, but instead performing what it has to do to get back to the "real" missions of shocking and awing or something. I mean even now the A-10 is back in combat. If it's capabilities are so easily replicated by something with the F-35's payload, then why hasn't it been supplanted by more F-16s and F-15Es or something? If it's so old and useless, then it really shouldn't offer the capabilities it is offering over Syria-Iraq. As much as I griped about them, at least they're operating in an envelope that can reasonably identify and engage targets on the ground beyond tossing a bomb from 30,000 AGL or whatever. Closest I can come up with in terms of more CAS centric thinking in the last 10 years was the small diameter bombs or whatever but that's equally useful for coutnerpalace missions. It's still not a close support mission, it's danger close strike which is something that isn't nearly as useful as actual support.

Practice and procedures. The procedures itself may not vary, but I am telling you the USAF's service delivered practices are subpar compared to anything else that I've worked with that flew. I note you're not debating the performance, but simply that the USMC/Army CCA has the same in the book process. So I'll use an analogy. Many Mexican restaurants have hamburgers on the menu. They exist to ensure that when that one dumb guy who doesn't like Mexican food gets dragged in, he'll buy something and eat it too. The burger exists within the same health and cleanliness standards of other burgers. It is comprised of the same sort of parts of every other hamburger on the planet. However the restaurant does not do hamburgers because it sees them as its primary mission, it does them to get money from the customers who don't want burritos and tacos. And while the effort expended is within the confines of achieving a "hamburger" the hamburger is still inferior to the some place who's focus is on making hamburgers because that's the product they make to achieve mission. The Air Force has a cultural disconnect between the forces on the ground and the CAS provider. We had a swap sort of thing between one of my courses and the similar course with the USAF, they sent over six of their guys one day, we sent over six of ours a different day. Even talking to the USAF guys, EVEN THE A-10 ONES it was like talking to martians. We were at the point in our class in which we were planning company level operations, and they had zero idea about anything we were talking about outside of making sure we'd deconflcted the airspace for them. To the other end, the basic Marine/Army level stuff both of those sets of aviators have to complete at least gives them a remote idea of tactics of things on ground, and what the unit in contact is attempting to achieve. Further from that, a familiarity of what the supported units look like and are supposed to be doing as part of their mission. To that end working with the USMC and CCA was very much you told them what you wanted them to do, and they were able to put together a thing to support you, if that was suppression gun and rocket runs, if that was knocking out that OPFOR PC you could see inside the village, but couldn't get a TOW to, they could do that, and could contribute to the overall mission. When working with the USAF, even with the good experiences we were just the "do not shoot this" blue boxes on the map. Which gets to the heart of the matter really, is that the USAF views CAS as "dropping bombs near friendly forces" which might just be better called as DCA (Danger Close Attack or something), while the USMC/USA CCA focus is much stronger on supporting the ground effort, which may be something more integrated, and less dump bombs RTB high fives rounds complete. It was readily apparent in the A-10s we had along for the ride during one of our live fires. We needed them to fly down a visually identifiable corridor (it wasn't magic lines on a map, as long as their movement was between two large, well marked with towers and flashy lights/IR panel ridgelines they were 100% safe a-okay) in order to deconflict indirect fires, and to avoid overflying the random small town that managed to endure being this close to a life fire facility. In scenario terms the artillery was suppressing enemy on an objective our infantry was about to assault, the armor conducting the live fire was killing the near enemy mounted forces, and the CAS was supposed to be hitting the enemy reserve force that was represented by a series of large panel type targets set up on the mountain that serves as backstop for the range. The following key events occurred: 1. The A-10s showed up three hours late. This was a training event that was coordinated about five months prior, and their base was at worse about 30-40 minutes away once wheels left pavement. 2. On three separate occasions violated the approach corridor (and not like, sort of wandered out of it, like spent more time cutting across it than actually flying along it). While the artillery was not firing a mission at that point (thankfully) it was still in a "hot" status which resulted in having to do an emergency shut down/stop freeze THERE IS A PLANE IN THE PLACE WERE BIG BULLETS MAY GO drill. 3. While the A-10 was waved off once he'd violated the approach, it became apparent the reason he was adjusting his approach was to engage the tank-type targets at the base of the mountain (which were 100% not designed to be hit by training bombs, or bursts of GAU-8 from the sky), instead of the "okay to bomb" targets on the mountain. He (well, possibly she, and certainly they as there were two of them) were dancing to their own set of music. And that's been my experience with the USAF fixed wing support to be honest. The USMC guy wants to know what you're doing and I honestly believe if you didn't need air support, but were short a rifleman he'd land his platform, get out and join on your squad. The only complaint I've ever managed to leverage with the USMC dudes is once their AH-1s were supposed to support us, but for some reason we couldn't get them on coms, so all their stuff was relayed from BDE, down to Squadron, then down to the troop they were orbiting. Army CCA is great, they're too pragmatic to dismount from the chopper, but again in terms of customer support, outside of being a little antsy to kill something*, they were very helpful. Which gets back to the bad analogy I used. Much like the Mexican Restaurant hamburger, CAS isn't the primary mission or focus of the USAF. It's something they do because they have to. Moving CAS away from the USAF, and to the US Army, where it would be the primary focus and mission for fixed wing makes sense, because instead of getting the bare minimum to ensure the Army doesn't go to congress or something, the training, mission, and mentality would reflect the primacy of CAS for CAS platforms, while leaving the USAF to cross into the blue or whatever it does. *I liked Kiowas a lot because most of my rotary stuff interaction was when I was a scout, so we were both on the same sort of "find things" mindset. Also they pretty much dive bomb stuff to do a gun run. When an Apache enters the net it's pretty much "THIS IS BADASS CALL SIGN 62 I HAVE EIGHT HELLFIRES 38 70 MM ROCKETS AND 400 ROUNDS 30 MM READY TO KILL." That's a bit of an exaggeration, not sure about the round count, but by god if there was something worth shooting somewhere in your AO, they knew about it, and really wanted to put holes in it.

The difference for me is a matter of fuel and fire. The Ukraine lies about what its setting on fire to continue existing as a country. This does not disturb me too deeply because it's a small lie about the nature of a war it is conducting. Such things happen. What Russia is lying about is that it is at war, and it is without reasonable dispute, the cause for the current war and troubles. If Russia packed up its toys, and canceled leave and passes for Russian soldiers in Ukraine, the war would be over and life would go on. But instead it insists on trying to carve off parts of a sovereign country through fake terrorists that it has armed, all in the interest of forcing a political situation the Ukraine rejected wholeheartedly while lying about it even existing. And lying that there is a war, is far less excusable than the ever so slight whitewashing (to be fair, given the crimes of Russian supported terrorists, Ukraine could tell the truth and still come out of this lily-white).

What we are talking about is just as serious, realistic, and honest as Russian intentions of peace and freedom in the Ukraine.

There's Russian troops where your government says there are zero Russian troops, with ethnic Russians driving Russian military hardware, in a war against Ukrainian nationals. There was disorder, but there wasn't war in the Ukraine until your country brought it. If Russia was serious about peace, it wouldn't have sent in Russian terrorists, it wouldn't have sent in tanks, it wouldn't have killed a few hundred Dutch people in the wrong plane at the wrong time. If you think that's the way to treat a brother, I feel honest fear for your siblings. Brother let me tell you, with how low oil has gotten the exchange rate actually demands a lot more blood per drum. Like a lot. I'm seriously running out of improvised third world children at this point.