Originally Posted by
sigtauenus
From the Army perspective, it seems as if CAS is something that is a last resort. Uh-oh, the grunts are in trouble, arty can't reach, better call for air support. Kind of cliche', but true. Part of the problem is that they don't understand what air provides, and you can't use an asset appropriately if you don't know or understand what it does for you. They don't know what air provides because its not an organic asset.
From the Air Force perspective, it seems as though the JTAC on the ground is there to facilitate the pilot dropping the bomb and destroying the target. To the pilot, the target is just a target that needs serviced, and he most likely does not know or understand what objective the grunts are actually trying to achieve.
Its a different mindset.
Well, kind of. I don't really know the Marine mindset so I can't talk to it. Though I find it weird you don't let enlisted do it. And found it even weirder that we used to send our enlisted JTACs to support Marines in ops when you didn't have enough of our own--why don't you allow enlisted JTACs?
But still, the AF puts ASOS's and ASOC's down embedded with the Army to do exactly what you described. If the Army doesn't do it, I suppose the intent is that the embedded AF unit will. Clearly, the Army doesn't always agree with how the AF employs airpower though, so maybe you're on to something.