The A-10 Video
 

I'm going to post this, just because it was so intense to watch, like listening to the CVR of a plane crash. My sympathies to both of these guys.

There are times in aviation when you make a decision in 10 seconds that the rest of the world will second-guess for 10 years.

I'm interested in any opinions of the former attack guys or FAC's here. Albie?


http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,11021-10043,00.html

Bay day all around. It must really suck even if they did everything right, they were still wrong. I hope these guys don't get hung out to dry. I also hope they can deal with it and live normal lives. I can't imagine how they must feel.

I feel terrible for these guys, as well as for the guys on the ground. Mistakes happen in combat, and it sucks to see the hue and cry from the media types who don't understand that. When a reporter makes a mistake, he gets a quote wrong or misspells a word, when a soldier or airman makes a mistake, people sometimes die. Subsequently, the level of professionalism and training in the military is oftentimes much higher than what you might find in other professions. Sometimes it's still not enough to overcome the fog and friction of combat. Now that the "cat is out of the bag" so to speak, I hope these pilots get a fair shake and the respect they deserve. Of course, I know that I'm more than likely preaching to the choir with the guys on this board. I'll say a prayer or two for all involved.

It's amazing to me that we even have to discuss this. A whole bunch of people were doing their best to do their best and it didn't work out. That's defined as the "fog of war". It's what warriors experience every time they strap on an airplane, a submarine, a tank or a ruck sack. There still isn't a perfect war machine that might prevent this.

My deepest sympathies go out to the family of the fallen British warrior. But just like Cindy Shehan's son, Casey, (who, unless I miss my guess, is rolling over in his grave) that young man would not want his family to persue all of this. I can tell you for sure that I would NOT have wanted my parents to make an issue of a blue on blue accident. Most of us that have experienced direct combat understand how this works.

My prayers go out to them ...
 

It could have happened to any one of us. You take all your training, experience and judgement and do the very best that you can. It's all a country can ask of you. Sadly ... mistakes happen, hopefully newer technology will make these incidents fewer and fewer.

This was my nightmare for 2 years as an OV-10 guy and ground FAC. FRAT just sucks... Its effects amplify well beyond the mere loss of lives and firepower due to the loss of trust between forces and the resulting backlash and over-control of the command authorities to try to prevent repeat occurances. A-10s killed some brits and some marines in the first Gulf War, a former FAC killed 26 guys shooting down blackhawks over Northern Iraq in 1994, and several planes were downed by "blue" SAMs in various recent conflicts. A squadron commander was relieved just before the Desert Storm ground campaign for fratting some friendlies with an Apache attack.

When it happens--it stings. Then it rips at your gut. Then it makes you very mad. But its part of war. Our job is to our best to minimize it...

FWIW...at a recent little girls basketball game I ran into my old Weapon's officer's wife who was cheering on her kids while I cheered mine on. She reported to me that she had just received flowers from a young F-15 B course (beginning basic course) for "fratting" her husband on a training mission. In our F15 squadrons at Tyndall, the "standard" cost of a frat is a keg of beer to the squadron (which I remember from EVERY squadron). What we add that I think is so valuable is the student must send flowers to the "widow" he created, and also call her and apologize for "killing" her husband. Typically, we get one or two frats per class. When it happens, it costs the student over $100 in various fines, but the act of stopping, making those calls, ordering those flowers etc really DRIVES home the impact of a mistake and hopefully instills that "be sure before you shoot" philosophy. We train hard to try to create that proper mindset.

And as a random yet related sidenote, a hunter shot and killed his brother here in NW Florida a month or two back. Seems he "thought" his brother was still in a treestand and shot the movement he "thought" was a deer. When he found his brother shot but still alive he did all he could, but his brother died in his arms. My dad taught me to KNOW what I was shooting when he taught me to hunt, and I tried to have the same discipline in the F-15. However--there are times and places that despite your best efforts and intent mistakes will happen. When they do, we have to step back, learn, and try to be careful not to crucify an honest mistake. Techonolgy helps, but it is not a replacement for SA, discipline, and the judgement to know when to let a target pass because killing it is less important than not killing a friendly.

I'd say that's probably the most important thing for any warfighter to learn. And perhaps the hardest to teach. Not being a "trigger-puller" myself, I've had lots of conversations with my bro (who is) and the guys I've worked with. It's got to be a hard thing to do, to pull back when every bit of training you've ever had says "kill!"

I don't know how much the world is going to second guess those guys. Apparently the military has already let them pass without a court martial. There is a realization that bad things can happen and it is quite clear that these two did all that they could to ensure safety before they opened fire.

What the world will second guess is the cover up. The government that denied existance of any such film and lied to the families about it. The sin was not in the shooting, the sin was in the lying and deception to the Hull family.

I guess the morons on CNN will be giddy about this, especially ol' Wolfie.

My sympathies to the families and friends involved.

War is Hell. Need we say more?

Tom

A couple of points:

It wouldn't take much of a search to find tapes of guys who employed A/G with a shaky talk on in a danger-close troops in contact situation, and were right on target, resulting in saved lives and dead bad guys. In the big scheme of things, it's combat and we can't be 100% all the time. If your standard is 100% then in the above situation, friendlies die and bad guys prevail. You're going to have some losses in a big operation.

Second, the USAF has mis-managed the FAC/JTAC career field in ludicrous way. We no longer have credible A-FAC capability. The world is truly upside down in that we've invested tons of time/money/effort to create F-16 AFACs and very few A-10 pilots are AFAC. WTFO? Afghanistan and Iraq are begging for a dedicated AFAC platform like an A-10 or OV-10. That would go a long way to improving CAS in the USAF in general.

USAF pilots have done a legendary job of avoiding the ALO career field. How many airline guys quit the USAF to avoid an ALO tour? Consequently the JTAC career field has been led by the only officers the USAF could pin down at the time. It's ALWAYS been considered a BAD deal to be an ALO and the people we send to that career field reflect that.

I could easily get on a rant on this subject but I'll leave it at that.

Dude--those SAME type guys you mentioned were my bosses in combat during Desert Storm. There were some sharp ones, but there were a LOT like you describe.

The problem is we make ALOs political prisoners to the Army to prove we will support them. A cadre of professional Air FACS should be developed without worrying about them "paying dues" as a ground FAC. The jobs are similar, but the be a GOOD airborne FAC takes a long time to master.

TTOFAC for those that remember...(hint: it was AV penned on my OV-10 canopy...)

If, years ago, the Air Force had transferred the A-10 to the Army, as the Army had asked, the FAC and ALO roles could be played by guys who cut their teeth in the Army, know Army Aviation, know Army nomenclature, terms, acronyms, etc, etc. As well, I believe, that our (ARMY) grunts would feel better knowing that the guys flying cover and CAS for them are of their service. That's not to say that they don't appreciate, in a very big way, the work of their Air Force buds, because they do. Very much. But, it would allow them to have a better feeling for the support that they would be getting. As well, it would streamline the request process, from the grunt under attack, up through the chain of command, and then down to the fighter wing, to get those fast attack, close air support assets on site and weapons on targets in a more expeditious manner. But the Air Force has never signed off on the Army operating fixed wing aircraft, never mind fast attack, fixed wing, jets. Just another example of parochial thinking. This is one case where the Marines have it all over the AF. (Don't beat me up too badly on this one:eek: .)

The Army should have lobbied more to the DoD. This isn't the fault of the AF. Get your own jets! :cool:

They did. The Air Force just wouldn't budge. And, oh, by the way, I flew the A-10 for over 20 years with the USAF/ANG, so I wasn't crying over spilt milk, I was just offering another view of the CAS environment.

Back to the topic, the only criminal in this incident is the scumb&g who gave the tape to the press. I doubt the Air Force directly lied about the existence of the tape but if they did good on them.

Lag

I totally agree. They're not ALL incompetent, BUT there's more deadweight in that community than elsewhere. The young enlisted JTAC's need dynamic leadership, not hacked-off pilots biding their time until they can get back to the cockpit.

Just so you know, I'm one of the guys who did everything I could to avoid an ALO tour so that I could stay operational and fly DACT everyday.

Giving the Army the A-10 would have been the only thing that could make this situation worse.

The USAF will NEVER sign off on giving fixed wing attack to the Army. Next subject.

And I would totally agree that the Marines have combined arms and close air support figured out way better than the USAF/Army. Note that the Marine corps forces pilots to be ALO's on a much greater scale than the USAF does.

Ironically, I believe the JTAC in the A-10 incident was a Marine.

I may be wrong on this, but I don't believe HUD/voice tapes are protected or privledged anymore unless they are classified. Since there's nothing classified on these tapes, I think it's actually illegal for the military to withhold them.

At least that's what I heard on the last safety board I was on.

Not trying to pad my post count on this one thread but after listening to the tape you really can't tell much.

Because the tape starts so late in the mission, you don't know what type of control has been declared by the JTAC or was demanded by the current ACO (airspace coordination order). The JTAC/FAC is acting like he has hi-SA on the fighter's position, but there's no where on the tape where he confirms their position with them so I'd assume there's a lot that happens prior to what we see on the tape. The SA passed in the initial FAC to Ftr brief is critical to assessing blame (if any) and it's not included on the tape.

It's clear from the tape that the A-10's had been attacking targets earlier in the mission so they had something going right with the JTAC/FAC prior to this attack.

Summary; you just can't tell who's to blame from what's on the tapes.

B/C there's a lot of ex-mil types on this particular cargo board.

Agreed. There were errors on both sides, if you only use the tape as the entire piece of evidence. I had the luxury of 2 sensors, a Nav and Fire Control Officer in addition to my eyeballs - looking at our target - even then - there were almost friendly fire incidents in our community. One crew put a round into a tree above an APC with army guys in it who wanted to sit at the edge of the range and watch the firepower demo (no one was hurt as the round detonated in the trees)

Anyway....the FAC never confirmed their position but..the two pilots never specifically asked the FAC about the target. They just asked about friendlies in the area.

Tough call - folks say don't shoot if there is a shred of doubt..but you are in a war and NOT shooting could get someone killed. I am sure we will see more of this.

Good points by 1S1E. Albie's points about the differences between a good FAC and a clock-watcher are also well made.

One additional note. Everyone who has done this job knows how badly the FAC/CAS mission is undervalued/underfunded in the AF and, by the way, undertrained/underutilized during peacetime by the vast majority of Army maneuver units. Battle tracking is and always has been a serious issue, especially with mech units in a fluid battle environment. All other factors aside (and there are many), having to rely, in the 21st century, on VS-17 panels as a last-ditch measure to avoid frat is criminal. (Ever try to spot one of those F*&^ers from 18,000 feet slant range?)

I am not a fan of over-technologizing, is that is a word, the FAC/CAS mission, but if ever there was a situation in which a ground IFF system could have saved the day, this was it. Ditto on the ('03?) F-16/Canadian frat in Afghanistan, and ditto on the other A-10/Brit frat during GWI. I did several Air Warrior I excercises (from the air and from the ground) back in the mid '90's with SADL equipped airplanes and the targeting confidence it provided was phenomenal. Where is that technology today and why was it not funded force-wide a decade ago? I have my own ideas, but that is a separate discussion. Someone needs a good ass kicking for allowing this incident to happen, but that person(s) is/are much farther up the food chain than any of the operators who were directly involved.

Just my $.02. Sorry for the rant.

P.S. Albie - It was TTFACORB in my day.

http://www.raytheon.com/products/ste...s01_052820.pdf

The link didn't work for me.