Sunday, November 21, 2004
Combat air controllers
Regular readers know that I've been working my way through George Friedman's book, America's Secret War. The book is filled with random interesting points, including the following description of "combat air controllers," who were the eyes of the Air Force in the Afghanistan campaign:
Combat air controllers were the critical military specialty for the United States in Afghanistan. In a very real sense, the entire campaign rested on a handful of men drawn from the Air Force and Naval Aviation whose specialty was calling in air strikes. There were never more than a few dozen of these men deployed in Afghanistan, but they were the ones who enabled airpower to be effective. Calling in an air strike consists of more than simply designating the target. It also requires a selection of munitions appropriate to the target, a vector of attack to minimize the chance of friendly casualties, rapid damage assessment, and so on. Sometimes a laser designator is used to pinpoint the target for laser-guided munitions. Sometimes when he lases the target, the target shoots back. The combat air controller not only has to be skilled at his own trade, he also has to be able to operate as an infantryman. He walks to his target.
1 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Oct 18, 01:51:00 PM:
I was a cac in Vietnam. I was in the AF but assigned to the 101ST at Ben Hoa. Worked many hill fights and general search and destroy. We did all this without the modern technology of today. Our chief resource was a Pric 10, later we got Price 15's. An M-16, a 45 side arm. Learned that WP was as effective as Nape.
