A-10 The ground pounders friend

[gf0012-aust]

A lot of CAS is not pre planned. The thing with SF is the S. If they have a mission coming up that with a known time and date that fits into the ATO then often they can get an air unit allocated and this get a tailored load. or they may have their own organic air support allocated at all times (rotary - they won't get fixed wing in that way). A regular army platoon going on a patrol is unlikely to have that pull.

Regardless of who you are however if I it is short notice, reactive cas like a call to a tic from ground alert, the guys on the ground have to take what they can get, both in terms of platform and weapons. How Afghanistan Distorted Close Air Support and Why it Matters

i don't doubt your colleague in what he said. I'd be surprised if it is still the same ratio the current fight, it's a different war.

The very thing that makes a heavy useful in situations (size, which then gives them great endurance and loadout and often superior comm) is also a compromise in that they requires significant airspace, they generally sit further from the target area with a longer run in to attack and greater egress time. There is also the fact that they don't work as a pair so are naturally disadvantaged when it comes to maintaining PID/tracking movers/searching for targets etc as they have 1/2 the number of pods.

will have to PM you re my sources on this. will get back ASAP but time is challenging at present

 

[Guardian52]

• Since the conversation on this thread has refocused on the slightly broader topic of CAS and modern CAS platforms, I feel it's time I can ask this question in this thread:
Let's say the parties involved in a CAS mission are as follows: an SF JTAC, a FAC(A), and a flight of four A-10s.
If the JTAC's ODA is in contact and requesting support, would he talk directly to the FAC(A)? Is that likely, possible, or completely unlikely for the JTAC to cut out the TACP (and, subsequently, the ASOC) during the initial phase of the CAS request?

Whatever the case may be, what are the radio procedures for the Check-In phase of the request? To be clear, what exactly would the dialogue be between the FAC(A), the JTAC, the Aircrew, etc.

This ties into the previous hypothetical situation I described earlier (downed pilot in South Korea being recovered by SF ODA during PRC/DPRK invasion of ROK, ODA needs CAS to escape massive enemy force so they can bring the pilot to the HLZ for MEDEVAC).

I want this sequence of events to be as accurate as possible when I implement this into my book. I greatly appreciate all of the excellent responses I've received on this forum and I look forward to hearing from you all again.

Thank you very much, have an excellent day.

 

[Waylander]

Apart from the operational procedure I am sceptical of A-10s ability to operate in the face of heavy NK forces. At least not in the way you probably envision it (going in hard and low with guns blazing because it's an A-10 after all).

The lower regions will be massively saturated by AAA and MANPADs. During ODS the A-10s had to be called back into higher regions due to them getting shot to pieces.

The troop density in Korea is like nowhere else and while they will have problems securing the medium and high airspace over their troops they can literally put up a wall of lead and missiles which while being low tech will still be lethal to low and slow aircrafts like the A-10.

 

[swerve]

Not just troop density: they have thousands of AA guns, & as long as they have ammunition, they can put a hell of a lot of metal & explosives in the air. They never throw anything away, & still have lots of large-calibre AA guns, so there's a risk from them at surprisingly high altitudes.

They also have a very large number of MANPADS.

 

[south]

• Since the conversation on this thread has refocused on the slightly broader topic of CAS and modern CAS platforms, I feel it's time I can ask this question in this thread:
Let's say the parties involved in a CAS mission are as follows: an SF JTAC, a FAC(A), and a flight of four A-10s.
If the JTAC's ODA is in contact and requesting support, would he talk directly to the FAC(A)? Is that likely, possible, or completely unlikely for the JTAC to cut out the TACP (and, subsequently, the ASOC) during the initial phase of the CAS request?

Whatever the case may be, what are the radio procedures for the Check-In phase of the request? To be clear, what exactly would the dialogue be between the FAC(A), the JTAC, the Aircrew, etc.

This ties into the previous hypothetical situation I described earlier (downed pilot in South Korea being recovered by SF ODA during PRC/DPRK invasion of ROK, ODA needs CAS to escape massive enemy force so they can bring the pilot to the HLZ for MEDEVAC).

I want this sequence of events to be as accurate as possible when I implement this into my book. I greatly appreciate all of the excellent responses I've received on this forum and I look forward to hearing from you all again.

Thank you very much, have an excellent day.

keep in mind that most A10 drivers, certainly most pairs lead guys are going to be FAC(a) and potentially sandy qualified.

The checkin procedures along with comm examples are found in the publication that I linked previously.

 

[Guardian52]

Waylander - Yeah I'm getting the feeling that an A-10 in this situation would not survive long enough to be effective considering the cluster of organic AA and MANPADs that would be present supporting a 2x Company size element of infantry. So, I'm thinking that my fictional ODA will just have to fight their way out and hope for the best.

South - That is a good point, I remember reading about the A-10 in a FAC(A) role somewhere, but I don't remember. But, in this case, because it's a sci-fi novel, let's say we're talking about an aircraft with the same crew size as an E-2C Hawkeye except the designation is SM/EV-25A "Vulture"; which is a fictional aircraft, obviously. So, in this case, the Vulture would be flying FAC(A) specifically to support this ODA and the SF JTAC calls directly to the Vulture for CAS. That being said is there somewhere in JP 3-09.3 that deals with the procedures of a CAS request between an SF JTAC, a third-party FAC(A), and a flight of Hogs already in the vicinity of the troops in contact.

Further information: Let's say this ODA is actually a group of Operators that don't exactly fall under any existing chain of command because their organization doesn't exactly exist, and it's only known to a handful of people within the US Government.

Btw that JP was very helpful and I will continue to use it in the future, thanks.

 

[Waylander]

It's not that specifically the organic AA of two infantry companies which even in the case of the Norks doesn't amount too much but that from the rest of it's army group (which won't be far away on the peninsula) and, as Swerve made clear, the independent AA units in the vicinity.

 

[Gremlin29]

• Since the conversation on this thread has refocused on the slightly broader topic of CAS and modern CAS platforms, I feel it's time I can ask this question in this thread:
Let's say the parties involved in a CAS mission are as follows: an SF JTAC, a FAC(A), and a flight of four A-10s.
If the JTAC's ODA is in contact and requesting support, would he talk directly to the FAC(A)? Is that likely, possible, or completely unlikely for the JTAC to cut out the TACP (and, subsequently, the ASOC) during the initial phase of the CAS request?

Whatever the case may be, what are the radio procedures for the Check-In phase of the request? To be clear, what exactly would the dialogue be between the FAC(A), the JTAC, the Aircrew, etc.

This ties into the previous hypothetical situation I described earlier (downed pilot in South Korea being recovered by SF ODA during PRC/DPRK invasion of ROK, ODA needs CAS to escape massive enemy force so they can bring the pilot to the HLZ for MEDEVAC).

I want this sequence of events to be as accurate as possible when I implement this into my book. I greatly appreciate all of the excellent responses I've received on this forum and I look forward to hearing from you all again.

Thank you very much, have an excellent day.

You are missing some very key information. If you have a downed aviator the event has become Personnel Recovery, the JPRC (Joint Personnel Recovery Center) springs to life and will identify and coordinate recovery assets. This makes your scenario rather unrealistic in that a "team" is probably not going to be pulled from mission, to do another mission. And when I say probably, I'm saying 99.999% of the time.