Hit it right on the head Ed - the situation is unique and it got that way
because we went in blind on the wishes of the politicals and not with a good
plan - hence we are backed into a wall and bleeding for it. You caught on
also that there is no doctrine for this, hardly any proper terms and as CAS
was evolving to use the UAV's and the links the real situation on the ground
just up and ran over the thinking and then again the split between the USAF
and Army has not helped.

How would you tackle this - seriously with all respect - how would you put
this fire out or in the least what role would you see air power



"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 03:00:47 GMT, "Ski"
wrote:

Ed - for OIF and OEF the "morf" is back to close direct fire. Small
calibre
guns and rockets without warheads may have more merit. Concrete bombs were
considered but they skip and bounce sending a high speed hockey puck down
streets. For another war it will go back to standoff and precision but we
need to re-figure all this


It's always good to get input from first-hand observers. The way
things have evolved in the current unpleasantness there is a lot of
unstructured urban close-quarters battle going on. That doesn't lend
itself to CAS but does indeed respond to direct fire. And,
particularly with organic rather than on-call assets. Having the
weapon on the Hummer, Bradley or Abrams is what's going to be used.

Only if the situation allows for a fall back do you get the
opportunity to use the various indirect fire options.

But, there's always the need to plan for the future engagement rather
than the last and in the process to include sufficient adaptability to
be responsive to changing requirements. (That's staff talk for having
high tech, brute force, sophisticated and crude, large and small,
precision and volume ordnance included in large enough numbers to be
available at a small enough price tag to fit in the budget.)

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com