On 14 Mar 2004 20:44:45 -0800, (monkey) wrote:

For what it's worth, we just got a USMC Hornet exchange pilot on our
squadron who was in both Afghanistan. He did a LOT of CAS, and his
experience was that JDAM and LGBs just weren't working for the job.
The solution - "traditional CAS - in his own words they were operating
" as low as they could "- often down @ 100-200 feet. I watched a
zillion of his HUD tapes from Iraq. Believe it or not, his unit used
almost exclusively dumb bombs, unguided rockets, and CBUs.

If the weather is good and you aren't a classic "troops-in-contact"
situation there isn't much reason to be dealing with 100-200 feet. Way
too much can go wrong to justify that type of delivery. If the bad
guys are in the wires, then every tactical aviator I've known will do
what is necessary.

That being said, however, I didn't know that "unguided rockets" were
still in the inventory for regular carry. And, I'm unfamiliar with any
type of CBU that can be delivered at 100-200 feet. Last one of those I
believe was the infamous CBU-2 which pushed the bomblets out the back
of a canister that was retained on the airplane.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8