A-4 / A-7 Question

"Mike Kanze" wrote...
All excellent discussion and very good points, but what do our
ground-pounding "customers" think of the effectiveness of current CAS
doctrine?

I don't know about now, but I do recall one particular conference back in 1989
or so, when we were doing the Dem-Val of AIWS (now JSOW). The USMC rep was
adamant that they could not accept the concept of an autonomous standoff weapon
used for CAS targets in close proximity to friendly Marines. With the
possibility of mistargeting and no means of aborting the weapon, the risk was
too high. With conventional weapons, the FAC had the airplane in sight during
the roll-in and delivery, and had the opportunity to abort the run until just
prior to weapon release.