How do you fly.... On FLIR. How is that harder? Nav lights aren't something we care about because why would I be that close to what I'm protecting? With the magnification of the target sight thats like trying to do CQB with a 300 win mag.We fly with goggles, but not as a primary sensor. It's a liability due to not having a heads up display or the ability to connect a NVG HUD. And I'm not blind as the guys who are flying goggles when the moon goes down. Believe me I've flown both goggles and system in theaters we operate, I'll take FLIR all day long. We have been doing it his way since the 80s. Our community is completely adapted to it even if it sounds like Greek to everybody else. It also means I can go black out and not be at a loss situationally. We did that over the Sangin when we kept getting shot at because they could see our strobes.
How do we see your strobes... We don't. We haven't for he entirety of our lives and we are only now getting a system to see you in the TADS display. Seeing ropes or strobes means putting goggles on my head, looking out the side window, figuring out where you are and hen trying to put he FLIR on something that looks similar too that. And all the while we have an extremely low friendly fire rate to the number of times we've been employed. Despite operating in a much less restrictive profile than everybody else doing CCA.
I'm a maneuver platform, not air delivered fires. Technically I don't need coordination with the ground element to shoot provided I know the GFC's scheme of maneuver. And 9 lines while we are proficient in them are overly restrictive to the point that they limit our effective employment. Unless your trying to coordinate a non permissive event with arty and other things there is no benefit to what we give the customer of a 9 line over a 5 line with the words "at my command" listed as a restriction. When we are all wagon wheeling round the stack doing key hole CAS and most of your data is stuff like "lines 1-3 NA" what are you expecting different from a 5 line. Especially when we start getting dumb weaponeering limitations like wanting rockets but no hellfire because of CDE concerns when one is entirely more accurate than the other despite the bigger warhead (no shit... Wanted me to shoot 2.75s in a village).
- I am surprised that your initial position was strobes on in Sangin.
- It would be nice if you had a capability to see an IR strobe, but really its not that big of a deal. I think many JTACs put too much faith in the strobe and the ability of all CAS players to immediately locate friendly positions because of it (looks like that was a factor in the B-1 frat as well). They are very difficult for FW to see, and they can always be blocked by trees, your gear, etc. If we ever fight anyone with NVGs, I am more likely to use an IR pointer for a few seconds here and there, than to turn an IR strobe on. It's much easier to forget that the strobe is on.
- I know what 5 lines are, and they are great. CCA is great. 9-lines are great. They are all used in different scenarios. They give the SUPPORTED unit more flexibility in how they want to utilize/ deconflict the various SUPPORTING units at their disposal. How do you execute a BOC hellfire LOAL using a 5-line attack brief? You don't, you use a 9-line. Excuse me for giving you egress instructions (line 9) that send you to HA Sally to keep you safe from that SA-8 and deconflict from that fixed-wing bomb fall line out of the east. 5 lines work, but they aren't the only play in the playbook. Part of the problem is that guys are so used to OEF tactics, that they begin to think that is doctrine, or the only way to do it. Same thing with FW and using keyhole all the time.
- Line 1-3 is never NA, thats JTAC sloppiness/ bad habit. The aircraft must from from somewhere (overhead, B-8, Emily, hasty firing point NT 89 08)
-There are some shitty JTACs out there, good on you for helping them help themselves by recommending a better weapon.