This is why you should want to be a steely-eyed bomb-dropping aviator!
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Why does the Marine Corps have its own "Air Force"?
- Thread starter SoICanBeFree
- Start date
Don't forget the strafing part. Amazing part of how much strafing is called upon is heated debate in JSF program in early part of the design phase about whether to include the gun at all. And, if so, should it be optimized for air-to-air or air-to-ground? Even though A-10 was built around a gun, many voices thought strafing and even CAS was a thing of the past. How wrong they were.
I got to shoot "the gun" for the first time last week. Amazing weapon and extremely important to have, especially in CAS environment.
widow_34
Member
Gents without boring you with the detail. I used 20mm strafe from Hornets more than anything else, for the following reasons.a) We were usually pretty close so as long as the jets heading was as close to 90' off your our position it was pretty safe (ish) b) The physc effect of a jet tipping, in firing, then pulling up messes up the Talibans heads due to all of that noise c) Its perfect for a treeline(I know you guys are supposed to fire at one point however a little late with letting go of the trigger, combined with pulling up of the nose before letting go of the trigger helps us guys on the ground no end.d) Bombs are great however the Taliban like to mix it up near to women and kids so CDE is an issue.
In short guys 20mm for me and if that doesn't work a GBU-12 airburst should do the trick. Keep up the good work,and dont forget a lot of the younger Brit JTACs will expect you to call ''IN HOT'' and not ''In from the east/west etc'' Just something tothink of.
In short guys 20mm for me and if that doesn't work a GBU-12 airburst should do the trick. Keep up the good work,and dont forget a lot of the younger Brit JTACs will expect you to call ''IN HOT'' and not ''In from the east/west etc'' Just something tothink of.
phrogpilot73
Well-Known Member
Interesting. I've never had the opportunity to look over any foreign pubs/talk to any foreign JTACs (I was a Marine FAC for a year and a half), but I know that our JCAS Pub requires "In from the <cardinal direction>". Does yours state "In Hot/Off Cold" I'm assuming? Our JCAS Pub does include the NATO 9-Line, but I don't remember seeing any difference in the verbiage during the attack.
Without seeing the entire FLOT (I could only see a couple of positions), that appeared to be pretty close to parallel to the FLOT. That's your goal. I'd also say they were pretty close to Danger Close, but whether that's too close or not is up to the ground commander to decide.
Jeebus... Can you say danger close?
His quote, at time 0:21 -- just seconds before -- is priceless: "Yeah, we're cool."
I would have pissed my pants.
widow_34
Member
Hey guys,just had a few snaps of an FA-18 that is on the TR as it stopped in Portsmouth.A very strong chance that the ''kill symbols'' on the side contain my 2 from that Sqn,also the pilot was very very slick and sounded pretty senior(no messing around,asking ''interogative questions''
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Hey guys,
I hope you dont mind me clogging up your bandwidth. I am a British Army JTAC and I got back from Afghanistan yesterday. Most of the CAS I had during my 7 month tour was from the USN (Reagan, TR, and more recently the Esenhower (sorry about the spelling) Anyway, if any of you guys were flying in support of me (widow 34) a big thank you for the outstanding support. I still remember the callsigns. If [the American Indian callsign squadron pilots] are ever over in the UK I would buy the entire SQN a beer,they got me and my buddies out of the brown stuff on 2 following days with a load of 20mike mike and a GBU-12. Nice one gents. Great to have the USN in support.
Cheers Widow 34.
Hey WW34, good to hear you made it back, I am too now, we'll have to get together and I'll buy you a pint!
Cheers,
Your favorite pilot flying an RAF jet with the wrong accent.