Talk:Close air support

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Contents 1 Close air support is not equivalent to tactical bombing 2 Early History 3 Merge with Ground attack aircraft 4 Additions

[edit] Close air support is not equivalent to tactical bombing

CAS is not equivalent to tactical bombing. Close air support doesn't have to use bombs at all: it can be done by fighter and attack aircraft on strafing runs, and by special purpose gunships like the AC-130. Isomorphic 01:13, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is not a US encyclopaedia, general and introductory paragraphs should be kept non specific to any country or service. Brettr 06:09, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

stop removing CAIRS! CARS is not the only standard abbreviation, CAIRS is very common in non US militaries. Brettr 08:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Calm Down

Take it easy there buddy. No reason to start a war. It may work better to break the sections out by country. Where you are at it "soldiers" may not call in indirect fire but where I am from they do. The article should reflect this. May also want to include combined doctrine as well? No one is looking to make this a US only page but that does not mean we should have lines that read "Commisioned Officer only"--Looper5920 08:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Great, that is what the discussion page is for. Unilaterally editing pages is unacceptable.

My text does not say only officers can do this. One of the jobs of comissioned officers is to coordinate indirect fire - including USMC officers. Soldiers have to be specifically trained for this. "Any does not mean only. The para as it is is correct. The introduction is generalised then the following sections make specific mentions of other countries - no problems there. [This user is proud to be an Australian army officer] Brettr 09:03, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's start small here..I am actually in Australia as well and am very familiar with your doctrine especially in regards to Close Air Support. That being said, I have never heard the term CAIRS in my time here or ever as a matter of fact. I have never heard the Brits mention it either. Help me out...WHere does this come from??

Yeah, great then the next American comes along and I have to start again. Here is one example http://www.ausairpower.net/TE-Upgrades-94.html Brettr 09:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll let the smart ass comments go. The article was originally published in 1994. Close Air support doctrine has evolved immensely since then. If you refer to your own ADFP 3-3 (Aussie bible on Offensive Air Support) no where is the acronym CAIRS used. That being said, if you can produce an actual military publication written in the last 5 years that mentions the term CAIRS then I will refrain from deleting the next time I see it.--Looper5920 09:36, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I haven't got an opinion on the acronym issue (I've only seen CAS, but I'm no expert.) I think your argument over who can call in support is missing the point, though. Whether or not it's U.S.-centric, both versions are definitely time-centric. Anybody know what German doctrine in WWII was? What about Soviet doctrine? I'd be willing to bet that in the early days, artillery observers were used for this, as I think an earlier version of this article stated. Any general statement you make will probably be wrong for some army, some time, so why make generalizations at all? I'm going to try a compromise version. Let me know what you think. Isomorphic 03:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Agree with the change. Reads much better. ANy ideas on how to break this one out better? It needs alot of works. Done by era and then subsivided by country or maybe by country and subdivided by era??--Looper5920 05:11, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Follow up to the previous comments. I just checked the ADDP 3.1(Offensive Support) & ADDP 3.3(Aerospace Battle Management) publications. No where in these Australian publications are the terms/acronyms CARS or CAIRS used. These terms are not taught on your Intro to Joint Warfare Course, Joint Operational Planning Course at Staff College or at FACDU (the unit responsible for training Australian Tactical Air Controllers.) I can also state that the U.K., U.S. and Canada do not use these terms. I don't know about N.Z. but they don't count since they got rid of their Air Force. That is every viable military in the English speaking world. They may be still be used in the Australian Army, as legacy terms, because they were used in the past but it is false to say they are common outside of the U.S. Your mention is the first I have ever heard of them and I have trained with a fair number of nations. It may still be refered to in some of your unit SOPs but they are just SOPs, not doctrine and outdated. If the intro paragraph is supposed to be a synopsis then those terms do not belong since they are outdated, no longer used and irrelevant If you want to add a legacy section or reference them in another way outside of the main intro paragraph that is fine but everytime I see them there I will delete them.--Looper5920 05:18, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

The "compromise" version is not better. What I wrote is not specific to any force, it is generic. It is the job of commissioned officers to direct indirect fire in ALL armies. That is simply what officers do. There are specialists such as FOs and their are soldiers trained as well, especially special forces but it is the job of officer to do this.

As for "say anything about who calls in support" that is ridiculous, this an article about close air support, who does it is an important fact.

Brettr 07:50, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems we are arguing 2 different points. I am describing the actual terminal control of the aircraft. It is regularly done by enlisted personnel. It seems that you are talking about the command and control process involved with close air support. You are correct in stating is done almost exclusively by officers. I would also hesitate to refer to CAS in the same manner as other indirect fires. I think we should leave the sentence as is to reflect the actual process of getting bombs on target. That being said, I think it might be beneficial to open a page on the command and control processes involved with Close Air Support. Interested to hear your thoughts--Looper5920 14:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

What about other uses for CAS than offensive ones? CAS for reconnaissance?

• Then it wouldn't be CAS....it would be a request for aerial reconnaissance--Looper5920 10:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Early History

I'd like to see more on the early history of close air support. IIRC, close air support wasn't used much in the partioning of Poland but came to be used later. --Jeffrey Henning 04:10, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Ground attack aircraft

See Talk:Ground attack aircraft#Merge for the discussion on this subject --Philip Baird Shearer 10:07, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

• Absolutely not. CAS and CAS doctrine are completely separate topics from Ground attack aircraft.--Looper5920 10:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
• No, do not merge. Close Air Support is, as indicated by Looper5920, a totally separate Air Force function from Ground attack aircraft. One way of looking at it would be to say that Close Air Support tactics and doctrine definitely do utilize Ground attack aircraft, but the topic definitely deserves a separate WP article in the encyclopedia. N2e 00:22, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
• No, do not merge. Judging by this and the Ground attack aircraft talk page, there's no support for the merge; its' been a month, taking the tag off. --Mmx1 02:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Additions

90% of my additions are coming from Jonathan House's Combined Arms Warfare in the 20th Century, an excellent treatment of combined arms warfare. It's quite light, though, on the USMC history, which has been closely tied to CAS. After finishing House's contributions, I'll dig up Simmons and put in the USMC history. Dorr's Marine Air is mainly primary accounts and much more difficult to incorporate as it requires me to perform some level of synthesis.

House is also very light on the Russian history (which is natural for a Western source). Any suggestions would be appreciated. --Mmx1 04:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• So good so far with the WWII stuff. It gets much heavier once you start progressing into the modern era. Topics to be included which I one day plan to help tackle include: Use of radars to drop bombs in Korea, ASRT in Vietnam, introductions of GPS munitions, Laser range finders, laser designators and IR pointers, use of targeting pods, etc... I swear one of these days I will get around to helping beef up this article--Looper5920 10:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• Found a chapter on the AN-MPQ-14 in Victor Krulak's First to Fight. Though the history's there, it's sketchy on the operation and I'm not sure exactly how it worked. As far as I can tell, it was a system to guide a plane to the proper release point; it's unclear if control was from the ground or the air (in the development version control was from the ground), or if it was automated or manual (it hints at automatic but is not clear) --Mmx1 23:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)