[Chainmail]

What you miss in your cloistered view is that ground combat is the focus of effort in war: the air fight is a supporting arm. The young people in the ground fight need air support, surgically applied, to overcome enemy strongpoints, assembly areas, routes of reinforcement and retreat. It isn’t the same as airfield defense and nowhere as simple.

The Air Force has stubbornly resisted the “air-delivered artillery” perspective for more than three quarters of a century, insisting that “battlefield interdiction” is the proper use of air power - there is even an excellent color film that was put out in 1944 that described that tactic in lieu of close air support in the Italian theater.

Those of us on the ground know how effective a good air strike can be and how many of our lives will be at risk without that magnificent asset. I very likely owe my life and many of the lives around me to a low-flying F-4 with a load of Snake and Nape with a crew with brass balls. He was flying very low Indeed and he did not miss.

Merely guiding a munition to a given grid doesn’t do enough. Close Air requires knowing who you are supporting, what you are engaging, and that you can react very, very quickly - including munition flight time to the target and the configuration of the target array. Close Air Support makes the aircraft and crew an integral part of the ground combat element, not just a visiting bomb delivery system.

[Rokke]

All three services that employ fixed wing CAS assets use similar platforms to execute CAS. Almost all ordnance expended in a modern CAS mission is precision guided. The difference between an F-18 and a B-1 employing precision guided munitions in a CAS environment is the B-1 can loiter about 8 times as long and carry about 10 times the amount of ordnance. Want to know how A-10s employ precision guided munitions in the CAS environment? Just like the F-18 and B-1. So give up the tired interservice rivalry rhetoric. There is only one Joint Tactics manual for all the services for executing CAS. I guess they have all ignored your 1970's vintage expertise. But they aren't unique. Of all the world's military powers who make or buy ground attack aircraft, exactly none are procuring anything similar to the A-10. Why do you think that is? Could it be that the rest of the world has moved beyond Snake and Nape? Maybe you believe that modern technology has completely changed every aspect of human interaction...except on the battle field. Fortunately, you aren't in charge. The Marine Corps chose the F-35B to replace all of its current combat aircraft. As you know, a MAGTF is an independent fighting force that provides its own CAS. Again, why didn't they seek out a platform similar to the A-10? Is it possible they know something you don't?

Pat yourself on the back for your service as a FAC. That's badass. But like McCain, your expertise ran out of currency a couple decades ago. It's a new world out there and it has obviously passed you by.