CAS: a modified paradigm. (Letters to the Editor).

In this letter, Brigadier General (Retired) Huba Wass de Czege weighs in on the joint discussions about close air support (CAS) sparked, at least in part, by the Field Artillery interview with Major General Franklin L. Hagenbeck, the commander of ground forces in Operation Anaconda ("Afghanistan: Fire Support for Operation Anaconda," September-October 2002).

However, General Wass de Czege takes a unique approach. He examines the principles for effective close supporting fires and, for each principle, evaluates the assets that be st can provide that firepower, including ground force indirect fire and joint CAS assets. From this analysis, he proposes modified CAS procedures to take advantage of the strengths of the various firepower assets.

General Wass de Czege, who started out in the Infantry, was the primary author of the Army's AirLand Battle fighting doctrine. He is a prolific military writer and has been a consultant to the US Army, Joint Staff and other Department of Defense agencies in efforts to study future warfighting concepts since 1994.

Principles of Effective Fire Support. After 24 months in the Republic of Vietnam as either a rifle company commander or a Ranger advisor, I became a connoisseur of fire support. The principles of effective firepower at the core of the lessons I learned in Vietnam still apply today. Fire support assets must be able to provide responsive, accurate fires; be flexible; in the case of air support, have a pilot willing to take the risks necessary; have a system to handle the CAS requirements efficiently and rapidly; and be able to provide concentrated effects.

* Responsiveness and Accuracy. These two capabilities are paramount. In this, organic mortars and artillery excel. Seconds matter and single-digit (or at least double-digit) meters matter. Trust in the accuracy of the assets also matters: "How close can I bring the fires in before there is a probability of friendly injuries?"

The limitations of mortars and artillery are that their base of fires is fixed and their ammo on hand is fixed. So you can have only so much of their fires at any point in time.

Naval gunfire was also very accurate and responsive when I had an ANGLIGO [air naval gunfire liaison company] team and the ship was within range. When naval gunfire is dedicated to you, it is awesome--especially when you are perpendicular to its axis of fires. But even in the near future, once the ship is very far from the coast, the amount of support you can expect drops rapidly.

* Flexibility. This is also important. There are times you need fire support where you hadn't planned to fight or hadn't been able to establish the organic base of fires to cover an expected! possible fight. At these times, two kinds of air support were most effective: Army helicopter gunships in the air or on "strip alert" and a dedicated Air Force FAG [forward air controller] already in the air. The helicopters in the air were the first responders, and those on strip alert reinforced or relieved those in the air. By that time, the FAG could rally fixed-wing aircraft in the region that were engaged in lesser priority missions. (Air Force aircraft on "strip alert" to respond fast enough to support GAS is only theoretically possible and extremely rare in practice.)

At times, we had five or six sets of fighters circling to go in against the target-rich environment below. Orchestrating the deconfliction of airspace limited the pace at which the fighters could engage the targets and, thus, the suppressive effects of the support. Also, helicopters and strike aircraft can carry only so many munitions.

* Risk Taking and the Total System's Capabilities. These were two other important variables in the equation. Pilots must be willing to take risks in order to deliver the ordnance. In this, Army pilots ranked first, Marine pilots second, Navy pilots third and Air Force pilots last.

I am convinced this ranking had nothing to do with the innate courage of a type of service pilot but rather his understanding of the consequences to the ground forces of his not taking risks--his understanding of why the risks were worth taking. Marines lived to provide GAS, and Navy pilots often reinforced them. In the northern provinces of Vietnam, Air Force pilots lived to take the fight home to Ho Ghi Minh. For them, GAS was an occasional diversion of focus.

The second variable was the ability of "the system" to deliver on target. The system included me as the orchestrator of the fight, the spotter who knew exactly were the ordnance was needed, the FAG who had to describe what needed to be done, the pilot with his will and skill, the pilot's hardware with its accuracy parameters and the communications system with its ability to carry the intended messages amongst these nodes.

In this also the all-Army system worked best. The system including the Marines was second. The system that included either Navy or Air Force pilots was an indistinguishably third.

Modern technology will improve the performance of any of these systems, but the principles to be distilled do not change. Performance of the system is a function of whether or not the task is a primary or secondary purpose of the weakest link in the system. This link, in most cases, was the aircraft/pilot subsystem.

Performance of the system is also a function of the simplicity or robustness of the system as a whole. The fewer nodes/links the better.

Another aspect of the system's performance is the distortion of the message between my mind and that of the pilot in this daisy chain of transmissions. The ability to communicate is not wholly a hardware issue. Good communications is a function of our ability to bridge our different perspectives and cultures and our articulation skills.

Only some of these system challenges can be fixed with technology. The people involved must share a common cultural perspective. Being able to share a "common operating picture" will help somewhat, but translating the theory of this idea into practice will be challenging across service cultures.

In the current context, I rank Air Force A-10 pilots as I ranked Marines in providing effective CAS and for most of the same reasons I've attributed to Marines.

* Concentration of Effects. The ability to concentrate firepower effects from both local and regional sources is also very important. My preferences for fire support overall has organic mortars and DS [direct support] artillery at the top. Next come helicopter guns hip support. Then come naval gunfire support with an ANGLIGO present. The awesome amount of firepower naval gunfire can provide (when within gun range) offsets its difficulties with range dispersion inaccuracies. Then comes CAS-oriented fixed wing, then multi-role fixed wing.

Given resources at hand, there is always a limit to what can be concentrated. There is value in being able to draw on outside resources, initially from local sources and then from regional sources. Artillery has fixed ranges, now relatively short. Helicopters can flex, but their speed and support requirements also place them on a limited tether. Fixed-wing aircraft are on the longest tether and can move to concentrate the swiftest.

I had to learn to employ these layers of responders according to their strengths and avoid their weaknesses. I never looked at these various kinds of resources as possible substitutes.

Modified GAS. Now, fast-forward to the 1980s. When I was engaged in writing AirLand Battle doctrine, I was almost prepared to support relieving the Air Force of its GAS responsibilities. But one thing held me back. In the case of a combat emergency, such as a breakthrough by Soviet forces, I saw the need to be able to concentrate air support against massed Soviet armor rapidly. The limitations, even then, were the requirement to have Air Force-certified people on site to call in and control the air support and the difficulties of having them on the ground where they would be needed.

At that time, JAAT [joint air attack] tactics were being developed. JAAT appeared to be the solution. The tactics had a formation of attack helicopters as the first responders under mission orders "To get control of the breakthrough while ground forces maneuver to reestablish a coherent defense." Air Force A-10s within the sector would be the first fixed-wing responders, and then gradually more and more of the multirole assets would be concentrated from within the region and the theater, if necessary.

The idea was that the helicopter command team would orchestrate the battle through a "battle captain" in a helicopter. Ideally an Air Force FAG would be with him. The theory back then was that even in the absence of a FAG, the Army battle captain could talk to and direct Air Force strike aircraft.

This appeared to be the best of all worlds. JAAT took advantage of the attack helicopter's strength: the combination of its responsiveness and flexibility. At the same time, we could "keep a string on" access to Air Force assets to take advantage of the Air Force's strength: the ability to concentrate effects rapidly from far away. We could use Air Force strike aircraft to reinforce our attack helicopter formations but not make the Air Force aircraft part of "normal" assets providing fire support for close combat operations. In other words, we could modify the GAS paradigm.

I couldn't rally support for this idea then. Maybe now's the time. The firepower principles I outlined still seem valid, and the firepower assets' strengths and weaknesses are clear in support of those principles.

Helicopter GAS is very different than fixed-wing GAS in some significant ways. Employing helicopters, you cut out the middleman in communicating what needs to be done. The platform and the pilot's culture facilitate a better appreciation of the context of the fight and, thus, better decision-making about how to weigh the risks. We can use technology to improve the helicopter's ability to sustain support and enhance the throw-weight of its munitions.

Helicopters also bring a much-overlooked advantage to the fight. Sometimes the commander knows exactly where he wants fires, but often he has only a general idea because he or the observer for a forward element are on the ground. A pilot in a flexible air platform who understands the situation can more readily pinpoint the source of combat problems and get fire on target rapidly and accurately.

BG(R) Huba Wass de Gzege

Easton, Kansas