Do it, Sandy.Lay it in on me, man.
I'm popping smoke.

To be fair, your not going to find a pilot willing to drop a 1000lb gbu on coords in an ECAS situation. Rightfully so.

But a HF, 20mm, or other low collateral weapon with a pilot who has eyes on the friendly grids, you betcha.

Do it Sandy, I'd do it for you...

beaten like an old rug...

Isn't there supposed to be popping smoke?  There is always colored smoke on the movies.

Can you repeat all that in English because it sounds really interesting

My only knowledge of this is John Wayne calling for puff the magic dragon.

Like the op these things worry me.

He is saying an AF pilot won’t unilaterally take a risk to shoot in defense of friendly forces without the proper approval. And by the time they receive proper approval, they will have run out of gas and already headed home.

If you want something done quickly and correctly, let the army do it.

It’s a general theme in every thread having anything to do with CAS.

https://m.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/john-r-fox-sacrificed-himself-moh.html

My experience is that there is no shouting, even when things are pretty close to what you are describing are happening.

You are being butt hurt without reason.

The scenario is dropping ordnance on a friendly who is over run.

Thats a tough one to swallow for a guy you don't know.  TaylorWSO, who is hardly a Sylvanista agrees with me on this point.

This is all hypothetical and I am not even sure you would get FA to do it.

But for chucks back in the COP?

I'd do it for you...

True, Troops being overrun is a different scenario than danger close CAS without a JTAC.

obviously.

WOuld you drop a hellfire knowingly on a friendly?

Thats the whole point of the drama.

If I felt I could kill the enemy without killing the friendly, yes.

I've seen HFs denonate feet away from dudes who somehow weren't hurt.

They can be very low collateral.

ETA: I think it would also depend on if it were an American or ANA.

We discuss these scenarios often. The most common one is a VBIED headed rapidly towards friendlies.

You can make the shot RIGHT NOW, but if you go through the formality of a 9L, readbacks, GFC initials, etc... it's too late.

ETA: it is a whole different game when the JTAC is in a TOC somewhere viewing my feed in realtime. I've literally been told "call capture on the individual under your crosshairs... that's your 9L... call in...". Sometimes people need to die right now.

OP, I'm no military expert either but if you want inspiration for your writing, one of the scariest battles I've read about was the assault on COP Keating aka the Battle of Kamdesh.

OP, I wanna keep your thread going. Any more background to your story?

I'd love to keep it going too, but I have to take care of something. I'll have a plot synopsis for you in an hour and a half at most.

I think 0311 Marine sgt’s get some training for that, but it is not normally done, unless everybody else above is dead or wounded.
I remember getting extremely short instruction in MCT on how to call in indirect fire.

Danger close on my position. Don’t let the goat fuckers cut my head off on Al Jazeera.

A MARINE wouldn't call it in, he'd  just use his K-Bar

If you want to make it believable, write in OH58Ds coming in with M4 out the door.

Then the crew lands and the puts casualty in the left seat to get him to the FOB before the medevac is even wheels up.

Forward Observer, FISTer, etc.

This is what you seek:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ8HIZvI5xU&t=2m24s

OP needs more research

Maybe be read a few Tom Clancy novels. ?

Just have him call in his friendly neighborhood ACR...

03s that go to squad leaders course (LCpl-Sgt, and it's called AIC now) get some CAS training, and if they make it to 0369 they will for sure get some CAS training at IULC.

The Korengal Valley would probably make a pretty good location for your proposed fight. That whole area was a motherfucker we never could quite quell, so we finally just left the area.

@Hesperus PM me.  I know a thing or two about CAS.

Wrong.  In ECAS (which this scenario would be) the pilot buys the bombs.  I’ve actually dealt with a very similar situation on several occassions.  Most .mil members are pretty confident of my bona fides.

Several ways to mark targets or a friendly postion.

Smoke
Strobe
Ir strobe
G tape
VS-17 panel.

Pump the breaks... read the thread.... I was explaining “sylvanisms” for the layperson.

I’m the biggest proponent of AF CAS on this board.... fuck... I’ve received and prosecuted a 9L in Afg within the last 72 hours. Who else would you want to hear from?

Plot synopsis.

First of all, this is going to get really weird as it involves magic and time travel.

A girl about to go off to college performs a magical ritual. She performs this ritual because her brother is dying of a particularly odd and difficult to treat form of cancer. All medical options have been exhausted, so she resorts to magic because... Why not at this point? She performs the ritual using an object of great value to both her and her brother. A piece of shrapnel that almost killed him in Afghanistan.

Time goes by and she finds that her ritual was essentially a posting on a magical form of Craigslist. A sorceress from another world shows up but before the sorceress meets the girl she meets the brother.

They hit it off immediately. Their meeting goes so well that the sorceress cures the brothers cancer, and several other ailments without any further to do.

When the girl shows up the sorceress informs her that she has completely restored her brothers health. In exchange all the sorceress wants to do is learn about Earth. The girl happily obliges.

Later on the sorceress is examining the shrapnel, there's something off about it. It seems to be magically charged. The sorceress performs a ritual on it to see how the brother came to be in possession of the shrapnel.

She sees the battle unfold, she sees the brother call in a strike on his own coordinates. Because as mentioned, he really doesn't want to die, but at the same time he doesn't want to be captured by the Taliban.

The bombs or shells fall. Brother escapes initial blast because he is in a ditch. But a piece of shrapnel bounces in at such an angle that it hits him in the neck.

The sorceress sees all this and is baffled, this makes no sense, if he dies here, then how did I meet him last Tuesday?

The sorceress realizes that he can sense her. Can't see her due to crap all over his face, swelling and so on. But he can sense her. This shouldn't be possible, this should be like looking at a recording, but he can clearly sense her and is reaching out for help.

The sorceress reaches out to him, he takes her hand and takes energy from her. Just enough energy to heal his wounds. The sorceress is baffled by this apparent violation of magical rules but at the same time she says. "If this guy is so determined to stay alive that he is reaching across space and time to take just enough energy to go on living. Then how can I say no?"

Helicopters in the distance, she lets go. As the spell dissolves he shouts, "hey, whoever the hell you are, I owe you one."

She looks back.

There is something wrong with him.

He took dark energy from her. Energy that will, in time, metastasize.

She realizes what she has done.

She grabs the chunk of shrapnel that almost took his head off and puts it in one of his pockets. Stating harshly, "you owe me nothing!"

The spell dissolves entirely.

Wrong.

How many bombs have you dropped in oei oef????

Lol.  My bad.  Reading comprehension plus shitty ipad keyboard.  I’m a former ASOC SAD.

Are you a JTAC?

Dropped thousands of pounds in that shithole.

Everyday same shit different shithead

This.

I will add you don't just drop a bomb. If the dude knows his position then you can do a lot of stuff in a couple minutes that would buy him time before dropping a bomb

Bombs? Zero.

Hellfires? A few.

It hasn’t been Called OEF for a few years now, for what it’s worth.

My last weapons employment was less than 72 hours ago, and I got gfc initials for danger close.

Ooh! Ooh!  We got ourselves a little CAS club.  Quick-  someone distract Sylvan before he comes in and shits on it!

Attached File


What kind of fun can we have with one of these?

Heh.  Depends:  Are we talking current day?  Or future?

Restrepo - makes me cry every time I watch it.

That’s what I don’t understand about him... and others... CAS assets literally live for the opportunity to employ in defense of Americans on the ground. You hear your JTAC get excited... you call out enemy weapons in his proximity... and you kill the bad guys before they get an opportunity to kill Americans... why the hate?

Because he’s opinionated and myopic.  He has no understanding of the footprint CAS requires, no appreciation of “theater asset”, and wants the Army to get what they want, when they want it, and theater priorities be damned.

Company Chucks

HHQ Co attached 11C...mortars.

Cav Squadrons have/had integral 4.2/120mm mortars as well

So call the white hats !!!

Just have him call 155's or 120's.  It'll be easier to write and more plausible.

Too many movies, OP

Anyone can call it, you just have to tell the pilot, you are untrained, and the Two Star still has to approve 3 hours later...

Wrong. Pilot can employ in an ECAS scenario under self defense ROE. Don’t need Flag.

A couple nights ago it went down like this....

My strike posture was set... literally ready to employ on an enemy fighting position as soon as I get clearance, from the supported army unit. I’m talking weapons effects in 45 seconds as soon as I get clearance. It took over an hour for the army to go through the legal protocol for me to strike.... so long, that we had to file an extension because I was fragged to support another tasking on the other side of AFG.

I shot, and then got cleared to go support the other OP before the first tactical scenario had completely cooled off, but I was late getting to my second tasking, obviously. I’m sure I pissed off some some special forces guys because I wasn’t there when the original vul opened, but it wasn’t my fault. Seems to me, the army can’t get enough MQ-9s

Whats this about a CAS club?