BEagle
In reply to your queston, which has been delayed cause Aunty Betty moved me again, is that the personnel at CAOC wanted to micro manage the the whole event.
In other words instead of issuing guidance about how they wanted the Cdrs Intent to be carried out. They insisted on telling the crews exactly who was to refuel from whom. The simple fact is that they were best kept out of the loop and only "back briefed" on what had been done.
A certain exampleof their "ideas" being illustrated by the following story.
With a very quiet AOR about 7 months after the original punch up in Afganistan a ?H-53 put down on a island in a river not very far at all from Tora Bora. Naturely this attracted the locals (who we'd just been bombing the whatsits out of). Now they were armed with the local mix of weapons, including RPG's and heavy MG's on trucks. With a FAC and trops in the back they were better equiped than most downed crews, but when they asked for over head cover, COAC said no. They didn't explain why just said no, now on this particular trip the USN were supplying most of the FJ and with the Mother on the SATCOM and aware of the prob, they were more than happy to allow FJ with weapons on board to extend over the AOR. They had no problem about letting crews flex their deck recovery time. This was one day that the AOR was flush with gas and we had no problems about keeping a Tanker and hence FJ's over the downed helo.
What was eventually allowed was a TV/IR equiped but not gun equiped 4 prop to fly over the helo, once the UAV had gone home. Now at this time neither was armed, so if the brown stuff did hit the fan the closest armed assests, which were holding on the tanker was 200 miles away.
Also they would direct certain ac to refuel from certain tankers. This despite the fact that we'd told them that either the system was US, that these aircraft required. Or that the tanker in question was at the other end of the AOR covering a tasking they'd allocated earlier.
I've had similar Micro Managements from other CAOC's, in Kosovo where the CB's were a major problem and they had IMC'd the whole of the Albania/Macedonia airspace, of being told to put the AAR tracks down below the weather. Which was 13k With lightning, the hills go up to 9k plus, if my memory serves me right. Also the Albainians still had civies in the area, with no ATC radar to help them out, throw in all the rotary/prop stuff going under the weather from Italy to Macedonia. Thats why i said no, and moved the AAR out of the tracks so they could find some layers to work in.
Or worse when involved in GW2, when the AAR boys dried up due to the sand storms. CAOC neglected to tell us that there were problems untill we notice that AAR replacements were not on the tube. Then said "oh we've scrambled some from Deigo Garcia 30 mins ago they should be with you soon". Needless to say we didn't feel supported!
MM
As for the WSO's IMHO I believe that they will miss out on experience at the CRC's, not just in understanding "services" but in gaining valuable experience and exposure to basic E3 WC work such as AAR, Check in and the job the CRC does to let the WC's do their job. Yes I know that they will have previous experience. But with deficits in these areas then STF will have their work cut out for them.
As for your comments about the WSO WC's that believe that their ground time was largely a waste. I believe that it was because they were being trained for the Cold War. Not the job that the E3D now does, which is after all amost 95% different to a CRC.
I further believe that there are 2 reasons that FC's arrive at Waddo with such poor preparation for their job. One is the lack of experience and that is through out the CRC of E3 methods and exposure to the way that people are expected to work when on the E3D. This again is due to lack of experience, only this time with in the supervising chain of command within the CRC.
The second is the fact that average WC arrives earlier in their career, couple this with a shorter time in the basic training period and the end result is you have to spend more time to reach the high standard that you require.
That said I firmly believe that the WSO's will supplant the FC's and that encludes the Surveilance as well as weapons, due to the fact that the money will not be there to pay two lots of flying pay.