Originally Posted by
GreenKnight121
So for the US Army, CCA is aircraft operating independently of the troops on the ground, while CAS is aircraft under the control of the troops on the ground.
Greenknight, I don't think so. When you are danger close, you have to be in contact with the supported unit. Also, CCA seems to be Army organic aircraft, which means one less layer of C2 to deal with in terms of the comms plan. CAS for the Army (unless it's an attack helo) tends to be USAF/MARINE/USN assets on the ATO. An Army friend of mine did a staff college paper/treatment on Apache as CAS. I suppose CCA may be what that is in current Army Doctrine.
Fire control measures are still an issue, regardless of the source of fires.
Appreciate all of the responses, gentlemen.
JSF may be envisioned by the Air Forces and our Navy as a "strike" / "interdiction" asset. (Yes, CAS and Interdiction have some overlap. It all depends upon how "deep" a ground commander is able to see or think, and at what echelon he operates.)
In that regard, the percentage of the time one would expect to call upon JSF assets for CAS may be low. This of course depends upon the phase of the operation one is in, what is available, and what the ground commander needs. I would expect that the B/Marine variant in the US concept of OPS would be more often called upon in the CAS role, if MAGTF's remain more or less as they are organized today.
For other Joint Task Forces, the force mix and timing will dictate how often the high dollar fighters get called upon for CAS.
Would the question be what do the blokes on the ground want from CAS aircraft? After all CAS is only there for them and not an end in itself.
Bingo.
You might be surprised at the trouble I had with convincing "strike" and "interdiction" minded USAF folks of that fact. Their role was to be the supporting actors, not the stars. (Heh, you try telling a fighter pilot that ...
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