![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/F35-blowin-cash-x-1695015016.8357-300x177.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Looks like the Air Force is once again doing its schizoid dance over close air support (CAS.) I’m pretty sure I dated bipolar psycho virgins who were more consistent.<\/p>\n
We all know the on-again, off-again saga of the A-10. The Air Force hates the damn plane and is doing all they can to shake off having to use it, claiming the F-35 is just as capable and can do the job just fine. Until, of course, anyone suggests that the Army take over the A-10s, at which point the Zoomies clench their pudgy little fists and cry, plaintively whining “but it’s MINE”.\u00a0 (My apologies to some really stand-up AF guys for slandering your service – but…)<\/p>\n
Nowadays the A-10 pilots themselves say it’s the institutional A-10 CAS knowledge, hard-won on multiple battlefields, that they really want to preserve – but the Air Force isn’t even formally teaching it so unless there is some serious tribal knowledge-sharing going on with the pilots, it ain’t happening. We’ve covered all this in multiple columns here, right?<\/p>\n
They are replacing the Warthog’s 1200-round 30mm gun with a 187-round 25mm, and the seeming hours-long loiter time\u00a0 with a fast mover that can loiter for maybe 30 seconds or so. We won’t even speak of the comparative cost of each platform. So what could they do to make the situation worse?<\/p>\n
Tactical Air Control Party airmen are part of a special warfare job in the Air Force and embed with other services, such as the Army and Marines, to help scout and guide air support in the heat of battle. It’s one of the service’s toughest jobs and involves rigorous physical training and hazardous assignments.<\/p>\n
But the plan to reorganize multiple units located at Army bases across the country into just two locations may cause issues, GOP members of the House claimed in a letter to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.<\/p>\n
“Any soldier who has been in a ‘danger close’ engagement and has trusted a TACP operator to call in effective fires will attest to the mutual trust they develop through close integration,” the lawmakers wrote. “Breaking these relationships will create a gap in expertise at the expense of the warfighter and will force division commanders to assume greater risk across all domains.”<\/p>\n
Rose Riley, a department of the Air Force spokeswoman, confirmed to Military.com on Tuesday that the service selected Fort Cavazos in Texas and Fort Liberty in North Carolina to be the candidate locations for the active-duty TACP mission, but she added that “a final decision has not yet been made.”<\/p>\n
The Air Force is expected to reduce TACP by 484 airmen, and units at Fort Drum, Fort Bliss, Fort Riley, Fort Carson, Fort Stewart and Fort Campbell will be consolidated into the two existing units at the Texas and North Carolina bases, Riley said.<\/p>\n