A Matter of Trust 

Close Air Support Apportionment and 

Allocation for Operational Level Effects 

PETER A. COSTELLO III, Major, USAF

School of Advanced Airpower Studies 

THESIS PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF


THE SCHOOL OF ADVANCED AIRPOWER STUDIES,


MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, ALABAMA, FOR COMPLETION OF


GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS, ACADEMIC YEAR 1994–95.


Air University Press


Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama


November 1997 
Disclaimer 

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the 

author, and do not necessarily represent the views of Air University, the United States Air Force, 

the Department of Defense, or any other US government agency. Cleared for public release: 

distribution unlimited. 

ii 
Contents 

Chapter Page 

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii


ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v


ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii


1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1


2 THE HISTORY OF CLOSE AIR SUPPORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7


3 CURRENT JOINT CAS DOCTRINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39


4	 TWO THEORIES OF CAS AS AN


OPERATIONAL ASSET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51


5 RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59


BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65


iii 

Abstract 

Doctrinal differences over the employment of airpower are as old as military

aviation itself. One particular area of contention has been close air support (CAS).

The two primary issues related to CAS are its command and control and

responsiveness. Soldiers have argued that ground commanders should control their

own aircraft, because ownership assures that airpower directly responds to their

needs. Airmen have maintained that airpower should be centralized under a single

air commander to allow for its flexible theaterwide employment. During World War

II, Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm, ground commanders demanded greater

influence over airpower employment. Concurrently, the Air Force disagreed with the

Navy and Marine Corps over centralized versus decentralized control of air assets.

These two issues of command and control and responsiveness are embodied in the

process of apportioning and allocating CAS. In all conflicts since World War II, the

United States has had the luxury of an overabundance of air assets. Despite a façade

of centralization, airpower was parceled out to fill nearly everyone’s needs. This

avoided the need for any difficult choices. This study follows the history of CAS since

World War II to examine how it has been apportioned and allocated in the past. It

then examines the current joint air operations process. It is the contention of this

study that the current system, rooted in its historical past, does not fully employ

CAS to its optimum potential. The historical view of CAS has been as a tactical

measure, with limited localized effects. However, properly integrated and coequal

with the ground scheme of maneuver, it can have operational level effects. This

study examines two theories of the use of CAS at the operational level and then

recommends changes to the view of CAS and the process for its apportionment and

allocation. 

v 

About the Author 

Maj Peter A. Costello III was commissioned from the United States Air Force 

Academy in 1981. He served two tours as an A-10 instructor pilot. The first tour was 

at Royal Air Force Bentwaters in the United Kingdom in the 511th Tactical Fighter 

Squadron. He then moved to Det. 1, 81st Tactical Fighter Wing at Sembach Air 

Base, Germany, where he was the assistant operations officer for the A-10 forward 

operating location. After flying the A-10, he was assigned to Sheppard Air Force 

Base (AFB), Texas, as a T-38 instructor pilot and flight commander in the 90th 

Flying Training Squadron. His last assignment was as an F-16 instructor pilot and 

assistant operations officer in the 68th Fighter Squadron (FS) at Moody AFB, 

Georgia. While in the 68th FS he deployed to Desert Storm and on subsequent 

Operation Southern Watch deployments. He has 50 combat hours in the F-16. Major 

Costello has a bachelor’s degree in military history and a master’s degree in 

international relations from Troy State University. In July 1995 he was assigned to 

the United States Atlantic Command (USACOM) as a special assistant to the 

commander in chief, USACOM/supreme allied commander, Atlantic. 

vii 
Chapter 1 

Introduction 

Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true. 

—Honoré de Balzac 

Ever since the First World War when the first fighter pilot descended to 

strafe the enemy trenches on the western front while returning from a dawn 

patrol, close air support (CAS) has been a constant element of modern 

warfare. Although it did not have a decisive impact on the course of the war, 

the issue of ground attack by aviation was the focus of a controversy between 

the air and ground arms. The traditional land power advocates wanted the 

continued subordination of airpower to the will of the ground force 

commander. The airpower zealots sought its freedom from such tethers to 

conduct independent and war-winning operations. The airpower moderates 

sought tactical support operations with greater flexibility for mass attack 

arising from centralized control. Even in the current era of gentlemanly 

jointness, elements of this dichotomy continue. Ground force commanders 

decry a lack of air support. US Air Force commanders contend that the battle 

can be won with strategic attack or that they can best support the US Army 

through the interdiction of enemy men and materiel. 

This study focuses on a narrow section within this larger debate. 

Specifically, the issue is close air support and, in particular, how best to 

apportion limited CAS assets within a theater to achieve the objectives of the 

joint force commander (JFC). The thesis of this study is that the current joint 

doctrine concerning the apportionment of CAS assets is insufficient (and 

possibly counterproductive) for the accomplishment of campaign goals. Before 

developing the framework for this analysis, it will be beneficial to begin by 

examining what close air support is and what is meant by apportionment. 

Before defining close air support, it is best to determine what is meant by 

the generic term support. Joint Publication (Joint Pub) 1-02, Department 

of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms defines support as: 

“1. The action of a force which aids, protects, complements, or sustains 

another force in accordance with a directive requiring such action. 2. A unit 

which helps another unit in battle. Aviation, artillery, or naval gunfire may 

be used as a support for infantry. 3. A part of any unit held back at the 

beginning of an attack as a reserve. 4. An element of a command which 

assists, protects, or supplies other forces in combat.”1 Close air support is a 

subset of military support in general and its application may fall within all 

1 
four possible definitions. In the current vernacular of joint doctrine, however, 

there is more than an implied subordination of close air support to the desires 

of the ground force commander. This is a problem for the true integration of 

the air and ground efforts and will be addressed further in this study. 

What is close air support? The term close air support can be used to include 

all air attacks that are coordinated with the supported ground forces. 

High-altitude bombing of enemy positions by heavy bombers in advance of 

friendly forces or attack helicopter support of troops in contact with the 

enemy can be fairly called close air support.2 Col John A. Warden III takes a 

similarly broad view of close air support as, “Any air operation that 

theoretically could and would be done by ground forces on their own, if 

sufficient troops or artillery were available.”3 This definition, although useful, 

connotes the old view of ground attack aviation as nothing more than flying 

artillery. There in lies the rub. 

Joint doctrine is supposed to offer “a common perspective from which to 

plan and operate, and fundamentally shape the way we think and train about 

war.”4 A comparative examination of joint CAS doctrine to service doctrines, 

however, shows some discrepancies. Joint Pub 1-02 defines close air support 

as, “Air action by fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft against hostile targets which 

are in close proximity to friendly forces and which require detailed 

integration of each air mission with the fire and movement of those forces.”5 

This recent joint iteration includes Army and Marine attack helicopters as 

CAS assets for the first time. It also seems to portray a more balanced 

approach to the use of air and ground actions. This coequality is largely 

absent in the individual service approaches to CAS. 

Looking at the service perspectives on CAS, we begin with the US Army. 

Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, which states that “close air support 

(CAS) missions support land operations by attacking hostile targets close to 

friendly ground forces. CAS can support offensive operations with preplanned 

or immediate attacks.” In these first few lines, CAS could easily be replaced 

by the word artillery. It further states, “CAS can enhance ground force 

operations by delivering a wide range of weapons and massed firepower at 

decisive points.” Again, read bigger artillery. The glimmer of hope, from this 

author’s perspective, for the proper application of CAS emerges in the final 

lines of the Army’s description of CAS. “It can surprise the enemy and create 

opportunities for the maneuver or advance of friendly forces through shock 

action and concentrated attacks. CAS can also protect the flanks of friendly 

forces, blunt enemy offensives, enhance economy-of-force operations, and 

protect the rear of land forces during retrograde operations.”6 The shock 

action of CAS allows for maneuver, but nothing is said about the possibility of 

maneuver allowing for the shock application of CAS. 

The US Navy’s view of CAS is that it “supports amphibious and land 

operations with massed firepower, requiring detailed integration with the 

ground scheme of maneuver. CAS requires close coordination during tasking, 

planning and execution. CAS is a force multiplier, enabling the supported 

commander to mass combat power decisively. Traditionally, the Navy has 

2 
been a provider of CAS, but can be a recipient of CAS as well, in support of 

naval operations.”7 CAS can again be equated with artillery, or perhaps naval 

gunfire. There is the dim hope of the integration with the ground scheme of 

maneuver, but many airmen would fear that the ground scheme is driving the 

operational train. Finally, there is an obligatory, budgetary statement as to 

the Navy’s need to continually provide CAS, as they have always done in the 

past. 

The US Air Force’s perspective on CAS is equally disappointing. Air Force 

Manual (AFM) 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, 

defines CAS as: 

The application of aerospace forces in support of the land component commander’s 

objectives. At times, CAS may be the best force available to ensure the success or 

survival of surface forces. Since it provides direct support to friendly forces in 

contact, close air support requires close coordination from the theater and component levels to the tactical level of operations. Close air support should usually be 

massed to apply concentrated combat power, should create opportunities, and 

should be planned and controlled to reduce the risk of friendly casualties.8 

The US Air Force continues to be reluctant to provide CAS, considering it the 

least effective application of airpower.9 If truly given the choice, the Air Force 

would only do CAS in extremis. Its effects are considered the briefest of any 

force application mission and have the least impact at the campaign level. 

This is because the Air Force, despite its talk of coordination with the land 

component commander, views CAS as strictly a tactical mission. Close air 

support can prepare the conditions for or reinforce ground successes, which 

continues the subordinate role of airpower. It is only in the final view lines of 

AFM 1-1’s presentation of CAS that we see hope for the proper integration of 

CAS. “In effect, close air support can provide another maneuver element for 

employment in cooperation with surface combat elements.”10 If CAS is another maneuver element, then perhaps it may be supported by the ground 

maneuver element as opposed to supporting it. That would be true equality 

and provide a better way to accomplish the JFC’s mission. 

Finally, the US Marine Corps considers CAS its bread and butter mission. 

Fleet Marine Field Manual (FMFM) 5-41, Close Air Support, states that “the 

Marine Corps fights using maneuver warfare through the application of 

combined arms. CAS is fully integrated with other supporting arms to 

support the Marine air-ground task force (MAGTF) commander’s plan. The 

MAGTF commander uses CAS at the decisive place and time to achieve local 

combat superiority or take advantage of battlefield opportunities. CAS is 

employed for operational effectiveness and is used to weight the main effort” 

(italics added).

11 

There are several salient points here for our discussion. The first is that the 

Marines plan the use of combined arms in an integrated fashion. This would 

tend to imply a coequality, however, CAS is still a supporting arm. The most 

important item for future reference is that the Marines view CAS for its 

operational effectiveness and its applicability to the weight of the main effort. 

3 
Further, the person selected to be the MAGTF commander is often an aviator. 

These are ideas which are lacking in the other service’s interpretations of CAS. 

Having examined all these different joint and service perspectives, it would 

be useful at this point to synthesize them into a form that will be used 

throughout the remainder of this work. The fundamental hypothesis is that 

CAS should be viewed as a force at the operational level of war, not simply as 

a single A-10 striking a green jeep in the tree line. Its application should be 

coordinated beginning at the operational level and down to the tactical, not 

vice a versa. CAS should be massed against the enemy’s decisive points. Its 

psychological and physical shock effects can therefore work as force 

multipliers. Airpower, and CAS in particular, is itself a form of vertical 

maneuver and envelopment. It must therefore be seamlessly integrated with 

the maneuver of the ground forces, such that the two are synergistic. The 

ground maneuver serves to dislocate the enemy for CAS’s destruction, or CAS 

dislocates the enemy for destruction by the ground forces. The relationship 

and magnitude of the two will depend on the particulars of the situation. The 

point is that CAS should not always be subordinated to the ground scheme of 

maneuver. 

Now that we have fully described the nature of close air support, we must 

now deal with how it should be apportioned at the theater level. 

Apportionment, in its simplest sense, is the act of dividing and assigning 

things according to some plan or proportion. In the era of only 20 USAF 

fighter wing equivalents and for the purpose of this study, apportionment is 

how to best use limited CAS assets to accomplish the JFC’s military 

objectives. According to Joint Pub 3-56.1, Command and Control for Joint Air 

Operations, in the joint lexicon air apportionment is, “The determination and 

assignment of the total expected effort by percentage and/or by priority that 

should be devoted to the various air operations and/or geographic areas for a 

given period of time.”12 Within this definition lie three issues. The first is the 

importance of CAS as a mission within the theater objectives of the joint 

force. Which is more important at the time, air superiority, strategic attack, 

air interdiction, et cetera? The second is how many of the CAS-capable 

aircraft of the joint air operations force should be devoted to the CAS mission 

at any one time. The third is how those CAS sorties should be divided within 

the theater. Should each division receive an equal percentage, should they be 

prioritized among divisions and distributed in decreasing percentages, or 

should the ground element comprising the weight of effort for the campaign 

receive the overwhelming bulk? This study answers these questions. 

To form the basis of analysis regarding these questions, we must first 

examine the historical background. Chapter 2 explores how CAS has been 

apportioned in previous historical joint campaigns. Chapter 3 describes how 

the current process operates for the apportionment of close air support within 

an area of responsibility (AOR), paying particular attention to the role of the 

joint force air component commander (JFACC). It relies heavily on current 

service and joint doctrine. Chapter 4 compares two different military 

theorists, Liddell Hart and Tukhachevskii, concerning their views on the 

4 
employment of CAS as an operational asset. Finally, in chapter 5, the author 

summarizes the argument and makes recommendations regarding the 

apportionment and employment of close air support as an operational level 

asset in the future. 

Notes 

1. Joint Publication (Joint Pub) 1-02, The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and 

Associated Terms, 23 March 1994. 

2. Peter C. Smith, Close Air Support: An Illustrated History, 1914 to the Present (New York: 

Orion Books, 1990), vii. 

3. John A. Warden III, The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat (Washington, D.C.: 

Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1989), 87. 

4. Joint Pub 1, Joint Warfare of the US Armed Forces, 11 November 1991, 6. 

5. Joint Pub 1-02. 

6. Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, June 1993, 2-19. 

7. Joint Pub 3-09.3, “Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Close Air Support,” 

Reformatted Draft Pub, 17 February 1995, A-1. 

8. Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, vol. 

1, March 1992, 13. 

9. Ibid. 

10. Ibid. 

11. Fleet Marine Field Manual (FMFM) 5-41, Close Air Support and Close-in Fire Support. 

12. Joint Pub 3-56.1, Command and Control for Joint Air Operations, 14 November 1994, 

GL-5. 

5

Chapter 2 

The History of Close Air Support 

Those who seek to plan the future should not forget the inheritance they have received from the past, for it is only by studying the past as well as drawing for the 

future that the story of man’s struggle can be understood. 

—Sir Winston Churchill 

Examining military history is not meant to provide cookie-cutter solutions 

based upon past experience. It is, however, meant to provide insights to what 

has and has not worked in the past. Clausewitz saw military theory and 

military history as intertwined. He defined military theory as an analytical 

investigation leading to a close acquaintance with the subject; applied to 

military history. Its purpose is to look at the ends and means and phases of 

warfare in a critical inquiry. Theory should, therefore, be limited by 

experience (actual history). The knowledge required is simple, but difficult to 

apply, and when applied it is done as a natural talent, from within, not as a 

thought process from learned activity. Knowledge must be absorbed into the 

mind that it almost ceases to exist in a separate, objective way. He sees from 

history (the Prussian generals imitating Frederick the Great) the failure 

awaiting commanders as they imitate using routine versus commanders who 

use talent and genius (the imagination) and succeed in the new and different 

situation of battle in which they are involved.1 

With these thoughts in mind we will now critically inquire into how CAS 

was apportioned in previous wars. Because of CAS’s limited impact on the 

ground war, World War I is briefly addressed. However, excellent examples 

are available from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. It is not 

the intention of this chapter to cover every operation in every campaign, but 

to focus on the major campaigns in which large air and ground forces worked 

in concert to achieve a common military objective. 

World War I 

The air arms of the First World War were dominated by tactical aviation 

and the concerns of the ground commander. During the Great War, however, 

the role of the air weapon was not a major one. Apart from the role of 

observation, it did not substantially figure in the development of the 

positional warfare on the western front. It did, however, contribute to the 

7 
maintenance of the stalemate. By the end of the First World War, the 

airplane had shown promise for the future, as an element of combined arms 

warfare. It displayed a flexibility of application, a degree of mobility, and a 

psychological impact that surpassed the expectations of even its prewar 

supporters.2 In the interwar years, however, the growth of CAS theory stalled 

while the doctrine of daylight high-altitude precision bombardment grew to 

maturation. 

World War II 

In 1940 Air Corps FM 1-5, Employment of Aviation of the Army, noted that 

“fighters were ‘not suitable’ for ground attack ‘other than personnel or light 

material’ except for temporary employment during emergencies.”3 It further, 

rather bluntly, stated, “Support aviation is not employed against objectives 

which can be effectively engaged by available ground weapons within the 

time required. Aviation is poorly suited for direct attacks against small 

detachments or troops which are well-entrenched or disposed.”4 

The realities of war began to soften these views. Air Corps FM 1-10, Tactics 

and Techniques of Air Attack, published in 1940, reflected the initial reports 

coming from Asia and Europe in which modern military aviation forces were 

engaged in battle. It emphasized the importance of command, control, and 

communications, particularly with friendly armored forces, using prearranged 

signals, pyrotechnic devices, and panels. Its most emphatic point was on the 

need for direct radio communication between armor and air units.5 The 

stunning defeat of France and initial Nazi success in Russia forced the United 

States Armed Air Force (USAAF) to come to grips with the problems of air 

support of land armies. Air operations during the 1941 Carolina and 

Louisiana maneuvers further highlighted the need for focused attention on 

future air-ground coordination and air support of the land battle.6 

Unfortunately, the lessons were slow in being assimilated. 

The 1941 maneuvers, along with additional observers’ reports from Europe, 

were used for a final doctrinal statement on air support. In April 1942 FM 

31-35, Aviation in Support of Ground Forces, was more concerned with the 

organization than the techniques of air support. No plans or priorities for 

operational employment were given. CAS was clarified only by the statement 

that, “Air support targets on the immediate front or flanks of supported units 

are generally transitory targets of opportunity.”7 This manual attempted to 

create a workable ground-air support system, but did so in appearance only. 

Control was established by a network of air support parties, air support 

control centers, and an air support command, which consolidated 

communications between the ground forces and the air forces. This structure 

had the façade, but not the function of a modern tactical air control system. It 

was cumbersome and flawed in both concept and execution. Its major 

weakness was its emphasis on corps-level air support. The corps commander 

8 
and staff had their own “mini” air force on call for their use. In execution, this 

resulted in the tendency to be too concerned about one’s own forces, to the 

detriment of other friendlies. Further, there was a built-in tendency to try to 

stem enemy air and ground attacks at the forward line of troops (FLOT), 

instead of striking deeper and more effectively at the enemy’s rear.8 

The attack doctrine going into the North African campaign provided that 

an air support command was attached to an army formation and directed by 

the overall ground force commander. Tactical airpower was adapted to the 

demands of ground battle. As such, there was no concerted effort to gain air 

superiority over the theater of operations.9 The Americans entered the 

Maghreb with ideas of centralized command of airpower, the primacy of air 

superiority, the importance of the offensive, and a low priority to ground 

support. Their doctrine was not substantially different from the British. The 

devil, however, was in the details. Luckily, the Western Desert Air Force, 

under Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, were masters of the details. They 

also had the combat experience to speak authoritatively. With the change in 

command structure after the Casablanca Conference, reemphasized by the 

Kasserine debacle, Carl A. Spaatz became the air component commander and 

had continuous operational control over all air assets. Collocation of air and 

ground headquarters significantly improved coordination. 

The lessons of the North African campaign were embodied in FM 100-20, 

Command and Employment of Air Power. Its first section loudly proclaimed: 

“LAND POWER AND AIR POWER ARE CO-EQUAL AND INTERDEPENDENT FORCES; NEITHER IS AN AUXILIARY OF THE OTHER.”10 

The missions of a tactical air force were rank-ordered in priorities. FM 100-20 

stated that an air campaign must consist of three phases, corresponding to 

the three priorities. First, gain the necessary degree of air superiority. 

Second, prevent the movement of hostile troops and supplies into the theater 

of operations or within the theater. Third, participate in a combined effort of 

the air and ground forces, in the battle area, to gain objectives on the 

immediate front of the ground forces.11 This third priority, however, was 

extremely vague and open to a great deal of interpretation. 

Operation Overlord was conducted according to the targeting priorities 

established by FM 100-20. However, centralized control of airpower was 

sacrificed due to national rivalries, doctrinal and personality disputes among 

airmen, and the desires of ground force commanders.12 American concerns 

and distaste for Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, coupled with his 

own preferences, led Gen Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower to assume and retain 

the role of ground force commander as well as supreme commander. Because 

of this dual-hatting, the air component was permanently subordinate to the 

ground force commander. Centralized control of airpower under the Allied 

Expeditionary Air Force (AEAF) was also a façade. United States Strategic 

Air Forces in Europe (USSTAF) and particularly Air Chief Marshal Sir 

Arthur Harris’s RAF Bomber Command played to their own sheet of music, 

unless browbeaten by Ike. Luckily, air commanders at the tactical air force 

level, Ninth Air Force and British Second Tactical Air Force, worked together 

9 
closely. In the battles of France, the Ninth Air Force cooperated with the 12th 

Army Group, while subordinate tactical air commands developed very close 

relationships with the various supported field armies.13 

The inherent flexibility of airpower is considered its greatest asset. To the 

USAAF, this meant the ability to shift the weight of effort of air assets from 

one target to another within its functional area. The US Army’s 

interpretation was different. To them it meant the ability to shift resources 

from strategic and interdiction missions to the tactical support of troops 

engaged in a ground battle. Two factors kept these command, doctrinal, and 

definition differences from causing serious problems in the Battle for France. 

First, the strategic air campaign against Germany had ensured theaterwide 

air superiority by March 1944. Second, the prodigious industrial and 

personnel output of the United States guaranteed an abundance of aircraft 

and aircrew resources. This wealth mitigated the need for any difficult 

decisions as to apportionment and weight of effort. A responsive, though 

decentralized, tactical air control system was developed. Even though CAS 

was still a tertiary mission, the numbers of fighter-bombers available led to 

de facto operational control (OPCON) of a tactical air command by each field 

army. CAS was pushed forward and made continuously and immediately 

available to the ground maneuver units. Many times, more sorties were 

available than targets, with the excess released for armed reconnaissance. 

Korea 

The Second World War confirmed the decisive importance of airpower in 

tactical support of ground operations.14 Yet, the successful employment of 

aircraft, like that of any other military instrument, depended upon the weight 

of force available, the skill with which it was employed, and the suitability of 

the targets that were offered. The more closely air forces worked in harness 

with ground forces, the more effective they were.15 During World War II no 

one system for controlling CAS had been common in all theaters. The 

postwar, approved Air Force-Army CAS doctrine had originated in North 

Africa, been modified in Italy, and was further refined in the most extensive 

air-ground battles of the war, those in France and Germany.16 Different CAS 

systems developed in the Pacific, particularly for the island hopping campaign 

of the Central Pacific. The geographic separation of these theaters had 

precluded any disputes between the two systems. However, on the constricted 

landmass of the Korean Peninsula, these differences flared into a larger 

parochial conflict. This first post-World War II attempt at joint operations 

deserves more in-depth study, as it truly set the stage for our present 

theaterwide CAS system. 

From the first day of the Korean War, the importance of fighter-bombers in 

a CAS role was beyond a doubt.17 United Nations Command (UNC) ground 

forces’ weakness in field artillery, especially heavy artillery, forced UNC air 

10 
units to concentrate on close air support.18 Close air support operations 

provided important fire support to United Nations (UN) forces throughout the 

war, but particularly during the initial North Korean invasion and the 

subsequent Chinese intervention.19 Commenting on the service provided 

during the North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) invasion, Gen Matthew 

Ridgway stated, “Our Air Force knocked out much of the enemy armor, 

inflicted casualties on his foot soldiers, and kept close check on his 

movement.”20 

After the stalemate ensued in 1952, the war resembled operations along 

the western front in France, 1915–1917. Both armies took to the earth, 

erecting mazes of trenches, bunkers, barbed-wire systems, and minefields. 

The Communists dug deeper and bigger fortifications, driven in part by their 

fear of air attacks.21 The UNC relied on its firepower to prevent any 

sustained communist offensive and protect Eighth Army’s ground positions. 

Tactical aviation and artillery offset communist numbers.22 In fact Eighth 

Army’s increased heavy artillery support made close air support less 

important in 1952–1953.23 

Despite a large number of air assets, the command and control arrangements for airpower plagued the effectiveness and efficiency of UNC 

throughout much of the war. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was 

the American theater and UN commander. Although he regarded tactical 

aviation highly, he continued his World War II practice of maintaining a 

theater staff that was joint and unified in name only. His principal staff 

officers were all Army generals.24 

Three American air elements conducted tactical offensive operations in 

Korea: the USAF’s Far East Air Forces (FEAF), principally the Fifth Air 

Force; the 1st Marine Air Wing (lst MAW); and the US Navy’s carrier air 

groups of the Seventh Fleet’s Task Force 77.25 Their integration into a 

theaterwide airpower system was continually troublesome. This was due to 

differences in service culture, perspective, and classic turf battles. 

Fifth Air Force maintained control of fighter and fighter-bomber 

operations, while FEAF maintained centralized control of B-29 operations. 

The lack of a unified and integrated air campaign plan resulted in incoherent 

operations, some at cross-purposes. In addition, land and air campaign 

planning lacked coordination.26 Fifth Air Force was responsible for USAF air 

operations in Korea and made only minor changes to the World War II 

post-Overlord system. Instead of having a tactical air command parallel to a 

field army, a numbered air force now performed that function. Fifth Air Force 

provided the same support for Eighth Army in Korea as IX TAC did for First 

Army in Europe.27 General Ridgway appeared to be pleased with this 

arrangement when he said, “Not a day went by during my service in Korea 

when General Pat Partridge, commanding the Fifth Air Force, did not call me 

to ask, ‘What can we do for you today?’”28 

An important asset of the UNC was the ability to deploy aircraft carriers 

relatively close in shore. The British Far East Fleet normally deployed two 

aircraft carriers in the Yellow Sea,29 while the American Seventh Fleet 

11 
deployed up to three carriers in the Sea of Japan. The US Navy vigorously 

defended the need for its carrier-based aircraft to operate independently of 

the land-based air forces. Only relatively late in the war did the Navy consent 

to joint target planning with Far East Air Force. The Navy claimed that the 

naval operations which the aircraft are supporting must be independent. Yet 

in Korea they were merely providing mobile platforms for aerial sorties in 

support of the ground war.30 

With the introduction of the Marines into Korea, FEAF maintained that 

Marine aviation should come under the OPCON of the Fifth Air Force, since 

Marine air had the task of providing close air support to the Eighth Army.31 

An interservice compromise gave FEAF operational control of all land-based 

aviation in the theater but limited it to “coordination control” of carrier 

aviation. Although the amplification gave FEAF operational control of any 

Marine aviation that came ashore, it also meant that FEAF could only veto 

proposed carrier strikes they were aware of. Task Force 77 normally 

main-tained radio silence at sea. When this was coupled with the 

incompatibility of Navy and Air Force communications procedures, it 

meant that FEAF would learn Task Force 77’s plans only if Far East 

Command (FEC) and US Navy, Far East (NAVFE) chose to inform it. 

“Coordination control,” in fact, was a relationship that did not exist in the 

lexicon of joint operations.32 Later in the war a more useful system was 

developed. After some initial confusion the US Seventh Fleet had 

established a Navy liaison section at the joint operations center (JOC) in 

August 1950, and late in June 1953 finally agreed to assume an integral 

role in the JOC.33 Task Force 77 agreed to provide 80 sorties a day for 

support operations when the carriers were on station and to use the JOC 

system. The Air Force agreed to follow doctrine on joint operations, which 

gave a Navy task force commander control of all air operations within an 

amphibious operations area, and to assign naval aviation to a specific part 

of the front.34 Thus the CAS effort was geographically divided. 

The CAS command and control system was temporarily modified for the 

Inchon landing. Marine air was assigned to the Army’s X Corps for the 

amphibious assault. Gen Edward Mallory “Ned” Almond, the new X Corps 

commander, argued for retaining Marine aviation as organic to the corps close 

air support. He further proposed the continued operation of X Corps as 

separate from the Eighth Army. But with X Corps assigned to the Eighth 

Army after exploiting the invasion, Marine aviation returned to the 

operational control of the Fifth Air Force and was used across the Eighth 

Army front.35 It remained this way until the end of the war. 

When the Air Force became an independent service in 1947, Tactical Air 

Command and Army Field Forces inherited a running argument that had 

divided the Air Staff and Army General Staff. Army leaders like Gen Lawton 

Collins and Gen Mark Clark questioned the coequal status of ground and air 

commanders in determining tactical priorities.36 According to Max Hastings, 

in his book The Korean War: 

12 
From the first days of the war there was intense and often badtempered debate 

between the ground commanders and senior officers of FEAF about the quality and 

quantity of close air support they received. This was heightened by Army jealousy 

of Navy and Marine organic air support, which the soldiers considered both more 

dedicated, and more professional, than that of the Air Force. The argument hinged 

upon the weight of Air Force effort that should be given directly to the ground 

forces, and at whose discretion this should be allotted.37 

Disagreement between the services over air assets allocation centered 

around the centralized control concept of the Air Force and the dedicated air 

assets concept used by the Marine Corps.38 “A major point of contention 

among the services had to do with FEAF’s air priorities and the quality of 

CAS performance.”39 Different views among the services as to the 

contributions and effectiveness of CAS produced interservice disputes.40 This 

grew so severe that Army Chief of Staff general Collins filed a formal 

criticism of CAS operations with Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg in 

November 1950. Collins thought the current system of cooperation and the 

Air Force’s apparent lack of interest in ground attack missions had created an 

unsatisfactory situation. He sought a revision of air-ground doctrine to give 

field army commanders and their corps subordinates operational control of 

fighter-bombers on a scale of one air group per division.41 However, the basic 

problem was not in the system itself, but that the Air Force and the Army had 

not provided the trained staffs, control agencies, and communications systems 

to make the existing doctrine work. 

At the time of the North Korean invasion, Air Force doctrine believed that 

interdiction should have a higher priority for CAS. This followed the guidance 

of FM 100-20, which was incorporated into FM 31-35, Air-Ground Operations. 

FM 31-35 stated that “the tactical air commander, in close cooperation with 

army group commander, determines the allocation of air effort to be made 

available to the separate tactical air forces for employment with their 

associated armies.”42 “Thus, FEAF was doctrinally justified in assigning its 

own priority to CAS unless the theater commander chose to override that 

decision.”43 The theater air commander retained absolute authority over all 

tactical air forces. He was answerable only to the theater commander. He 

would assign a tactical air command or air force to support each army group 

and army. The lowest echelon of decentralization in determining air mission 

priorities would be the tactical air force, whose commander would cooperate 

with his ground counterpart, the army commander. They would establish a 

JOC, collocated with the army headquarters, to coordinate air-ground 

missions. In this system, CAS missions required both air and ground 

approval, although the actual conduct of operations remained with air 

officers.44 The JOC processed tactical air requests and directed tactical air 

missions through the combat operations section and the tactical air control 

center (TACC). The tactical air request system depended upon the ground 

officers assigned to the air-ground operations system (AGOS), which reached 

down from ground army through each corps to each division headquarters. 

Air Force liaison officers (ALO) might be assigned to ground units to advise 

13 
commanders, but it remained the responsibility of the ground commander to 

initiate air requests through his chain of command to the senior ground force 

headquarters. The army G-3 (Air) and G-2 (Air), who headed the air-ground 

operations section in the JOC, would decide which missions had the highest 

priority from the perspective of the army commander.45 After the North 

Korean invasion, TAC and Army Field Forces published the Joint Training 

Directive for Air-Ground Operations (JTD). The only major changes were that 

it extended the AGOS down to regimental and armored combat command, 

and in special cases down to battalions.46 

Reflecting on its own experience coordinating artillery in World War II, the 

Army allowed little initiative below the field army and corps commander 

level. The corps commander had the basic task of working tactical aviation 

into his plans through the fire support coordination center (FSCC).47 The 

Army saw artillery as dominant within its range and airpower as the 

principal weapon outside artillery range.48 In sum, the Army did not expect 

integrated close air support, and the Air Force did not intend to deliver it 

except under carefully circumscribed conditions.49 Until the end of the war, 

the weight of FEAF’s effort remained interdiction operations. Between July 

1951 and July 1953 the Air Force flew 155,000 interdiction sorties and 

approximately 47,000 CAS sorties. In October 1952 during the period of 

positional warfare, FEAF flew as close air support only 3,000 of 24,000 

sorties. Even in its most intense CAS effort (June 1953), FEAF’s attacks for 

Eighth Army still fell below half of its total sorties.50 When the front had 

stabilized, Fifth Air Force allocated 96 CAS sorties a day or about 13 percent 

of its total effort.51 

The Navy and Marine Corps viewed CAS with more enthusiasm, largely 

because of their experience with amphibious operations in the Pacific.52 Their 

system for both air requests and air direction stressed rapid response and 

decentralized management of CAS sorties.53 They believed that FEAF 

directed more sorties to interdiction than to CAS because FEAF controlled the 

sortie apportionment process.54 

Gen William M. Momyer gives a good synopsis of the rationale for Marine 

aviation. 

Control of Marine aviation, when the Marines are committed to a land campaign, 

has also been justified on the basis of its ability to support an amphibious operation, which the Marines are assigned as a primary mission. Since amphibious forces 

are without the artillery support normally organic to an Army division constituted 

for sustained land warfare. Marine landings forces are dependent upon naval gunfire, carrier based air, Marine air, and Air Force air (if within range) for fire 

support. After the forces hit the beach, Marine air augments the limited organic 

artillery. Then, since the Army is responsible for the conduct of prompt and sustained combat operations on land, Army forces replace Marines after the objective 

area is secure and the Marines either withdraw or become a part of the Army 

forces. Marine airpower is thus basically tailored to the needs of the landing force, 

including some fighters for local air defense. For interdicting the landing area and 

gaining control of the air, the Marines are dependent upon carrier-based air and 

land-based air. Thus, these higher priority missions are outside the basic responsibility of Marine aviation, which is close air support.55 

14 
Marine air wings were not attached to Marine divisions. Either aircraft 

wing commanders and division commanders worked on a cooperative basis or 

they functioned under a common amphibious task force commander or 

landing force commander ashore.56 

The Marines had battalion level tactical air control parties (TACP) whose 

communications reached directly to the TACC, whether afloat or ashore. 

Intermediate air officers assumed that the battalion air-ground team had 

already determined that artillery or naval gunfire was inappropriate or not 

unavailable. Upon receiving the tactical air request, the TACC evaluated its 

available aircraft and competing air missions but still assumed that the 

request should be filled as quickly as possible.57 Navy-Marine air request and 

air direction systems did not involve extensive participation of intervening 

headquarters.58 By eliminating the requirement that intervening ground 

force headquarters process requests, and by placing aircraft on station on 

regular schedules, the naval system ensured that strikes arrived only a few 

minutes after the forward air controller (FAC) made his request.59 

Concerned about the relative inaction of their own tactical air request and 

control system, the Marines wrested an agreement from the Fifth Air Force in 

May 1952 that MAG-12, a Skyraider and Corsair group, could send 12 sorties 

a day to the Marine division for training purposes. The allocation of the 

sorties then rose to 20. Eighth Army protested that the 1st Marine Division 

had captured part of 1st MAW and the quota system ended in December. 

Senior Marine air officers convinced FEAF to allow 1st MAW the first priority 

in answering the 1st Marine Division’s air requests. The JOC sanctioned 

direct communications between the division and the 1st MAW.60 By war’s end 

the 1st MAW commanders believed that they had worked out a solid 

arrangement with the Fifth Air Force, but the 1st Marine Division still did 

not like the time delays imposed by eliminating on-station sorties.61 

The significant difference between the AF-Army and Navy-Marine systems 

came in the degree of influence the ground commander had in requesting and 

conducting CAS strikes. The ground commander, however, did not have the 

authority to order Navy or Marine aviation commanders to allocate more 

aircraft to CAS missions. That authority remained with either the task force 

commander or the senior aviation commander.62 

To assure an air strike within five to 10 minutes, the Marines had combat 

aircraft on air alert over the front lines almost continuously. In a normal 

situation, the Army would have adequate time to employ the call type 

air-support missions which were more conservative of scarce air capabilities 

than were air alert missions.63 The Air Force thought that strip alert was 

more economical and allowed for better prestrike coordination. They also 

argued that while the naval CAS system was good for amphibious operations, 

CAS should not be a substitute for heavy artillery.64 In FEAF’s judgment, the 

Marines devoted far too many sorties to CAS, noting that requests from 

Marine divisions were four times higher than those from Army units.65 

Furthermore, Gen Otto P. Weyland argued that a much higher percentage of 

CAS sorties was flown in Korea than in the war in Germany (30 percent 

15 
versus 10 percent).66 With UN air forces having complete air supremacy, the 

Marine system worked well in Korea. Comparisons of the AF-Army and 

Marine systems were faulty because they were designed for different 

purposes. Naval CAS had been developed for amphibious operations where 

the short distances between the beachhead and the carriers allowed air to be 

continuously on call.67 There would also be a terrific expense if the Marine 

system was used to support 60 to 100 divisions.68 Finally, the chief value of 

the AF-Army system was its ability to concentrate all available air firepower 

on the sectors of the front where the enemy was attacking.69 

Of the total sorties flown, close air support, defined as strikes within the 

bomb line that received some positive direction from a ground or airborne 

controller, represented roughly 10 to 15 percent of the air effort.70 FEAF was 

never a large air force, yet during the war it flew 720,980 sorties, 57,665 of 

which were CAS. The Marines flew an additional 107,303 sorties, 32,482 in 

the CAS role.71 Absence of hostile air activities over the battle area allowed 

UN air forces to provide far more close support than would otherwise have 

been possible. UN ground forces were at first badly short of supporting 

artillery and were later hindered by a scarcity of ammunition, and airpower 

had to compensate for deficient ground firepower.72 

The Marines came away from Korea very displeased with the way their air 

forces had been used: “Probably the most serious problem of all, from the 

Marine Corps point of view, was that during much of the Korean War Marine 

air-ground components, trained to work as a team, were to a large extent 

precluded from operating together.”73 Once again, Marine air was separated 

from Marine divisions it was supposed to support.74 

Although the effectiveness of UNC air operations eluded precise 

calculation, Lt Gen Walton H. Walker, commanding general, US Eighth 

Army, believed that tactical air support allowed the UNC to remain on the 

peninsula and then march to the Yalu. Senior officers of the NKPA who 

surrendered in 1950 agreed. Tactical aviation provided the additional 

firepower that meant the difference between defeat and victory before the 

Chinese intervention.75 However, the Army still believed the Air Force put too 

much emphasis on less effective interdiction. “Whatever may be said for the 

value of air power—and there is no question that without it many of our 

advances would not have been possible—it simply could not keep the enemy 

from bringing in the armament he needed. It could slow him down and keep 

him working nights; but it could not isolate the battlefield.”76 

The Air Force’s continuing commitment to interdiction, while producing some 

positive results, weakened the potential contribution of close air support.77 The 

Air Force’s declining interest in close air support did not escape the Army. After 

the failure to draft a joint statement on CAS operations, the Army announced in 

January 1955 that the principles of the JTD had already been repudiated by the 

Air Force and therefore did not bind the Army. For all practical purposes the 

Army and Air Force had finally found a consensus by agreeing not to agree on 

what part close air support would play in future war.78 Thus the problems 

were ignored and caused further problems in Vietnam. 

16 
Vietnam 

According to John Schlight in his book published in 1988: 

Before the war, close air support, because it ceded much control of aircraft to ground 

commanders, was not a favored mission of the Air Force. Anchored for decades in the 

strategic nuclear mission, many airmen viewed direct support of ground forces as the 

least efficient use of the air weapon. Despite their conviction that enemy resources were 

more effectively dealt with before they reached the battlefield, it became necessary from 

time to time and for a variety of reasons to use aircraft in close air support. The conflict 

in South Vietnam was one of those occasions.79 

When massive retaliation became the national strategy in the 1950s, the 

USAF concentrated on organizing, training, and equipping for general and 

tactical nuclear wars. The Air Force ignored air-ground support in any lesser 

contingency.80 Air Force Chief of Staff gen John P. McConnell noted, “We 

[USAF] did not even start doing anything about tactical aviation until 1961 or 

1962.”81 Because of this, close air support in South Vietnam followed a 

pattern of gradual development.82 With the expansion of US involvement in 

the war, improvements had to made rapidly. In April 1965 the commander in 

chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), commanded that the primary mission in South 

Vietnam was close air support and the first priority of close air support was to 

help troops in contact.83 

Prewar Doctrine 

On the eve of the American buildup in Southeast Asia, joint Army-Air Force 

doctrine on close air support was virtually nonexistent. The concept of close air 

support itself was difficult to clarify. How close was close? By the early 1960s, 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) shaped a working definition of close air support: 

“Air action against hostile targets in close proximity to friendly forces and 

which requires the detailed integration of each air mission with the fire and 

movement of those forces.”84 Air Force leaders expected to set priorities for the 

different missions (counterair, interdiction, close air support) according to each 

situation as it arose.85 The only specification was from joint Army-Air Force 

plans in 1960, which fixed the expected Air Force close air support at five 

sorties per day for each maneuvering army battalion.86 

In 1961 the Army Command and General Staff College examined CAS. 

Three particular recommendations were Army-Air Force joint operational 

planning should be decentralized to the level of field army and tactical air 

force; allocated resources for CAS should be adequate for the actual need; and 

CAS should be under the OPCON of the ground commander.87 The Army 

suggested that three USAF squadrons designated solely for CAS be assigned 

to each army division.88 With the prospects of war looming, the services 

established multiple boards to examine CAS. The Army instituted the Howze 

Board. The Howze Board recommended that commanders of field armies (or 

17 
independent corps) possess OPCON over all their air support, and that the 

Air Force adopt quantitative requirements for close air support (e.g., 35–40 

sorties per division per day in a conventional war with the Soviets, or 25–30 

sorties against the Chinese).89 The Air Force countered with the Disoway 

Board, which concluded that all air assets should be managed by a single air 

commander. In 1963 Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara instituted the 

Army-Air Force Close Air Support Board, which failed to come to any 

agreement. The deliberations of the Howze Board, the Disoway Board, and 

the Army and Air Force Close Air Support Board underscored disagreements 

over a few significant issues that blocked a consensus on CAS. The Army’s 

vision of command and control was of a decentralized system in which the 

local ground force commander received enough CAS to eliminate the targets 

he chose at the time he desired. Essentially, the Army wanted the ground 

commander, at the lowest possible level, to have OPCON over all supporting 

aircraft in his AOR. This could reach the point where a company commander 

owned a flight of F-100s. The Army was particularly worried that previously 

ordered aircraft might be diverted to other missions without the permission of 

the ground commander. In contrast, the Air Force viewed CAS as a joint asset 

under the OPCON of the joint theater commander.90 

Another source of interservice controversy was the setting of quantitative 

measures to determine adequate CAS. The Army desired that each division 

be allocated a certain number of CAS sorties for each combat day, enabling 

the division commander to develop operational plans on a reliable basis. More 

importantly, he wanted to be certain of not losing that air support in the 

midst of an engagement, as he would hold operational control over the 

aircraft assigned to him each day. 

The Air Force argued that in the fluid, rapidly changing circumstances of 

combat, battlefield priorities could shift quickly and unexpectedly. This 

required concentrating CAS in a particular area, even to the point of denying 

support to less heavily engaged units. Assigning the overriding authority to 

the JFC would allow for parceling air assets to best advantage and flexibility 

in dealing with unforeseen events. His view would be more to overall 

operational success rather than simply limited tactical successes. Although 

Air Force leaders remained skeptical about assigning a certain number of 

CAS sorties per division per day, they were not completely opposed to the 

idea.91 These differences in service CAS philosophy impacted the command 

and control arrangement built in the theater. 

Command and Control 

In The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: The War in South 

Vietnam, Schlight notes that: 

The Southeast Asia war was the second test of America’s unified command structure for theater warfare since its adoption in the National Security Act of 1947. The 

18 
earlier test in Korea had shown the command structure to be effective but cumbersome and had resulted in some serious disagreements between the services. It was 

hoped that the unified command system could be improved in Vietnam and that 

American air resources could be kept intact for more effective use. . . . Several 

major obstacles rendered this search for unity and centralization extremely difficult.92 

The system of command in Vietnam was not the hierarchical one used in 

World War II and Korea, but one that allowed the autonomous application of 

combat power by the individual services.93 All forces assigned to South 

Vietnam came under the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) 

headquarters. MACV was established as a subunified command under 

CINCPAC. MACV was only responsible for combat operations in South 

Vietnam, and later Cambodia.94 In the tradition of World War II and Korea, 

Gen William C. Westmoreland served as both the theater and ground 

component commander. Again, in this situation airpower was not coequal. 

The command and control system in Southeast Asia was pieced together 

incrementally, much as the war itself was. From the first, ad hoc 

arrangements shaped interservice coordination in South Vietnam. Unity of 

command never materialized because of the separate areas of responsibility. 

Seventh Air Force commanded Air Force assets in South Vietnam, deployed 

TAC units in Thailand, and had OPCON of Thailand-deployed Thirteenth Air 

Force units from the Philippines.95 The commander of the Seventh Air Force 

was essentially the air component commander but he did not control Navy 

aircraft—owned by the commander in chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT)— 

Marine aircraft (until 1968), or the heavy bombers of Strategic Air Command 

(SAC).96 

The Navy’s Pacific Fleet (PACFLT) in Hawaii retained control of the 

carriers on Yankee or Dixie Station. Most Navy air missions were used for 

interdiction in North Vietnam. Those few naval sorties used in South 

Vietnam came under the tactical control of the Seventh Air Force.97 Until 

1966 the United States Navy (USN) maintained a carrier off the coast of IV 

Corps at the Dixie Station. After that time, the demands of the air war in the 

north forced its redeployment northward.98 

The original tactical air control system (TACS) in Vietnam was designed to 

handle the limited needs of the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) and the Army 

of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). As additional forces deployed in country, 

the system was forced to expand in fits and starts.99 Initially, there were two 

separate air control systems in South Vietnam, the VNAF-USAF TACS and 

the Army-Marine air-ground system. The first functioned throughout the 

country, while the second were assigned in a direct support role within each 

corps tactical zone.100 In the beginning, the air operations center (AOC) 

coordinated only VNAF and USAF tactical air operations. It served only as a 

liaison function for Army, Navy, and Marine air operations. 

In Vietnam the USAF added a new element to the system, the air support 

operations center (ASOC), later redesignated the direct air support center 

(DASC). During World War II and Korea there were no DASCs, only air 

19 
liaison officers at the corps level. There had been limited decentralization of 

authority below the tactical air force (TAF) level. Decisions were made at the 

field army/TAF level and not at corps. South Vietnam was divided into four 

corps areas and there was a need for more flexibility in the AGOS. Normally, 

three US divisions would require a corps headquarters, but this would have 

been confused with the four ARVN corps. The United States, therefore, 

created I and II Field Force Vietnam (FFV) headquarters, which were 

equivalent to corps headquarters.101 The establishment of the ASOC/DASC 

gave the corps commander the ability to change the priority of targets or 

units in response to the fluid battle situation within his corps area.102 DASCs 

were set up in the four military regions (I through IV), with VNAF personnel 

controlling VNAF operations and USAF personnel controlling USAF 

operations in support of the ARVN. Additional DASCs were established in 

military regions I and III to support the US Marines and US Army.103 The 

ASOCs controlled CAS sorties in specific geographical regions on the basis of 

daily sorties made available from the AOC. Each ASOC then distributed its 

daily quota within the corps area to satisfy the corps commander’s plans.104 

Within the corps or field force area, the DASC could divert aircraft from lower 

priority missions or airborne alert, but only the TACC could scramble ground 

alert sorties or divert intercorps.105 After 1962 the JOC was known as the 

AOC, then in 1965 the AOC became the TACC. 

In 1966 General Westmoreland integrated the two systems into the joint 

air-ground operations system (JAGOS). With top to bottom supervision of the 

entire CAS system, he set priorities for ground operations through weekly 

allocations of air resources. Ground commanders still received daily 

allocations, while the immediate request process and a large pool of air assets 

allowed enough flexibility to meet unexpected threats.106 

The Marines brought the 1st MAW with the III Marine Amphibious Force 

(MAF) in 1965. Marine air was used almost entirely in I Corps in direct 

support of the 1st and 3d Marine Divisions. The Marines established their 

own tactical air control system. From 1965 to 1967, the Seventh Air Force had 

little influence over Marine air to support other ground forces. Surplus 

Marine sorties were provided to the Seventh Air Force on a daily basis, but 

the decision was strictly up to the 1st MAW.107 A DASC was collocated with 

each Marine division. CAS requests were sent from each DASC directly to the 

MAW. III MAF did not apportion or allocate these requests. The MAW simply 

divided its sorties in half and provided all in-commission aircraft on a 

planned flow of airborne alert, regardless of the ground situation.108 

The Marines retained control over the 1st MAW until the Tet offensive. 

Westmoreland had to reinforce the III MAF with three Army divisions. At 

this point the two air-ground systems came into conflict in the I Corps 

area.109 In reaction to the lack of air coordination and uneven supply of CAS 

aircraft from the USAF and Marine air control systems during the 1968 Tet 

offensive, General Westmoreland gave General Momyer, Seventh Air Force 

commander, operational control of the 1st MAW.110 The OPCON, however, 

was in name only. The Marines agreed to provide the Seventh Air Force with 

20 
a daily sortie rate equivalent to their primary aircraft authorized (PAA). They 

actually flew more than that and used the surplus to support III MAF. In 

addition their daily PAA sorties were primarily tasked to support III MAF, so 

in effect nothing really changed. Finally, the Marine DASC in I Corps was the 

only one that had scramble authority to augment preplanned missions.111 

Because of the crisis the commander, US Military Assistance Command 

Vietnam (COMUSMACV) also gained temporary authority from CINCPAC to 

tactically control Task Force 77 sorties through the Seventh Air Force.112 

Service Controversies 

Army and Air Force disagreements over the distribution of CAS sorties per 

combat day to each division and the air-ground command relationship 

continued to affect CAS operations throughout the war.113 In early 1965 the 

Army and Air Force chiefs of staff signed the “Concept for Improved Joint 

Air-Ground Operations.” This agreement formalized the procedures for the 

apportionment and allocation of tactical air sorties. The joint force 

commander would decide the daily proportion (apportionment) of tactical air 

resources for close air support, counterair, and interdiction. The individual 

component commanders could make recommendations directly to the joint 

force commander prior to his decision. The air component commander was 

then required to report specifically what the daily proportion was to the 

ground commander. It was then up to the ground commander to allocate 

(distribute) these CAS sorties among his subordinates. Finally, there would 

be no established number of sorties per day.114 

The most serious disagreement was over the role and control of attack 

helicopters. The Army declined to put helicopters under the control of the 

AOC, arguing that they were essentially part of the ground forces and should 

remain OPCON to the corps commander.115 Army leaders considered organic 

helicopters to be continuously available and immediately responsive to 

ground commanders. The Army felt that armed helicopters complemented Air 

Force tactical airpower by providing an additional element of firepower 

between Army artillery and USAF close air support.116 To back up this new 

doctrine, the Army introduced new terms such as direct aerial fire support 

(DAFS) to differentiate it from CAS. DAFS was defined as “fire delivered by 

aerial vehicles organic to ground forces against surface targets and in support 

of land operations.”117 The only realistic difference between CAS and DAFS 

was who owned the air asset, Army helicopters or Air Force fighters. 

Conduct of the War 

In Air Power in Three Wars, Momyer writes the following: “Because there 

were no front lines except for the 17th parallel which arbitrarily separated 

21 
South Vietnam from North Vietnam, the enemy was apt to be anywhere; this 

was a distinguishing characteristic of the war as compared to World War II 

and Korea. In those wars, once the aircraft passed the ‘bombline,’ the crew 

could assume that anything that moved was directly associated with support 

of the enemy’s fighting force and was a legitimate target.”118 

In Vietnam, though, all villages and towns were in the combat zone. 

Because all of South Vietnam was considered to be within the bomb line fire 

support coordination line (FSCL), all tactical air operations were considered 

integral to the ground scheme of maneuver and were therefore classified as 

close air support.119 To minimize attacks on civilians, FACs became the 

required means of control.120 The use of armed FAC aircraft led to faster 

response times for those situations when more firepower was not required or 

as a phased response until the arrival of fighters.121 Because a formal line 

between two opposing ground forces did not exist, the techniques of applying 

airpower were under constant revision. In World War II and Korea only a 

small fraction of the sorties were devoted to immediate air strikes, although 

fighters could be diverted from preplanned ones in a matter of minutes. The 

most effective use of airpower in close air support in both World War II and 

Korea was in a preplanned mission designed to break through enemy 

defenses or to stop a penetration. In these missions airpower could be 

massed, and the full shock of the attack exploited before the enemy could 

become reorganized.122 The combination of dense foliage, mountainous 

terrain, and monsoonal weather combined to make less than ideal conditions 

for the effectiveness of close air support. The counterinsurgency nature of the 

war also hampered CAS. Fleeting, small unit ambushes made for less than 

lucrative airpower targets.123 After the ban on jet aircraft was lifted in 1965, 

F-100s and F-4s flew the bulk of CAS sorties.124 Gunships proved particularly 

useful in night and adverse weather CAS due to their high rates of fire and 

long loiter time.125 B-52s were targeted differently from the tactical air forces. 

Each FFV and ARVN corps, along with the Seventh Air Force, nominated 

targets to MACV. MACV then selected the targets. The TACS then controlled 

the B-52 strikes in South Vietnam.126 

The military objectives of the war in the south were essentially ground 

objectives: kill enemy soldiers, neutralize enemy bases, and open up secure 

lines of communication. With only a few air officers in decision-making 

positions at MACV, the direct responsibility for attaining these objectives sat 

with the ground commanders.127 To achieve these objectives, the American 

combat operations in Vietnam were broken into three phases: buildup, 

sustained combat operations, and Vietnamization. 

Prior to 1965, CAS sorties were in support of the ARVN and comparatively 

few in number. When US ground forces began combat operations in 1965, 

CAS sorties jumped from approximately 2,000 in January to over 13,000 in 

December.128 MACV excluded the use of the term interdiction in reporting Air 

Force sorties in 1966. Seventh Air Force therefore expanded its definition of 

close air support to include some traditional types of interdiction.129 On a 

normal day, Seventh Air Force flew 300 preplanned sorties: 1st MAW, 200; 

22 
and the VNAF, 100. On average 40 aircraft were on ground alert and were 

scrambled three to four times. A typical day was 750 to 800 total CAS 

sorties.130 Obviously, major offensives caused dramatic surges in these 

numbers. As the strategy to use large ground sweeps grew in 1967, the 

demands for CAS likewise increased.131 An Air Force study of all operations 

in South Vietnam between March and June of 1966, showed that 91 percent 

of all search and destroy ground missions received tactical air support, 

one-third with troops in contact.132 Between 1965 and 1967, USAF flew 25 

percent of its CAS sorties (46,000) and 30 percent of its B-52 sorties (3,300) in 

support of 73 major US ground offensives against Vietcong and North 

Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops.133 

In the 1965–1968 period, 65–70 percent of Seventh Air Force missions were 

preplanned. These were normally in support of search and destroy operations. 

Aircraft were scheduled either against preselected targets or on-call at 

frequent intervals into the area. The remaining 30 percent were used for 

immediate missions.134 A preplanned mission in Vietnam was defined as a 

requirement for CAS at or outside three hours after initiation of the request. 

Preplanned missions historically have been the most productive since there is 

better integration of the air and ground effort in accordance with a specific 

plan of action.135 An immediate request was for less than three hours, but 

normally meant ASAP.136 Army and Air Force immediate request procedures 

evolved to a 20/40 formula. On average immediate requests would be filled 

within 20 minutes by airborne diverts of other missions, or within 40 minutes 

by scrambling aircraft on ground alert.137 In 1972 a joint Army-Air Force 

study group proposed time objectives for immediate requests: 50 percent 

within 15 minutes, 75 percent within 20 minutes, and 100 percent within 40 

minutes.138 Responsiveness was important. One Air Force study found that 

50 percent of all troops-in-contact incidents ended within 20 minutes and 

involved fewer than 10 enemy soldiers. Only 24 percent lasted more than 20 

minutes, while only 23 percent involved large enemy forces.139 

In May 1968 General Westmoreland modified the system to allocate 70 

percent of the total CAS sorties among the ground forces on a weekly basis 

and held the other 30 percent for daily allocation in response to the combat 

situation.140 Thus the ground commanders had a whole week’s commitment of 

CAS for planning. This essentially gave the ground commanders what they 

wanted. They now had dedicated air at their disposal and an airborne alert 

pool to further draw upon. By asking for a maximum number of preplanned 

sorties each day, in hopes that many of them would later be converted to 

immediates, ground commanders often did not have enough specific 

worthwhile targets for all their requests.141 This practice degenerated to the 

point where the intent was to launch a certain number of sorties without 

specific targets and then divert them as required.142 This was de facto the 

same as the Marine airborne alert system. 

If any event spotlighted CAS in Vietnam, it was the siege of Khe Sanh. Khe 

Sanh was “the episode that publicizes the phenomenal effectiveness of close 

air support more than any other in the annals of warfare.”143 The aerial 

23 
firepower employed at Khe Sanh was awesome in volume and diversity. 

Between mid-January and late March there were 10,000 USAF strikes, 5,000 

Navy, 7,000 Marine, and over 2,500 B-52, for a total of 24,500.144 

Between 1969 and 1973 the United States began a gradual pullout from 

Vietnam and the Vietnamization of the war. As US ground forces left, CAS 

was required to fill the increasing void in combat power in the south. At the 

same time, the capabilities of the VNAF were increasing. By March 1972 the 

VNAF was flying 90 percent of the missions in South Vietnam and 43 percent 

of those in Cambodia.145 

Apart from the US incursion into Cambodia, the final operation to 

highlight CAS was in response to the Easter offensive. The 1972 Easter 

offensive was the first exclusively conventional North Vietnamese offensive 

and provided the first real opportunity to evaluate traditional close air 

support. USAF, USMC, and USN ground attack sorties more than doubled 

from 2,000 per week to almost 4,700.146 

Conclusion 

The Army ground commanders continually protested the single air 

manager system. They fundamentally believed that the ground commander 

should have OPCON of CAS assets. General Westmoreland saw airpower 

primarily as a source of firepower to augment ground artillery, essentially in 

support of localized ground combat.147 

Accordingly, the best way to apply combat power was through a decentralized 

system that directly allocated air assets. Each ground echelon would then have 

the means and directive authority to employ his CAS. At the least there should 

be some minimum number of CAS sorties provided per unit per day that could 

not be taken away. At the most they wanted entire Air Force fighter units placed 

directly under the operational control of the field army commander.148 This was 

essentially a regression to the North African system. 

Despite arguments over command and control, the Army generally praised 

the caliber of CAS they received. In 1966 Army Chief of Staff gen Earle G. 

Wheeler said that the CAS the Army received in South Vietnam was better in 

quality, quantity, and responsiveness than ever before.149 The US Army’s 

experience in Vietnam may have created an unrealistic expectation as to the 

amount of CAS that would always be available. The characteristic 

engagement in South Vietnam was one in which the ground forces found and 

fixed the enemy, then waited for an air strike to destroy him.150 Many Air 

Force officers complained that CAS may have been overused, called in to take 

out a single sniper. I do not agree with this. The fact is that the airpower was 

available. Political decisions limited its use in strategic attack and 

interdiction against the small unit counterinsurgency was problematic. 

Therefore, if CAS saved the life of a single infantryman in taking out that 

sniper, it was worth it. However, it must be recalled that in Vietnam there 

24 
was an abundance of air assets and no air threat in the south. Similarly, 

Seventh Air Force was free to concentrate on CAS in the south while the 

Thirteenth Air Force, SAC, and the Navy struck targets north of the 

demilitarized zone. That is a situation that may not be possible again. 

Desert Storm 

The preparation for the air campaign in Desert Storm began long before 17 

January 1991; even before the Iraqi invasion. In fact it began in the 

mid-1970s, when the USAF and the other services began a detailed analysis 

of the lessons of Vietnam. “The experience gained in Southeast Asia proved 

invaluable in our preparation, planning and execution in Southwest Asia.”151 

The repeated lesson for the Air Force was the need for a single air manager. 

Unlike the lead-in to Vietnam, airpower was specifically primed to handle the 

situation which arose in the Persian Gulf. This section examines the 

pre-Desert Storm doctrine, the command and control structure in the US 

Central Command (CENTCOM), and the actual use of CAS in Desert Storm. 

Finally, it will summarize both the impact of CAS on Desert Storm and the 

impact of Desert Storm on CAS. 

Prewar Doctrine 

In the 1980s there was significant movement towards joint doctrine, 

pushed by three successive chairmen of the joint chiefs.152 However, this 

movement was not equal among the services. The Army’s concept of jointness 

was characterized as the subordination of the other components to the ground 

war. According to the then-current version of FM 100-5, Operations, airpower 

was an integrated but subordinate element of the AirLand team. Throughout 

the document, air operations are depicted as fire support for ground 

maneuver. Although planners must coordinate “air and naval support of 

ground maneuver,”153 ground maneuver never supports air operations.154 

USAF had continued disagreements with the Army over providing 

battlefield support to the ground forces.155 The Army was basically satisfied 

with the status of close air support in the 1980s, particularly given the service 

provided in Vietnam. They had their own modern attack helicopters and a 

dedicated Air Force CAS aircraft in the A-10. The problem was with CAS’s 

first cousin, battlefield air interdiction (BAI). The 31 Initiatives of 1984 led 

the Army to expect that the Air Force would comply with mutually accepted 

agreements on BAI. In contrast to interdiction, BAI attacks targets 

nominated by corps commanders that are closer to ground units. It gives the 

ground commander another powerful tool to shape the battlefield. AirLand 

Battle doctrine relies on the promise of airpower killing or at least holding 

distant enemy formations while ground forces maneuver against them. It is 

25 
much more than just the indiscriminate attrition of enemy forces. The 

function of BAI is to take away the enemy’s freedom of maneuver, his 

sustainment, and his will to resist.156 The conduct of BAI assumes that the 

ground commanders can maintain awareness of their FLOT. This ensures 

that they are not attacked from the air. The Army’s other fire control measure 

is the FSCL, which is a permissive fire line. Beyond it fires could be employed 

(normally by the JFACC) without coordination with the ground commander 

or fear of hitting friendlies. Fires short of the FSCL required the approval of 

the ground commander. CAS requires detailed integration because it 

normally occurs between the FLOT and the FSCL. In Desert Storm there 

were two problems with the FSCL concept. First, the Army’s tactical missile 

system could fire beyond the FSCL into the domain of the JFACC. The worry 

was in disrupting friendly air strikes, or worse hitting our own aircraft. 

Second, since the ground forces were advancing rapidly, the FSCL had to 

move forward with them. The real estate open for unhindered air attack was 

therefore constantly shrinking. Also, the speed of advance made it difficult for 

ground headquarters to maintain a precise FLOT. This caused particular 

concern with friendly fire incidents from the air.157 

There remained some causes for concern with the Air Force and Marines as 

well. Both services saw what they wanted in 1986 Omnibus Agreement for 

the tactical control of Marine aviation. The Marines stubbornly refused to 

recognize the idea that there might be situations when Marine air would not 

be tied to the MAGTF. Senior Marine aviators still remembered Vietnam, 

including what they perceived as an Air Force attempt to gain control of 

Marine air at the expense of the MAGTF concept. As the Marines saw it, they 

had responsibility for a specified area in the vicinity of their ground forces. 

Within that area it was the commander of the MAGTF, not the JFACC, who 

determined missions and priorities. If there were any sorties left over, they 

would be made available to the JFACC. The Marines saw themselves as the 

only true combined arms team, integrated across air-ground lines. The Air 

Force focused on the utilization of all tactical air assets in the theater. It 

recognized the Marines MAGTF doctrine, but emphasized the need for 

centralized allocation and tasking authority.158 

The Navy had turned to short-duration contingency operations as gainful 

employment short of the full execution of its maritime strategy against the 

Soviet Union. It essentially paid lip service to jointness and expected to 

conduct operations on its own. The Air Force demand for unity of command to 

wage an air campaign met closed doors from the other services. 

Command and Control 

During the years between the end of the Vietnam War and the onset of 

Desert Shield, there were several developments that fostered more interest in 

joint command and control issues. The most important of these was the 

26 
Defense Reorganization (Goldwater-Nichols) Act of 1986. The act empowered 

the CINCs and the chairman of the JCS with major new responsibilities in 

resource allocation and national security planning and operations.159 

The top level command structure for Desert Storm was simple compared to 

the convoluted one in Vietnam. The chain of command went from the 

National Command Authorities, through the chairman of the JCS, directly to 

the commander in chief, Central Europe (CINCENT).160 The structure of 

CENTCOM was much as that used in the European theater in World War II. 

To deal with the different services and coalition partners, Gen H. Norman 

Schwarzkopf structured the command along both functional and service 

component lines. Although there were two land forces, Army Forces Central 

Command (ARCENT) and Marine Forces, Central Command (MARCENT), 

the CINC acted as his own joint force land component commander (JFLCC), 

rather than appointing one. He also had to keep a tight influence on the 

Arab-Islamic Joint Forces Command. In addition he designated Allied Forces 

Central Europe (AFCENT) as the JFACC.161 

For the first time since World War II, the engaged fixed-wing tactical air 

forces of all the services were under the tactical control of a single air 

commander.162 By centralizing airpower decisions, the JFACC forced a higher 

degree of coordination in joint air operations than had occurred in the 

laissez-faire Korean and Vietnam air efforts.163 Despite the meaning of the 

second “C” in JFACC, he did not technically “command” Navy or Marine air. 

They still reported to their own service component commanders. The JFACC 

did, however, exercise tactical control and task them to fly missions according 

to the CINC’s air apportionment decision.164 SAC bombers were put under 

CINCENT’s operational control and tasked through the air tasking order 

(ATO) process. SAC liaison officers were detailed to the JFACC staff. With 

this simple step decades of command problems through World War II, Korea, 

and Vietnam concerning the integration of heavy bombers melted away.165 

The Air Force command and control system became the theater air command 

and control system, with the other services providing liaisons to it.166 As in 

Vietnam, ASOCs (AF-Army) and DASCs (USMC) were established with each 

corps equivalent. 

Conduct of the War 

As was the case in 1942–43, airpower had a major hurdle to clear before 

assuming its proper role in Desert Storm. This critical question addressed 

whether airpower would be used for strategic operations or for CAS and 

interdiction.167 A prime example of this question is an exchange between 

Colonel Warden, primary architect of the Instant Thunder air campaign, and 

Gen Colin L. Powell, chairman of the JCS. “‘Now, General,’ said Warden, his 

voice growing hard and a little edgy as it became clear that Powell was 

thinking about diverting some of Instant Thunder’s aircraft to ground 

27 
support, ‘one of the things we really need to be careful about is that if there’s 

some action on the ground, you can’t reroll the strategic air campaign. We 

made that mistake in World War II, and we don’t want to do that again.’”168 

This plan was different from Gen Charles A. Horner’s, commander, Air 

Forces Central Command (COMCENTAF), initial plans for the air operation. 

He wanted to “build a hose and point it where the ground commander sees 

that it’s needed.”169 In General Horner’s mind, “the best thing to do was to 

fight a ground war of maneuver and use airpower to cut the sustainment 

since [the Iraqis] were vulnerable there.”170 The Air Forces, Central 

Command (CENTAF) commander’s proposal was precisely how an Army 

corps commander, complying with AirLand doctrine, would want his air 

commander to think.171 He eventually endorsed a modified version of Instant 

Thunder, when it was approved by commander in chief, Central Command 

(CINCCENT). 

The first opportunity to use CAS in anger occurred on the night of 29 

January. The Iraqi 5th Mechanized Division attacked from Kuwait to Al 

Khafji. The Saudis forces defending the border were forced to withdraw. Then 

as General Schwarzkopf noted, Air Force and Marine air “pounded the living 

hell out of the column all day long, until pilots were complaining they couldn’t 

find targets because of smoke from ones they’d already hit.”172 Unfortunately 

friendly forces were killed by CAS aircraft. 

Army commanders were pleased with General Horner’s plan for CAS for 

the ground offensive. With the number of aircraft at his disposal, General 

Horner saw that the most efficient method of employing sorties to support the 

ground forces in contact with the enemy would be to push or flow them 

forward. Aircraft launched into particular areas at set intervals. For heavy 

concentrations of Iraqis this could be as short as seven minutes. This, in 

effect, was a resurrection of the Marine system that the Air Force had argued 

against for 40 years. Under the control of the airborne battlefield command 

and control center (ABCCC), the fighters would check in with the corps ALOs 

to see if they had any targets. If not, they would be retasked to interdiction by 

the ABCCC.173 This approach was only possible because of the surplus of 

available airpower in the theater.174 The flow CAS system worked well in 

practice. On 24 February air planners provided more than 600 Air Force and 

Marine CAS sorties.175 CAS did not fly within five kilometers (km) of 

friendlies because the armored columns were moving so fast that the ground 

FACs needed that much safe separation. The fear of fratricide after the battle 

for Al Khafji caused most ground commanders to employ CAS very cautiously. 

Even then there were friendly fire accidents.176 An additional technique was 

the use of kill boxes. They were a 30 x 30 mile square defined by latitude and 

longitude and further subdivided into multiple sectors. These were patrolled 

by fast FACs during the day and tank-plinking F-111s at night.177 

The Army’s most vocal objection of the war was to a perceived failure by the 

JFACC to strike targets nominated by the corps. This erupted with the 

dissemination of ARCENT’s 18 February situation report: “Air supportrelated issues continue to plague final preparations for offensive operations 

28 
and raise doubts concerning our ability to effectively shape the battlefield 

prior to initiation of the ground campaign. Too few sorties are made available 

to VII and XVIII Corps and, while air support missions are being flown 

against first-echelon enemy divisions, Army-nominated targets are not being 

serviced. Efforts must be taken now to align the objectives of the air and 

ground campaigns, and ensure the success of future operations.”178 

The problem was more one of perception, because the JFACC was merely 

following the CINC’s priorities. The CINC, however, did not keep his corps 

commanders informed, despite his dual hatting as JFLCC. The JFACC was in 

turn blamed for ignoring the corps requests.179 

CINCCENT established priorities for air preparation of the battlefield. Although 

the ground commanders made recommendations regarding targets and timing of 

the operations, CINCCENT aligned it with the overall theater plan. Ground tactical 

commanders found this discomforting, since they were most concerned about forces 

immediately to their front and had only limited information on how CINCCENT 

was using airpower to shape the entire theater. Additionally, by CINCCENT direction, air operations did not initially emphasize destruction of front line Iraqi forces 

in the KTO until just before the ground offensive. This also concerned the ground 

commanders, who naturally wanted airpower to degrade the Iraqi units immediately in their line of advance.180 

The issue was not over whether JFACC apportioned aircraft were hitting 

battlefield targets. They had been doing this from the beginning. The issue 

was the weight of effort assigned to battlefield preparation. The argument 

was, therefore, primarily questioning the CINC’s judgment, and secondarily 

the JFACC’s responsiveness to the ground commanders’ requests.181 By midFebruary ground targets in Kuwait and southern Iraq were a major focus of 

the overall air effort. By 24 February and the start of the ground campaign, 

the Iraqi army had been bombed to the point of near neutralization.182 

Procedures for the allocation and control of CAS sorties remained a 

problem until the day prior to G day. The master attack plan (MAP) reflected 

the CINC’s apportionment decision and the ATO translated it into allocation. 

Service component commanders had an intense interest in the type and 

quantity of sorties tasked in accordance with that apportionment. There is 

little evidence that the CINC became involved in JFACC decisions, other than 

those related to apportionment. As the ground war grew closer, he did 

establish a joint target coordination board to ensure the needs of all the 

service components were met.183 Disagreements among the components, and 

particularly with the JFACC, were not uncommon.184 General Horner, not 

unreasonably, insisted that all air missions be tasked against a target or a 

mission, not to simply be held on station waiting for something to happen. 

The fix was to have them proceed with alternate tasking if no immediate 

requests arose.185 

Disagreement surfaced between the JFACC staff and the Marines over the 

degree the ATO covered excess Marine sorties not allotted to the joint air 

effort.186 The series of compromises struck between the JFACC and 

MARCENT put their fixed-wing tactical air under the ATO, while the 

Marines retained control and tasking authority over sorties in specified zones 

29 
near their ground units. This geographic distribution was a throwback to the 

route packages of Vietnam. Because of this the JFACC did not have complete 

tasking authority over air operations.187 During the first five weeks of Desert 

Storm, the JFACC believed that Marine air had a role beyond preparing the 

battlefield in front of the Marine divisions. Marine commanders agreed, but 

were skeptical that when the time came to prepare the battlefield in front of 

their ground element, their air sorties would be diverted to other missions. 

They did not believe in the apportionment process.188 At the beginning of 

Desert Storm, the Marines partially supported the JFACC, but gradually 

withdrew most of their support prior to the start of the ground war. Lt Gen 

Walter E. Boomer, MARCENT, retained OPCON of the 3d MAW throughout 

the war. At the same time, the 3d MAW gradually withdrew their excess 

sorties from the JFACC pool, to the point that by the third day they were 

conducting their own independent air operations.189 The Marines squirreled 

away their sorties during the air operations prior to the ground war. They 

wanted to guarantee future support to the MAGTF. The telling factor was 

that the Marine sortie rate doubled when the ground war began.190 “The 

Marines successfully operated the MAGTF as an integrated combined arms 

team in a major war for the first time in their history.” They only offered 15 

percent of their sorties to the JFACC. The remaining 85 percent were in 

direct support of the Marine divisions.191 

Although the Army was happy with CAS, they were not happy with BAI. 

Mainly because there was none. BAI had been developed in NATO to allow 

ground attack aircraft to strike enemy armored formations inside or outside 

the FSCL, without the direct control of a FAC. As previously noted, the US 

Army saw BAI as a tool for the corps commander to shape the battlefield. But 

the USAF had a falling out with the concept. The 1984 edition of AFM 1-1 

defined BAI as a subset of air interdiction. By the 1992 edition of AFM 1-1 the 

term had been deleted.192 In USAF parlance BAI no longer existed. In Air 

Force terms, air support was either in front of the FSCL, as CAS, or beyond 

the FSCL, as interdiction. In Desert Storm, neither one gave the corps 

commanders their desired influence over air strikes. In practice though, the 

JFACC did divert F-16s, B-52s, and other coalition aircraft to strike corps 

nominated targets. Many times, however, the corps commander was unaware 

that this had been done.193 

Before the ground campaign, the Saudi border with Iraq and Kuwait was 

both the FLOT and the FSCL. On G day the FSCL was placed 15–20 km in 

front of the FLOT and remained so for the first two days. By the third day, 

with the rapid advance of ground forces, the FSCL had jumped out as far as 

100 km.194 This had multiple effects. Coalition airpower was restricted from 

attacking enemy formations within the FSCL without approval by the corps 

commanders. This allowed a sanctuary for certain Iraqi units which were 

beyond the range of Army artillery and missile systems, but procedurally 

exempt from air attack. After the cease-fire, US intelligence found 600–700 

tanks of the Hammurabi and Medina divisions still intact and secure in the 

sanctuary.195 On the other hand, it helped ensure a lower incidence of 

30 
fratricide from the air in a rapidly changing ground battle. Also, by extending 

the FSCL, it gave the corps commander more control to shape the battle in 

front of him by nominating distant targets for CAS, instead of the drawn out 

and adjudicated interdiction process. 

At the start of the ground war, General Horner made clear the level of air 

support he required his airmen to provide. “There are people’s lives depending 

on our ability to help them, if help is required. So I want a push put on. I 

want people feeling compulsion to hit the target. I do not want fratricide. . . . 

But up over the battlefield, it’s time to go to work. Because other people’s lives 

depend on ours. It’s no longer a case of the air just risking their own lives[;] 

other lives have to be considered.”196 

The actual employment of CAS in the Gulf War was a departure from the 

post-World War II experience. The closest example to it was the Allied 

breakout from the Normandy hedgerows in 1944. Then, fast moving armored 

columns, supported by fighter-bombers, rapidly penetrated and encircled 

retreating German forces. Instead of the fixed or slow moving battlelines of 

Korea, or the indeterminate lines of Vietnam, the 100-hour ground offensive 

in the Gulf was one of rapid movement. Except for the two Marine divisions 

arrayed against the Kuwaiti frontier, there was very little requirement for 

close air support in the classic sense. Coalition forces rarely needed aerial 

firepower in close proximity, their own organic firepower normally sufficed. 

Because of this, many air sorties tasked for CAS were diverted to deeper 

interdiction missions.197 This phase of the campaign was characterized by 

engagement and destruction of Iraqi units well forward of allied ground forces 

as the Iraqis maneuvered to counterattack, defend, or withdraw. A more 

accurate description of this phase would be the coalition air and ground forces 

simultaneously engaging different elements of the Iraqi army.198 Gen 

Frederick M. Franks Jr., VII Corps commander, noted that: 

The closest thing we had to classical, you know, National Training Center type, 

close air support was with the 2nd Cavalry. They were the covering force, and they 

had what we visualize close air support to be—aircraft attacking targets that are in 

the same battle space as ongoing direct fire engagements. Most of the time it was 

just not the right thing to do with air, it did not complement the direct fire fight. 

Our direct fire systems were doing fine in that kind of exchange, and where we 

needed the air was a little deeper. We had a rolling, attacking mechanism. That’s 

the way the commanders tended to use it. If we would have focused it all up close, 

you would have stopped the momentum of the ground attack, because of fratricide 

and so forth. So to keep the momentum of the ground attack moving, the divisional 

commanders pushed the close air support deeper.199 

According to data compiled by RAND, 4,393 CAS sorties, of a total 112,235 

sorties, were tasked during the Gulf War. Prior to the ground war, some 

sorties were reported as CAS only because of their proximity to the 

Iraqi-Saudi border. They did not support coalition ground forces engaged with 

Iraqi units.200 The vast majority of CAS sorties were flown during the ground 

war from 23–27 February. Of these, 1,461 were flown by USAF in support of 

the US Army and coalition forces. The Marines provided nearly all of their 

own CAS, as well as supplementing the pan-Arab ground forces. With their 

31 
emphasis on the MAGTF team, it is not surprising that the Marines logged 

two-thirds of all CAS sorties. Coalition air forces did not fly any CAS.201 

Typically, CAS operated under a push flow concept. Flights of aircraft were 

continually cycled to on-station airborne alerts for CAS missions or diversion 

to interdiction. Other aircraft remained on ground alert and were scrambled 

if the need arose.202 During the ground war, however, the weather was so bad 

and the battlefield smoke so thick that many times attack helicopters were 

the only close air support available.203 

Conclusion 

By the time the ground offensive started on 24 February 1991, the Iraqis 

had been under continuous air attack for 38 days. Several weeks before the 

start of the ground push, the air effort had shifted to shaping, preparing, and 

destroying the battlefield. As a result, they were denied any strategic, 

operational, and even tactical mobility. Actual Iraqi losses prior to G day were 

on the order of 60 percent of tanks, 60 percent of artillery, and 40 percent of 

APCs.204 When the cease-fire ended hostilities on 28 February, the Iraqi army 

had been destroyed as a fighting force by a combination of ground and 

airpower.205 The Iraqis’ surprise at the Hail Mary maneuver to the west was 

compounded by their decision to dig in and reinforce ground positions along a 

static defensive line. Although this had been successful in the first Gulf War 

with Iran, it proved fatal against the employment of coalition airpower.206 

A RAND study calculated that slightly under 4,400 CAS sorties were flown 

during Desert Storm out of a total air effort of 112,000 sorties.207 These 

numbers, however, are misleading because they include all combat and 

combat support sorties. If we focus on the ground war itself, and the time 

period from 23–27 February, we see that there were 2,573 CAS sorties flown, 

out of a total of 9,738 combat sorties. This equates to 26 percent of the effort. 

It should be remembered, though, that most of these CAS sorties became 

interdiction in their actual execution. CAS has been a constant source of 

friction between the Air Force, Army, and particularly the Marines yet its 

function and maximization were never really put to the test in Desert Storm. 

In Desert Storm, however, very few CAS missions were required. The enemy’s 

strength was largely neutralized and ground units moved rapidly and with 

overwhelming organic firepower.208 The Gulf War Air Power Survey simply 

sums up CAS in the Gulf when it states, “In terms of the state as well as the 

capabilities of Iraqi ground forces after the air campaign, one can agree that 

close air support was never essential to accomplishment of the ground 

mission.”209 

The true measure of progress in joint air operations is whether the 

command arrangements and doctrine used in Desert Storm would have 

worked if the allies had only half the deployed airpower.210 The 

apportionment and allocation process never had to make the really tough 

32 
choices. Nearly every air support need was ultimately met. The Army and 

Marines fought in their accustomed combined-arms manner. Tactical 

airpower was used as it has always been used in the past. It was not 

integrated into the ground scheme of maneuver.211 Once again CAS was 

flying artillery. 

Summary 

Joint Pub 1, Joint Warfare of the US Armed Forces, states that “military 

doctrine presents fundamental principles that guide the employment of 

forces. Doctrine is authoritative but not directive. It provides the distilled 

insights and wisdom gained from our collective experience with warfare.”212 

The current brouhaha over roles and missions highlights the continuing 

problems with CAS. Parochialism and doctrinal differences continue to distort 

our insights and cloud our wisdom. Air Force doctrine in relation to CAS has 

changed little since the 1930s. It continues to place a low emphasis on CAS. 

AFM 1-1 states that CAS “normally produces the most focused and briefest 

effects of any mission in the force application role. . . . If aerospace forces are 

employed primarily in close air support, . . . they are not likely to achieve 

campaign level effects.”213 Our only dedicated CAS asset, the A-10, is in 

constant jeopardy of retirement. The perennial CAS problems of command 

and control, communications, and identification of friends and foes remain. 

There were more coalition deaths to friendly air fire in Desert Storm than to 

enemy ground action. 

Despite FM 100-20’s pronouncements about coequality, air component 

commanders never have been, and under the current Unified Command Plan, 

never will be coequal. As long as the war-fighting CINCs come from the 

surfacebound forces, airpower will remain subject to the vagaries of the 

commander’s culture and doctrine. From Tunisia in 1943 to Iraq in 1991, 

there has always been a conflict between the desires of the air and ground 

components concerning ground attack. Air commanders favor deep attacks for 

theaterwide operational effects, while ground commanders favor closer 

attacks with more immediate battlefield, tactical effects. We have historically 

fought with a luxury of resources. The American way of war has been 

annihilation through brute force. There has not been a need to make the 

tough decisions as to the apportionment of air sorties among the different 

missions. In the European theater of operations we could conduct nearly 

simultaneous, maximum efforts at strategic bombing, air superiority, 

interdiction, and CAS. However, that is not the case today. The inexorable 

decrease in the classic tactical air force structure of the future will require 

more difficult, controversial, and important decisions in the distribution and 

employment of now limited air assets. That is the nature of the JFACC’s job. 

33 
Notes 

1. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. by Michael Howard and Peter Paret 

(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 133–47. 

2. Richard P. Hallion, Strike from the Sky: The History of Battlefield Air Attack 1911–1945 

(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), 46. 

3. Air Corps Field Manual (FM) 1-5, Employment of Aviation of the Army, 1940, 42. 

4. Hallion, 52. 

5. Air Corps FM 1-10, Tactics and Techniques of Air Attack, 1940, 114–19. 

6. Hallion, 150. 

7. Daniel R. Mortensen, A Pattern for Joint Operations: World War II Close Air Support 

North Africa (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1987), 20. 

8. Hallion, 163. 

9. William M. Momyer, Air Power in Three Wars (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing 

Office [GPO], 1978), 40. 

10. FM 100-20, Command and Employment of Air Power, 21 July 1943, 1. 

11. Ibid., 10–11. 

12. Stephen J. McNamara, Air Power’s Gordian Knot: Centralized versus Organic Control 

(Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1994), 28. 

13. Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea 1950–1953 (Washington, D.C.: 

Office of Air Force History, 1983), 174. 

14. Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 253; Futrell, 78. 

15. Hastings, 254. 

16. Futrell, 704. 

17. Hastings, 255. 

18. Alan R. Millet, “Korea, 1950–1953,” in Case Studies in the Development of Close Air 

Support, ed. Benjamin F. Cooling (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1990), 358. 

19. Ibid., 345. 

20. Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War (New York: Da Capo Press, 1967), 27. 

21. Millet, 384. 

22. James F. Schnabel and Robert J. Watson, The History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, vol. 3, 

The Korean War, 2 parts (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1979), pt. 2:711–909 as cited in 

Alan R. Millet, “Korea, 1950–1953,” in Case Studies in the Development of Close Air Support, 

ed. Benjamin F. Cooling (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1990), 384. 

23. Ibid., 386. 

24. Oral memoir, Gen Earle E. Partridge, USAF, as cited in Alan R. Millet, “Korea, 

1950–1953,” in Case Studies in the Development of Close Air Support, ed. Benjamin F. Cooling 

(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1990), 358. 

25. Ibid., 345. 

26. JFACC Primer, 2d ed., February 1994, 4. 

27. Momyer, 258. 

28. Ridgway, 104. 

29. The Royal Navy was under the operational control of the US Seventh Fleet. Michael 

Langley, Inchon Landing: MacArthur’s Last Triumph (New York: Times Books, 1979), 55. 

30. Hastings, 266. 

31. Momyer, 61–62. 

32. Millet, 359. 

33. Futrell, 707. 

34. Millet, 368. 

35. Momyer, 62. 

36. Millet, 349. 

37. Hastings, 255. It appears that Hastings has an axe to grind against the Air Force, 

particularly in its emphasis on strategic bombing. This, however, does not negate his point here. 

38. JFACC Primer, 4. 

39. McNamara, 81. 

40. Millet, 349. 

34 
41. Ibid., 371. 

42. FM 31-35, Air-Ground Operations, 13 August 1946, 12. 

43. McNamara, 83. 

44. Millet, 347–48. 

45. Ibid., 348. 

46. Ibid., 350. 

47. Ibid. 

48. Ibid. 

49. Ibid., 351. 

50. Ibid., 384. 

51. Ibid. 

52. Ibid. 

53. Ibid. 

54. McNamara, 84–85. 

55. Momyer, 59–60. 

56. Millet, 352. 

57. Ibid., 351. 

58. Ibid., 352. 

59. Ibid., 353. 

60. Ibid., 390. 

61. Ibid. 

62. Ibid., 352. 

63. Futrell, 705. 

64. Millet, 352. 

65. Gen Otto P. Weyland, “The Air Campaign in Korea,” Air University Quarterly Review, 

Fall 1953, 26. Even discounting the Marines shortfalls in organic artillery, this was still high. 

Also, Eighth Army would normally put other corps and army level artillery assets in support of 

the Marine division. This was particularly true when the front had stabilized after 1952. 

66. Weyland, 26. 

67. Millet, 352. 

68. Futrell, 706. 

69. Ibid. 

70. Millet, 395. 

71. Futrell, 689. 

72. Ibid., 707. 

73. Momyer, 79. 

74. Millet, 381. 

75. Ibid., 354. 

76. Ridgway, 186. 

77. Millet, 397. 

78. Ibid., 399. 

79. John Schlight, The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: The War in South 

Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1988), v. 

80. McNamara, 99. 

81. Gen John P. McConnell, USAF chief of staff, as quoted in John J. Sbrega, “Southeast 

Asia,” in Case Studies in the Development of Close Air Support, ed. Benjamin F. Cooling 

(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1990), 411. 

82. Ibid., 446. 

83. USAF Historical Research Agency (HRA), K160.041-20, 23; K153.054-4, 37; PACAF 

Manual 55-13, 10; Sbrega, 448. 

84. Joint Pub 1, Joint Warfare of the US Armed Forces, 1991; and Sbrega, 415. 

85. Sbrega, 413. 

86. Project Corona Harvest, USAF Activities in Southeast Asia, 1954–1964, Maxwell AFB, 

Ala.: HRA, K239.034-1, 33, also in Sbrega, 413. 

87. A Short History of Close Air Support Issues (Fort Belvoir, Va.: Combat Developments 

Command, Institute of Special Studies, 1968), 56; and Sbrega, 414. 

35 
88. Sbrega, 414. 

89. HRA, K177.1511-5; K146.003-14; and Sbrega, 415. 

90. Sbrega, 416. 

91. Ibid., 417. 

92. Schlight, iv. 

93. McNamara, 101. 

94. Momyer, 271. 

95. Gen William C. Westmoreland, Report on Operations in South Vietnam, January 

1964–June 1968 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1969), 76; Momyer, 102–3; and McNamara, 104. 

96. Sbrega, 456. 

97. Momyer, 77; McNamara, 105. 

98. Momyer, 285. 

99. Donald J. Mrozek, Airpower and the Ground War in Vietnam (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air 

University Press, 1988), 45. 

100. Sbrega, 427. 

101. Momyer, 272. 

102. Ibid., 259–61. 

103. Mrozek, 41. 

104. Sbrega, 423. 

105. Ibid., 433. 

106. Ibid. 

107. Momyer, 286. 

108. Ibid., 285. 

109. Gen William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 

1976), 342–45; and McNamara, 108. 

110. Sbrega, 457. 

111. Keith B. McCutcheon, “Marine Aviation in Vietnam, 1962–1970,” US Naval Institute 

Proceedings, May 1971, 135; and McNamara, 109. 

112. Westmoreland, Report on Operations in South Vietnam, 103; and McNamara, 106–7. 

113. Walter H. Baxter III et al., “An Analysis of Tactical Airpower in Support of the United 

States Army in South Vietnam” (Research paper, Army War College, March 1970), 24–25; and 

Sbrega, 454. 

114. Sbrega, 429. 

115. Momyer, 265. 

116. Max U. Terrien, “Close Air Support: Retrospective and Perspective: Is the Helicopter 

the Answer?” (Thesis, US Army Command and General Staff College, 4 June 1982), 47–48; 

Sbrega, 454. 

117. Baxter et al., 85; and Sbrega, 455. 

118. Momyer, 265–66. 

119. HRA, K153.054-4, 37; and Sbrega, 445. 

120. Momyer, 266. 

121. Sbrega, 438. 

122. Momyer, 275. 

123. Sbrega, 439. 

124. Cost Effectiveness of Close Air Support Aircraft (Langley AFB, Va.: Tactical Air 

Command, 1965), 2; and Sbrega, 441. 

125. Sbrega, 445. 

126. Momyer, 283. 

127. Schlight, 290. 

128. HRA, M-38245-129, 1; and Sbrega, 448. 

129. Schlight, 291. 

130. Momyer, 278. 

131. Sbrega, 452. 

132. United States Air Force, Effectiveness of Close and Direct Support in South Vietnam, 

Second Progress Report (Washington, D.C., 1966), 2–3, 13; and Sbrega, 451. 

133. Schlight, 292. 

36 
134. Momyer, 277. 

135. Ibid. 

136. Sbrega, 432. 

137. HRA, K717.0413-66, 10–11; and Sbrega, 449. 

138. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Study Task Force, Phase II, “Close Air Support Study,” 11 

October 1972, 53. Hereafter referred to as JSTF; and Sbrega, 449. 

139. HRA, K168.7041-144 in Sbrega, 439. 

140. JSTF, 27; and Sbrega, 463. 

141. Schlight, 293. 

142. Sbrega, 463. 

143. Roswell Freedman, “The Evolution of Interdiction and Close Air Support,” as quoted in 

Sbrega, 453. 

144. Mrozek, 81. 

145. Herman L. Gilster, The Air War in Southeast Asia: Case Studies in Selected 

Campaigns (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1993), 63. 

146. Gilster, 2, 62. 

147. Mrozek, 74. 

148. HRA, K168.06-25; K168.01-43; and Sbrega, 459. 

149. Myron W. Crowe, “The Development of Close Air Support” (Thesis, Air War College, 

June 1968), 44–45; and Sbrega, 470. 

150. Momyer, 338. 

151. Gen Charles A. Horner, “The Air Campaign,” Military Review, September 1991. 

152. James A. Winnefeld and Dana J. Johnson, Joint Air Operations: Pursuit of Unity in 

Command and Control, 1942–1991 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1993), 101. 

153. FM 100-5, Operations, May 1986, 30. 

154. Edward C. Mann III, Thunder and Lightning: Desert Storm and the Airpower Debates 

(Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1995), 29. 

155. Winnefeld and Johnson, 102. 

156. Robert H. Scales, Certain Victory: The US Army in the Gulf War (Washington, D.C.: 

Brassey’s, 1994), 174–75. 

157. Richard M. Swain, Lucky War: Third Army in Desert Storm (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: 

Army Command and General Staff College Press, 1994), 227–28. 

158. Winnefeld and Johnson, 119. 

159. Ibid., 100. 

160. Ibid., 107. 

161. McNamara, 122–24. 

162. Winnefeld and Johnson, 100. 

163. Ibid., 109. 

164. Ibid. 

165. Ibid., 121. 

166. Ibid., 110. 

167. Mann, 55. 

168. Richard T. Reynolds, Heart of the Storm: The Genesis of the Air Campaign against Iraq 

(Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1995), 72. 

169. Mann, 28. 

170. Lt Gen Charles A. Horner, Shaw AFB, S.C., transcript of interview with Lt Col 

Suzanne B. Gehri and Lt Col Richard T. Reynolds, 2 December 1991, 48, Desert Storm 

Collection, USAF HRA, Maxwell AFB, Ala., as quoted in Mann, 60. 

171. Mann, 167. 

172. Gen H. Norman Schwarzkopf, It Doesn’t Take a Hero (New York: Linda Gray/Bantam, 

1992), 424. 

173. Scales, 189. 

174. Gulf War Air Power Survey (GWAPS), vol. 2, Operations and Effects and Effectiveness 

(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1993), pt. 2:302. 

175. Ibid. 

176. Scales, 369. 

37 
177. Ibid., 188. 

178. Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (Boston: Houghton 

Mifflin, 1993), 339. 

179. McNamara, 129. 

180. Public Law 102-25, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War; Final Report to Congress 

Pursuant to Title V of the Persian Gulf Conflict Supplemental Authorization and Personnel 

Benefits Act of 1991 (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, April 1992), 345. 

181. James A. Winnefeld, Preston Niblack, and Dana J. Johnson, A League of Airmen: U.S. 

Air Power in the Gulf War (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1994), 84. 

182. Winnefeld and Johnson, 125. 

183. Ibid., 111. 

184. Winnefeld, Niblack, and Johnson, 94. 

185. Swain, 189. 

186. Winnefeld and Johnson, 109. 

187. Ibid., 119. 

188. Ibid., 120. 

189. McNamara, 127–28. 

190. Winnefeld and Johnson, 120. 

191. McNamara, 133. 

192. P. Mason Carpenter, Joint Air Operations in the Gulf War: An Allison Analysis 

(Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1995), 38. 

193. Ibid., 43. 

194. Ibid., 60. 

195. Ibid., 62. 

196. Daily Comments of General Horner, 1700 Brief, 24 February 1991, HQCENTAF, Office 

of History, 20 March 1991, as quoted in GWAPS, pt. 2:296. 

197. Winnefeld, Niblack, and Johnson, 174. 

198. Ibid., 153. 

199. Gen Frederick Franks, interview with Maj P. Mason Carpenter, 23 March 1994, 

quoted in Carpenter, 59–60. 

200. GWAPS, pt. 2:265. 

201. Winnefeld, Niblack, and Johnson, 174. 

202. Ibid. 

203. Lt Gen John J. Yeosock, “Army Operations in the Gulf Theater,” Military Review, 

September 1991, 6. 

204. Richard P. Hallion, Storm over Iraq: Air Power in the Gulf War (Washington, D.C.: 

Smithsonian Press, 1992), 205. 

205. Winnefeld and Johnson, 104. 

206. Jacquelyn K. Davis, “Reinforcing Allied Military Capabilities in a Global-Alliance 

Strategy,” in The Future of Air Power in the Aftermath of the Gulf War, eds. Richard H. Schultz 

and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1992), 201. 

207. Winnefeld, Niblack, and Johnson, 113–14. 

208. Ibid., 113. 

209. GWAPS, pt. 2:310–11. 

210. Winnefeld and Johnson, 126. 

211. Martin van Creveld, Air Power and Manuever Warfare (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air 

University Press, 1994), 217. 

212. Joint Pub 1, Joint Warfare of the US Armed Forces, 11 November 1991, 5. 

213. Air Force Manual 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, vol. 2, 

March 1992, 166. 

38

Chapter 3 

Current Joint CAS Doctrine 

It is far more important to be able to hit a target than it is to haggle over who makes 

a weapon or who pulls a trigger. 

—Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower 

In chapter 2 we addressed the past American experience with close air 

support. We have seen that there have been numerous differences of opinion 

regarding its doctrine, structure, and process. These differences have revolved 

around two main issues: centralization and responsiveness. These two issues 

continue to foster debate today. This chapter specifically addresses the 

current joint process for the apportionment, allocation, and distribution of 

close air support. Two primary sources are used as references: Joint Pub 

3-56.1, Command and Control for Joint Air Operations, 14 November 1994 

and Joint Pub 3-09.3, “Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Close 

Air Support,” Reformatted Draft Pub, 17 February 1995. Before delving 

directly into the issue of joint CAS, however, we must look at how close air 

support fits within the larger context of joint air operations. First, this 

chapter begins with a general discussion of joint air operations. Second, it 

describes the framework for the command and control of those operations. 

Third, it highlights the process involved in planning joint air operations. 

Fourth, it details the phases of the production of a joint ATO. Fifth, it gives a 

general framework for the joint doctrinal view of close air support. The final 

sections describe CAS requests, planning, and execution. 

Joint Air Operations 

The underlying principles and doctrine for the command and control of 

joint air operations revolve around ensuring unity of effort for the benefit of 

the joint force as a whole.1 With that in mind, joint air operations are defined 

as, “Those air operations performed with air combat assets made available by 

components in support of the joint force commander’s (JFC) operation or 

campaign objectives or in support of other components of the force.”2 Joint air 

operations are planned and conducted to maximize the total combat power 

and synergy of the aggregate air effort in support of the JFC’s operation or 

campaign plan.3 Component commanders make combat assets available to 

the JFC for tasking to support the joint force as a whole based on assigned 

39 
component missions and JFC guidance. These combat assets are tasked 

directly by the JFC or by the JFACC based on the JFC’s air apportionment 

decision.4 Joint air operations do not include those air operations that a 

component conducts in direct support of itself.5 Component direct support air 

combat assets are those air combat assets organic to a component that are 

used by the component to accomplish its assigned mission. When appropriate, 

they appear on the joint ATO for coordination and deconfliction purposes.6 

With this current definition, for example, naval aviation providing fleet 

defense or Army attack helicopters supporting their corps would not be 

considered joint air operations, regardless of the fact that they occur within 

the context of a larger joint theater campaign. Assigned, attached, and 

supporting forces may provide direct support to certain components while also 

providing the JFC an operational level force capability that can be employed 

separately as part of a broader operation.7 

Unity of effort is necessary for both the effectiveness and the efficiency of 

any military operation. This is particularly true for air operations, given the 

multitude of possible air missions. To guarantee this unity of effort, 

centralized planning is essential for controlling and coordinating the efforts of 

all available air forces. On the other hand, decentralized execution is 

essential to generate the tempo of operations required and to cope with the 

uncertainty, disorder, and fluidity of combat.8 In order to create synergism 

and avoid duplication of effort, the JFC must synchronize the actions of 

assigned, attached, and supporting combat assets in time, space, and purpose. 

The JFC must exploit the unique characteristics of all combat assets to 

achieve assigned objectives as rapidly and as effectively as possible.9 The 

mechanisms to achieve these objectives are encompassed in the command and 

control apparatus of joint air operations. 

Command and Control of Joint Air Operations 

The focal point for the command and control of joint air operations is the 

joint force air component commander. Joint doctrine states that the JFC will 

normally designate a JFACC. The JFC will normally assign the role of 

JFACC to the component commander having the preponderance of air assets 

and the capability to plan, task, and control joint air operations.10 The 

authority and command relationships of the JFACC are established by the 

JFC. These typically include exercising OPCON over assigned and attached 

forces and tactical control (TACON) over other military combat assets made 

available for tasking.11 Component commanders make air combat assets 

available to the JFC for tasking to support the joint force as a whole. These 

combat assets are tasked directly by the JFC or by the JFACC based on the 

JFC’s air apportionment decision. Only the JFC has authority to reassign, 

redirect, or reallocate a component’s direct support air capabilities/forces.12 

The responsibilities of the JFACC include, but are not limited to planning, 

40 
coordinating, allocating, and tasking joint air operations based on the JFC’s 

concept of operations and air apportionment decision.13 Specific JFACC 

responsibilities would normally include developing a joint air operations plan 

to best support joint force objectives as assigned by the JFC or higher 

authority. After consulting with other component commanders, the JFACC 

also recommends to the JFC the apportionment of the joint air effort, by 

percentage and/or priority, that should be devoted to the various air 

operations and/or geographic areas for a given period of time. The component 

commanders have ready access to the JFACC and staff through the 

component liaisons.14 These liaisons work for their respective component 

commanders and work with the JFACC and staff. Senior component liaisons 

serve as conduits for direct coordination between the JFACC and their 

respective component commanders.15 Based on the JFC air apportionment 

decision, the JFACC provides centralized direction for the allocation and 

tasking of the combat assets made available.16 The JFACC controls the 

execution of joint air operations as specified by the JFC. This includes making 

timely adjustments to the targeting and tasking of available joint combat 

assets. This does not imply carte blanche, however. If circumstances require 

the JFACC to change the planned joint air operations during execution, the 

JFACC is tasked to notify the affected component commanders or JFC, as 

appropriate.17 The JFACC is also responsible for synchronizing joint air 

operations and coordinating them with the operations of the other component 

commanders and forces assigned to or supporting the JFC.18 Finally, and 

most significantly for our purpose, the JFACC functions as a supporting 

commander, as directed by the JFC, for operations such as close air support.19 

The JFACC carries out his mission as supporting commander for close air 

support through the joint air operations planning. This process, as it relates 

to CAS, is the intersection of two cycles. The first is the joint air operations 

planning cycle and the second is the process for requesting and tasking close 

air support. We will now briefly describe the first of these cycles. 

Planning Joint Air Operations (JAOP) 

The first responsibility of the JFACC, as described in joint doctrine, is the 

planning of joint air operations. Planning for any joint air operations must begin 

with an enunciation and understanding of the joint force mission. The JFC’s 

mission is based on the strategic appreciation of the political, economic, military, 

and social forces affecting the area of responsibility. This is coupled with the 

articulation of strategic and operational objectives needed to accomplish the 

mission and forms the basis for determining component’s objectives. 

Joint air operations are not planned in a vacuum. They constitute an 

integral part of the JFC’s operation or campaign plan.20 The JFACC uses the 

mission, the JFC strategic appreciation and objectives, and the components’ 

objectives to devise an air estimate of the situation. This estimate follows a 

41 
systematic series of steps to formulate a proposed course of action (COA). 

When the JFACC’s COA is approved by the JFC, it becomes the basic concept 

of the joint air operations—stating what will be done. The how part is 

detailed later in the joint air operations plan and supporting plans.21 The 

JFACC’s joint air operations plan forecasts the employment of that portion of 

the air effort made available to the JFACC to accomplish the objectives 

assigned by the JFC. Furthermore, it documents the JFACC’s plan for 

integrating and coordinating joint air operations.22 Normally, there are five 

phases in the joint air operations planning process: operational environment 

research, objective determination, strategic identification, center(s) of gravity 

(COG) analysis, and joint air operations plan development.23 

Operational environment research involves the intelligence preparation of 

the battle space and the gathering of an in-depth knowledge of the 

operational environment. Objective determination seeks to define clear and 

quantifiable objectives. The product of the strategic identification phase is a 

clearly defined joint air strategy statement. This states how the JFACC plans 

to exploit air combat assets to support the JFC’s theater objectives. COG 

identification tries to identify those COGs that could be affected to satisfy the 

JFC’s strategic, operational, and tactical objectives.24 It also tries to identify 

friendly COGs that must be defended. It is a basic tenet of airpower theory 

that it has the ability to attack COGs throughout the AOR. It is important to 

remember that the type of COG and method of attack may vary widely 

throughout the range of military operations.25 Finally, joint air operations 

plan development details how joint air operations will support the JFC’s 

operation or campaign plan. During this phase, planners integrate the efforts 

of joint capabilities, prioritize objectives and targets, account for current and 

potential threats, and conduct target development and system analysis. They 

also phase joint air operations with the JFC’s operation or campaign plan, 

indicating what combat assets will be required to achieve joint air operations 

objectives. Finally, during this phase, planners will complete a sustainability 

assessment and delineate the specific procedures for allocating, tasking, and 

exercising command and control of available air combat assets.26 

The joint air operations plan development phase identifies objectives and 

targets by priority order. It describes the order they should be attacked or 

dealt with, the desired results, and the weight of effort required to achieve the 

desired results in support of the JFC’s objectives. The joint air operations plan 

supports, and is supported by, the operations conducted by other components. 

All of these operations are focused on achieving the JFC’s mission objectives. 

Competing requirements for joint air operations, including strategic attack, air 

interdiction, and close air support, will be resolved by the JFC. This is 

normally done by the air apportionment decision. The JFC and the component 

commanders analyze the joint forces’ ability to support the mission assigned to 

the JFACC, while ensuring air capable components retain sufficient organic 

combat assets to accomplish their missions. Shortfalls require the JFC to 

reprioritize or restructure the assigned missions or seek additional resources.27 

42 
Prior to the JFC and component commanders’ meeting, the JFACC meets 

with senior component liaisons and the JFACC staff to develop 

recommendations on joint air strategy and apportionment for future 

operations.28 The JFACC provides objectives and guidance to the staff for 

joint air operations. In line with the JFC’s intent, the JFACC recommends 

broad target categories that support the JFC’s objectives, reviews joint force 

air combat assets to achieve assigned tasks, refines requirements for combat 

assets from the other components, and after consulting with the other 

component commanders or their representatives, formulates an air 

apportionment recommendation for presentation to the JFC.29 The JFC’s air 

apportionment decision begins the joint air tasking cycle and culminates with 

the combat assessment of previous missions/sorties.30 It is important to 

emphasize that the apportionment process starts the ATO cycle and not the 

JAOP cycle. 

Joint ATO Phases 

The joint ATO cycle consists of six phases: JFC/component coordination, 

target development, weaponeering/allocation, joint ATO development, force 

execution, and combat assessment. This section will address the first three 

phases, as they are of most interest to our discussion. 

The JFC/component coordination phase uses the JFC’s guidance and 

objectives to identify targeting priorities, the joint target list planning 

guidance, procedures, appropriate maneuver and movement control, joint fire 

support coordinating measures, rule of engagement, and what defines 

component direct support sorties. This guidance will also include the JFC’s 

air apportionment decision. Air apportionment is the determination and 

assignment of the total expected effort by percentage and/or priority that will 

be devoted to the various air operations and/or geographic areas for a given 

period of time. Air apportionment allows the JFC to ensure the weight of the 

joint air effort is consistent with campaign phases and objectives.31 JFCs pay 

particular attention to airpower’s apportionment given the many functions 

that the joint air effort can perform, its AOR-wide application, and its ability 

to rapidly shift from one function to another.32 JFCs may also apportion with 

mission-type orders, and/or by categories significant for the campaign.33 

In the target development phase, targets are nominated by the components 

to support the targeting objectives and priorities provided by the JFC.34 All 

potential targets are processed through the joint air operations center 

(JAOC), which will identify, prioritize, and select specific targets that meet 

the JFC’s objectives and guidance. In accordance with the JFC’s objectives 

and component targeting requirements, the JFACC will further develop the 

joint air operation plans to employ available combat assets.35 The end product 

of the target development phase is the joint integrated prioritized target list 

(JIPTL). 

43 
During the weaponeering/allocation phase, targeting personnel quantify 

the expected results of lethal and nonlethal weapons employment against 

prioritized targets. The final prioritized targets are then included in the 

master air attack plan (MAAP). The resulting MAAP is the plan of 

employment that forms the foundation of the ATO. The MAAP is a key 

element of the concept of joint operations. The development of the MAAP 

includes the review of JFC and JFACC guidance; component direct air 

support plans and support requests from components; updates to target 

requests; availability of combat assets; target selection from the JIPTL; and 

aircraft allocation.36 Each air capable component prepares an allocation 

request (ALLOREQ) message for transmission to the JFACC. ALLOREQ 

messages report the number of joint air sorties to be flown during the air 

tasking day by assigned mission type and type aircraft, any excess sorties not 

required by the air capable component and available for tasking by the 

JFACC, and requests for additional air support beyond the capability of the 

air capable component. The JFACC translates these into total number of 

sorties by aircraft or weapon type available for each operation they support.37 

Joint ATO development catalogs these sorties and missions and sends them 

as tasking to the individual air units. Force execution is the actual conducting 

of these tasked air missions. Finally, with combat assessment, the results of 

these missions are evaluated and the targeting process is restarted. 

Having outlined the state of joint doctrine and procedures for the conduct of 

joint air operations, we will now narrow our focus to the specifics of joint close 

air support. 

CAS Command and Control 

Joint CAS is defined as CAS conducted through joint air operations. This 

includes direct CAS support to one component by another. On the other hand, 

component direct air support of itself, using organic assets, is not considered 

joint CAS. CAS requires an integrated, flexible command and control 

structure to process CAS requirements, assign assets, communicate taskings, 

deconflict fires and routing, coordinate support, establish airspace control 

measures, and update or warn of threats to CAS assets.38 The JFC normally 

exercises OPCON through service component commanders. The JFC, through 

the JFACC, tasks air assets made available for joint tasking through these 

service component command and control systems.39 CAS in joint operations is 

planned via the JAOC, using host component organic command and control 

architecture.40 During some joint force operations, a command relationship 

between land components may or may not exist. If a command relationship is 

established between components, the supporting component uses the CAS 

process of the supported component. If a command relationship is not 

established between components, each component forwards CAS requests 

utilizing its respective CAS process to the JAOC for consideration.41 

44 
The air support operations center (ASOC) is the primary control agency 

component of the theater air control system for the execution of CAS. An 

ASOC is provided to each corps. The ASOC processes Army requests for 

immediate CAS, which are submitted by ground maneuver forces over the Air 

Force air request net directly to the ASOC. Once the Army approves these 

immediate requests, the ASOC tasks on-call missions or diverts scheduled 

CAS missions (with Army approval) to satisfy those approved immediate 

requests. The ASOC may be granted control of all or some of these missions.42 

The Army air-ground system coordinates and integrates both Army 

component aviation support and CAS with Army ground maneuver.43 The 

corps tactical operations center synchronizes the entire corps battle, including 

all planning and authorization for CAS. It is the final approving authority for 

CAS within the corps.44 

CAS Requests 

CAS requests may be either preplanned or immediate. The employment of 

both preplanned and immediate CAS follows a process of requesting and 

tasking. CAS begins with a request from a maneuver commander for CAS to 

augment organic supporting fires. The CAS requirements foreseeable early 

enough to be included in the joint air tasking order or mission order are 

forwarded as preplanned requests. Immediate requests arise from situations 

that develop once the battle is joined. Immediate requests cannot be identified 

early enough to allow detailed coordination and planning.45 

Preplanned requests normally do not include detailed target information 

and may not include detailed timing information because of the lead time 

involved. The important thing in preplanned CAS is for requesting forces to 

forward these requests early on—as soon as they anticipate the need for 

CAS—and then regularly update and refine their requests as the time 

approaches.46 Preplanned requests are categorized as either scheduled or on 

call. Scheduled requests require the requesting maneuver unit to identify the 

target and the desired time on target well in advance. Scheduled requests offer 

greater opportunity for effective coordination and provide a higher likelihood 

that the aircraft will have the proper weapons load for the assigned targets. 

On-call requests identify an anticipated requirement for CAS to be available 

during a period of time, with the exact time and place to be coordinated as the 

battle develops. On-call CAS allows the requesting commander to indicate a 

time frame, probable target type, and place where the need for CAS is most 

likely. On-call aircraft are configured with the proper ordnance for anticipated 

targets and maintain an alert status for a specified period of time. On-call 

requests can specify either ground or airborne alert.47 

Requests for preplanned CAS missions are submitted to the fire support 

coordination element at each echelon of command. Each echelon evaluates 

requests, coordinates requirements, consolidates them; and if they approve 

45 
the request, assigns it a priority and precedence. The approved requests are 

then forwarded to the next higher echelon. If a request is disapproved at some 

level, the request is returned to the originator with an explanation, or a 

substituted fire support asset. The highest maneuver echelon in the force 

(normally the corps) approves requests and prioritizes them. After approval, 

these consolidated requests become the component commander’s request for 

CAS. If CAS requests exceed the component’s organic capability, the requests 

are forwarded to the JAOC via the air supply request message.48 At the 

JAOC, the JFACC staff reviews the requests, matches them against the 

distribution decision, and then fills them with the sorties available. 

Requesting units are then notified of approval/disapproval.49 

Requesting commanders use immediate CAS to exploit opportunities or 

protect the force. Because immediate requests respond to developments on a 

dynamic battlefield, they cannot be identified early enough to allow detailed 

coordination and planning, which may preclude tailored ordnance loads. If 

on-call CAS is unavailable, the ASOC either diverts corps preplanned CAS 

missions or forwards the request to the JAOC. During the execution phase of 

the joint ATO, the JFACC may need to redirect other joint air missions (not 

CAS) to cover immediate requests for high priority CAS. For nonjoint air 

missions, the JFACC may also seek additional support from another 

component to cover the immediate request. However, diverting aircraft from 

preplanned scheduled CAS missions is a zero-sum game: preplanned 

requesters lose the same amount of firepower gained by the immediate 

requester. This assumes no diversion from other missions such as air 

interdiction, which may be required in more extreme circumstances.50 

Immediate requests are forwarded to the appropriate command post by the 

most rapid means available. Requests are broadcast directly from the TACP 

to the ASOC/DASC using the applicable component communications nets. 

The TACP at each intermediate headquarters monitors the request and 

advises the ground commander. After considering whether organic assets are 

available, appropriate, or sufficient to fulfill the request, the ground 

commander approves or denies the request. Silence by intermediate 

headquarters indicates approval.51 

CAS Planning 

Current joint doctrine views CAS as strictly a tactical level operation. CAS 

is planned and executed to accomplish military objectives assigned to tactical 

units or task forces. CAS planning focuses on the ordered arrangement and 

maneuver of combat elements in relation to each other and/or to the enemy to 

achieve combat objectives. While CAS is a tactical level operation, it is linked 

to the operational art through the air apportionment process.52 

Planning considerations are important for CAS employment planning in 

the joint environment. Air superiority permits CAS to function more 

46 
effectively and denies that same advantage to the enemy. It may range from 

local or temporary air superiority to control of the air over the entire AOR.53 

Fixed-wing CAS aircraft can be based on main operating bases on land and 

naval ships well behind the battle area. These locations offer the widest range 

of support such as available ordnance, mission equipment, and logistics. The 

aircraft can be deployed to forward operating bases which decrease transit 

time and increase time on station but may limit the choice of munitions.54 

Attack helicopters operate in the forward areas of the battlefield. They have 

main operating bases, yet these bases are fairly close to the battle area. 

Forward arming and refueling points are located in the forward area for 

aircraft support.55 The aviation commander employs his attack helicopters in 

the way that best supports the maneuver commander. The commander may 

employ attack helicopters to conduct dedicated CAS alone, as part of a joint 

aviation task force, or as an augmenting force.56 

While attack helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft capabilities are 

complementary, neither type can fully replace the air support provided by the 

other. The range, speed, and ordnance load of fixed-wing aircraft, and the 

helicopter’s excellent responsiveness and ability to operate in diverse 

conditions, represent distinct advantages peculiar to each.57 Although fixedand rotary-wing aircraft can both provide CAS, employment considerations 

differ. Traditional planning and employment methods for fixed-wing CAS 

may not be best for rotary-wing aircraft.58 Tasking fixed-wing aircraft for 

preplanned CAS in joint operations is accomplished via the air apportionment 

process and is scheduled through the joint ATO.59 Fixed-wing aircraft are 

typically tasked and employed in terms of aircraft sortie. A sortie is defined as 

a single aircraft performing a single mission. Fixed-wing CAS sorties are 

usually flown in groups of two to four aircraft; in the Air Force, these small 

groups are called flights; in the Navy and Marines, sections (two aircraft) or 

divisions (four). United States Special Operations Command AC-130 gunships 

typically operate single-ship sorties during hour of darkness.60 

To be effective, CAS must provide a timely response to the request. 

Streamlined request and control procedures improve responsiveness. Prompt 

response allows a commander to exploit fleeting battlefield opportunities. 

There are many techniques for improving response time. The use of forward 

operating bases can decrease the distance to the area of operations. Aircrews 

can be placed on ground or airborne alert status. Launch and divert authority 

can be delegated to subordinate units.61 

Army aviation units are organic to corps and divisions and perform 

missions as part of combined arms team. Army helicopters are normally 

tasked through mission-type orders passed to a battalion or cavalry squadron 

which executes the mission as an integral unit maneuver element. Special 

situations may arise that dictate employment of attack helicopters in smaller 

units. Although they can perform CAS missions in smaller groups, the 

preferred employment of Army attack helicopters is as an integral unit, 

operating under the control of a maneuver commander with mission-type 

orders.62 Marine Corps attack helicopters are organized in squadrons and 

47 
typically operate in sections or divisions. These units are assigned to and are 

integral to the Marine air-ground tactical force.63 JFCs and component 

commanders must consider communications requirements, the significant 

logistical impact, and combat range when employing attack helicopter units 

in joint operations.64 

Summary 

Airpower, in conjunction with the exploitation of space-based systems, can 

impact all three levels of war (strategic, operational, and tactical) and can 

perform independent, integrated, and supporting operations sequentially or 

simultaneously. However, CAS is only seen as a tactical level asset. “Close air 

support accomplishes military objectives assigned to tactical units or task 

forces.”65 

Maneuver force commanders request CAS to augment organic supporting 

fires. They can use CAS to attack the enemy in a majority of weather 

conditions, day or night. Improvements in tactics, techniques, procedures, and 

equipment have improved the ability of aircraft to provide support. The 

speed, range, and maneuverability of aircraft allow them to attack targets 

other supporting arms cannot effectively engage because of limiting factors 

such as target type, range, terrain, or the ground scheme of maneuver. 

However, this author believes that the true psychological and physical effects 

of CAS are not optimized by this process. 

Notes 

1. Joint Pub 3-56.1, Command and Control for Joint Air Operations, 14 November 1994, v. 

2. Ibid. 

3. Ibid., I-4. 

4. Ibid., II-1. 

5. Ibid., I-1. 

6. Ibid. 

7. Ibid. 

8. Ibid. 

9. Ibid., I-2. 

10. Ibid., II-2. 

11. Joint Pub 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 

defines operational control as, “Transferable command authority that may be exercised by 

commanders at any echelon at or below the level of combatant command. Operational control is 

inherent in Combatant Command (command authority) and is the authority to perform those 

functions of command over subordinate forces involving organizing and employing commands 

and forces, assigning tasks, designating objectives, and giving authoritative direction necessary 

to accomplish the mission. Operational control includes authoritative direction over all aspects 

of military operations and joint training necessary to accomplish missions assigned to the 

command. Operational control should be exercised through the commanders of subordinate 

organizations; normally this authority is exercised through the Service component 

commanders. Operational control normally provides full authority to organize commands and 

48 
forces and to employ those forces as the commander in operational control considers necessary 

to accomplish assigned missions. Operational control does not, in and of itself, include 

authoritative direction for logistics or matters of administration, discipline, internal 

organization, or unit training.” 

12. Ibid., vi. 

13. Ibid., vii. 

14. Component liaisons would normally include Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, and 

Special Operations. 

15. Ibid. 

16. Ibid. 

17. This notification requirement is a change included in the last version of the Joint Pub 

3-56.1. 

18. Ibid. 

19. Ibid., II-3. 

20. Ibid., ix. 

21. Ibid., III-1. 

22. Ibid., III-2. 

23. This cycle was the product of the Joint Doctrine Air Campaign Course and was 

principally authored by Lt Col Maris “Buster” McCrabb. 

24. AFM 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, notes that 

“historically, the ‘central feature of the enemy’s power’ has been the greatest concentration of 

his combat forces. Since war has widened to include much more than armies in the field, 

contemporary use of the term includes the enemy’s economy and industrial capability to wage 

war, will (governmental and popular), and alliances.” 

25. Ibid., III-5. 

26. Ibid. 

27. Ibid., III-7. 

28. Ibid., IV-6. Some unified commands (USACOM and PACOM) have instituted a Joint 

Target Coordination Board above the JFACC level which is chaired by the deputy CINC. 

29. Ibid. 

30. Ibid., IV-5 

31. Ibid., IV-7. 

32. Ibid. 

33. Ibid. 

34. Other agencies may nominate targets, such as the J-3. 

35. A skeleton version of the JAOP already exists and is fleshed out at this point. 

36. Ibid., IV-8. 

37. Ibid., IV-9. 

38. Joint Pub 3-09.3, “Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Close Air Support,” 

Proposed Pub, 17 February 1995, I-6. 

39. Ibid. 

40. Ibid., II-1. 

41. Ibid. 

42. Ibid., II-6 

43. Ibid., II-7. 

44. Ibid. 

45. Ibid. 

46. Ibid., III-1–III-2. 

47. Ibid. 

48. Ibid., III-2. 

49. Ibid., III-3. 

50. Ibid., III-3–III-4. 

51. Ibid., III-5. 

52. Ibid., I-2. 

53. Ibid., I-4. 

54. Ibid., xii. 

49 
55. Ibid. 

56. Ibid. 

57. Ibid. 

58. Ibid., I-4. 

59. Ibid., III-6. 

60. Ibid. 

61. Ibid., I-5. 

62. Ibid. 

63. Ibid. 

64. Ibid., III-7. 

65. Ibid., ix. 

50

Chapter 4 

Two Theories of CAS as an Operational Asset 

Generals-in-chief must be guided by their own experience or genius. Tactics, evolutions, the duties of an engineer or an artillery officer may be learned in treatises, but 

the science of strategy is only to be acquired by experience, and by studying the 

campaigns of all the great captains. 

—Napoléon 

When addressing the subject of how to employ close air support for 

operational level effects, it is best to first examine previous military theorists 

who have dealt with the subject. Unfortunately, the field is sparsely planted. 

Very few theorists have looked at CAS at an operational level. Instead, 

airpower theorists have normally neglected it as a less important 

afterthought which would detract from strategic bombardment or considered 

its effects as limited to the actual tactical engagement. Two military theorists, 

both of whom were soldiers, addressed the operational implications of CAS. 

These two were British Capt Sir Basil Liddell Hart and Soviet Marshal 

Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevskii. It is important to remember that the 

determining factor for CAS is the requirement for detailed integration with 

the fire and maneuver of the ground component. As such, it is not necessarily 

limited to infantry in the wire. The term close in the definition is not a 

distance but a matter of the immediacy of the effect. In previous years, 

especially in NATO, there was a delineation between CAS and battlefield air 

interdiction. BAI was considered close interdiction which had an early effect 

on the outcome of the current engagement. BAI could occur short of and 

immediately past the FSCL, whereas CAS only occur in front. BAI no longer 

exists in today’s joint parlance. CAS has absorbed its function short of the 

FSCL and air interdiction its function beyond. 

During the 1932 Disarmament Conference in Geneva, Sir Basil Liddell Hart 

was contacted by the Red Army and asked to become an advisor on mechanized 

forces. He declined.1 Had he not, one could imagine a close working 

relationship between Liddell Hart and Marshal Tukhachevskii. Instead we 

must compare their theories separately. This chapter will compare the military 

theories of Liddell Hart and Tukhachevskii on the operational application of 

close air support. Specifically, we will examine their backgrounds, major 

airpower propositions, general theoretical framework, the operational use of 

close air support, concepts for command and control, and the implications of 

this investigation for the theory of the operational use of CAS. 

51 
Background 

Liddell Hart was not a career soldier, but a journalist. However, his 

personality and intellect made himself a force both inside and outside the 

British army.2 He believed that the Great War had been a catastrophe due to 

inept conduct. Liddell Hart lived forever in the shadow of the Somme 

disaster.3 He also did not want a repeat of the bloodbath at Passchendale.4 

Liddell Hart was widely read and influential outside of Britain. However, he 

did not believe his books significantly influenced Russian military thought.5 

Tukhachevskii was a career soldier. A czarist officer during World War I, 

he was decorated six times for bravery.6 He joined the Red Army in 1918. 

During the civil war he commanded at army and front level. Later he rose to 

become assistant chairman of the Military Council of the USSR.7 His 

motivation was classical Marxist-Leninist. He viewed the world as a struggle 

of opposing classes. It was essentially an inevitable war of the oppressed 

classes against their exploiters—a civil war without frontiers or political 

boundaries. War was the most logical environment in which to carry the 

revolution abroad.8 Tukhachevskii was familiar with the writings of Liddell 

Hart. This is evident in the 1936 Red Army Field Service regulations.9 

Propositions 

The foundation of Liddell Hart’s theory of the indirect approach is 

maneuver as opposed to annihilation. He criticized the Napoleonic Fallacy; 

the belief that wars were won only by decisive battle and the destruction of 

the main enemy army.10 Mobility was the essence of his plan. He wrote of the 

need to develop ways of maintaining the momentum of the attack after the 

initial penetration. Fast moving armored forces were the means to the 

breakout. “To cover such an exploitation, a ‘mobile barrage’ of low-flying 

aircraft may be more effective, and adaptable, than accompanying artillery 

that are tractor-drawn.”11 Liddell Hart viewed airpower as a coequal partner 

to armor in mobile warfare. The tank-air combination was the paramount 

factor.12 Future military operations would be conducted by fleets of tanks and 

aircraft.13 In his classical analogy, “The wider mobility and offensive power 

lies in the air. And the air force appears to be cast for the decisive role, as the 

heirs of Alexander’s ‘Companion’ cavalry.”14 The army and the air force were 

the two main components of military power. 

The bedrock of Tukhachevskii’s theory is the antithesis of Liddell Hart’s. 

The battle of annihilation is the object of all maneuver. Future war would be 

on a broad front and in great depth. Battles would require aggressive 

combined-arms operations employing airborne forces to disorganize the rear 

of the enemy and masses of tanks supported by artillery to defeat the enemy 

in depth. Deep penetrations would establish a barrier against which the 

enemy would be pressed and his forces destroyed.15 In czarist tradition, the 

52 
artillery had retained its special place. His immediate response to tactical 

aviation was that it was essentially a very maneuverable aerial platform 

capable of dropping explosives with deadly effect. Its coordination with 

conventional fires and the shock of armor would be devastating.16 

Tukhachevskii viewed airpower as a subordinate member of an all-arms 

team, an adjunct to the predominant armored/artillery forces. 

Theoretical Framework 

To understand each theorist’s plans for the operational employment of close 

air support better, we must begin with the framework of their theories as a 

whole. We will do this by comparing their ideas on the nature of war from the 

grand strategic to the operational level. 

Liddell Hart’s grand strategy encompassed all the instruments of national 

policy. It set the objectives and the proper mix of instruments of power. The 

national objective should be “a resumption and progressive continuance of the 

peace time policy, with the shortest and least costly interruption of the 

normal life of the country.”17 To gain the object, one must change the enemy’s 

adverse will into compliance. This is accomplished by dislocating the enemy’s 

balance in order to produce a decision.18 

Because Tukhachevskii was a Marxist-Leninist, the object of war was the 

spread of the revolution throughout the world. There could be no end to 

conflict until the fulfillment of dictatorship of the proletariat. All elements of 

national power must be geared towards this end. War plans must match the 

military structure to the war aims, the development of industry, the defense 

industry, and industrial mobilization. This process embraced the mobilization 

of the whole national economy.19 The military effort became the driving force 

behind the economy; which was the basic means of waging war.20 

To Liddell Hart, strategy was, “The art of distributing and applying 

military means to fulfill the ends of policy.”21 The strategy of the indirect 

approach was the highest and widest fulfillment of the principle of surprise.22 

The object of strategy was dislocation, either physical, psychological or, 

ideally both.23 Its true aim is “not so much to seek battle as to seek a strategic 

situation so advantageous that if it does not of itself produce the decision, its 

continuation by battle is sure to achieve this.”24 The perfection of strategy 

would be “to produce a decision without any serious fighting.”25 

Tukhachevskii’s view of strategy encompassed more than the military. As a 

Marxist-Leninist, he saw “the ideological preparation of the country for war 

as the biggest single issue in the war.”26 Otherwise, in bottom-up fashion, 

strategy must ensure the tactical task is readily feasible. It does this first and 

foremost by concentrating at the point of the main offensive a force many 

times superior to the enemy in infantry, artillery, aviation, and other 

technical forces.27 “The Red Army’s aim was the annihilation of the enemy in 

any conflict forced upon the Soviet Union.”28 

53 
The indirect approach cuts across all levels of war but is usually manifested 

at the operational level by attacks on enemy command and control or lines of 

communication. Liddell Hart argued that victory was the result of moral, 

rather than physical destruction.29 He believed, “The strength of an enemy 

force lies far less in its numbers or resources than in its stability or 

equilibrium.”30 Liddell Hart was a great believer in deep objectives. He 

claimed that, “The deeper the armored forces advanced, the greater the 

psychological dislocation of the enemy’s command, and the less would be the 

need to engage the enemy in decisive battle.”31 

Tukhachevskii believed almost exactly the opposite. Battles would be a 

series of follow-on operations, leading to the complete liquidation or utter 

defeat of the enemy’s armed forces.32 The main forms of operations would be 

the penetration and the turning movement. Encirclement of the enemy would 

be achieved by an overall superiority of forces that permitted a double 

envelopment; or by a single envelopment that pinned the enemy against a 

political or natural barrier.33 Each arm would be employed based on its 

characteristics and strengths, in close cooperation with other arms, for the 

best possible exploitation of all its capabilities.34 

Missions 

The aim of Liddell Hart’s tank-aircraft teams was not to strike the enemy 

troops per se but to cut their communications. The object was to dislocate 

their organization by destroying headquarters and signal centers, cut off 

supplies by destroying railways and road transport, and to reach and attack 

the sources of supply. The speed and range of aircraft gave them far more 

chance of attaining their aim. Therefore, mechanized land forces would be 

reserved for the shorter range objectives in the immediate rear of the hostile 

army and the air forces the deeper.35 Liddell Hart believed that, “Air power 

is, above all, a psychological weapon—and only shortsighted soldiers, 

underrate the predominance of psychological factors in war.”36 

To Tukhachevskii the destruction of the enemy was not the end but only the 

means. Such an aim could only be accomplished by the unrestricted use of 

force. The more completely the enemy was destroyed, the higher the assurance 

of achieving the war aim. Tukhachevskii believed breaking enemy morale was 

an impossible task, with demoralization depending largely on the social 

condition of the country. “Demoralization of the remnants of an enemy army is 

a consequence of the destruction of his crucial main forces.”37 The large-scale 

employment of tanks, aviation, and airborne mechanized forces would allow 

the attacking the enemy simultaneously over the entire depth of his field-force, 

isolating him, completely surrounding him, and destroying him.38 

A simple summation would be that Liddell Hart sought demoralization to 

lead to the destruction of the enemy, while Tukhachevskii sought the 

destruction of the enemy force to lead to his demoralization. Now that we 

54 
have examined the operational aims of each theorist, a better understanding can 

be gained by directly comparing their thoughts on each operational mission 

area. 

Close Air Support 

Drawing lessons from the Spanish Civil War, Liddell Hart believed that the 

predominantly moral effect of an air attack, if concentrated on a narrow 

sector, could blast a hole in a defensive line.39 He reasoned that the speed of 

tanks intensified the difficulty of normal artillery cooperation, and for this 

reason offensive support could only come from the close cooperation of low 

flying aircraft.40 He envisioned flights of aircraft overhead—“to aid tanks by 

low-flying attacks as they pass beyond the cover of artillery fire and smoke.”41 

“In future, air bombardment may pave the way for the advancing troops, 

serving as a substitute more flexible, and at a longer range, for the artillery 

barrage of the last war.”42 This, of course, would all depend on the 

cooperation of the Royal Air Force. 

Referring to the mass of armies in the Great War, Liddell Hart believed, 

“The concentration of forces, according to accepted military principles, will 

precipitate a state of rapid congestion, hopeless to relieve. The overburdened 

arteries will give a multiplied effect to the enemy’s air attacks in producing a 

paralytic stroke. And the effects may put an unbearable strain on the bonds 

of discipline.”43 He again gives great emphasis to the psychological impact of 

air attack. “The real target in war is the mind of the enemy command, not the 

bodies of his troops. If we operate against his troops it is fundamentally for 

the effect that action will produce on the mind and will of the commander; 

indeed, the trend of warfare and the development of new weapons—aircraft 

and tanks—promise to give us increased and more direct opportunities of 

striking at this psychological target.”44 Considering the moral domain, Liddell 

Hart does not restrict air attack to lines of communication. “We must not only 

exploit the offensive use of aircraft against the enemy’s reserves and 

communications, but grasp the value of an air blow against the command and 

signal centers of the enemy—paralyzing his brain and nervous system.”45 

While Liddell Hart stresses the moral, Tukhachevskii stresses the physical 

domain. Tukhachevskii heavily favored the use of artillery for the close 

support of troops in contact. His only prescription about close air support was, 

“Maneuver and offensive operations by mechanized forces require air 

support.”46 Army aviation would be employed in depth, in operational 

cooperation with the development echelon, preventing the enemy reserves 

from intervening and offering resistance in depth. Front aviation would be 

tasked to isolate the break-in sector completely from the enemy’s strategic 

depth, and to interdict movement of his strategic reserves.47 “Frequent 

independent air operations are required, to destroy railway junctions, bridges, 

depots, logistics bases, and so on.”48 To Tukhachevskii, aircraft should attack 

55 
the enemy’s troop columns, troop concentrations, support elements, and 

bridges, artillery, artillery wagon lines, and supply columns. His combat 

effectiveness should be worn down and his resupply from the rear interrupted 

by repeated attacks. Showing his own reliance on artillery, he wrote, “For a 

start his artillery should be silenced.”49 Like Liddell Hart, he realized the 

importance of command and control. He emphasized the physical and 

cognitive spheres, wanting the disruption of enemy command, control, and 

communication by destruction of headquarters, signal centers, line systems, 

and radio stations. 

Command and Control 

Before summarizing, it would be useful, in light of our theorists’ 

operational plans, to also examine their thoughts for the command and 

control of theater air forces. 

In my opinion, Liddell Hart examines the lessons of the Great War 

correctly, but draws the wrong conclusions. “Air forces can be switched from 

one objective to another. They are not committed to any one course of action 

as an army is, by its bulk, complexity, and relatively low mobility. While their 

action should be concentrated, it can be quickly concentrated afresh against 

other objectives, not only in a different place, but of a different kind. In the 

last war, air-power forfeited much of its effect from being kept in separate 

packets like the parts of an army, with a consequent dispersion of effort and 

frittering of effect.”50 From this conclusive evidence for centralization he 

makes an inverse deduction. “Points to the need of a military air arm, for 

which the best cooperation between the services is no substitute. This must be 

achieved not at the expense of, but in addition to, the RAF. . . . The conclusion 

seems to be that the Army should provide its own air arm from its own 

resources; but, whatever is done, an army in the field must have its operative 

air force under its own control.”51 

Because Tukhachevskii views aircraft as long-range artillery, one can 

easily surmise his command arrangement. Air force units are subordinate to 

armies and corps. The remainder of ground attack assets are held by the 

fronts. There is no theater level direction of the air effort. 

Summary 

Neither theorist had all the answers concerning the operational application 

of close air support. They were not alone during the interwar years. Both 

were particularly off base in their command and control arrangements. 

Liddell Hart’s significant contribution was in proclaiming the psychological 

effect of air attack and its use in paralyzing the enemy. Tukhachevskii’s use 

of airpower in the isolation of the enemy forces is also useful. Although their 

56 
rationales for targeting command, control, and communications were 

different, both effects are advantageous. 

Synthesizing their thoughts, we see that they saw operational close air 

support best used to isolate and demoralize enemy forces, disrupt command 

and control, and facilitate an operational breakout. This is the essence of our 

new theory of close air support. However, CAS should not be dominated by 

the ground element. Their integration must be such that they are the two 

fists of a boxer. Each fist must be able to jab, uppercut, or body punch. 

Depending upon the situation, either one could deliver the knockout blow. To 

use another analogy, CAS is not a squire compared to the ground forces 

mounted knight. It is a worthy partner to the ground effort. 

Notes 

1. Robert E. Walters, “Interview with Capt. B. H. Liddell Hart,” Marine Corps Gazette, 

November 1961, 29. 

2. Brian H. Reid, “J.F.C. Fuller and B. H. Liddell Hart: A Comparison,” Military Review, 

May 1990, 64. 

3. Jay Luvaas, “Liddell Hart and the Mearsheimer Critique: A ‘Pupil’s’ Retrospective,” 

Parameters, March 1990, 18. 

4. Reid, 66. 

5. Walters, 29. 

6. William J. McGranahan, “The Fall and Rise of Marshal Tukhachevsky,” Parameters, 

December 1978, 62. 

7. Hugo W. Matson, “Tukhachevsky: Dynamic Revolutionary,” Military Review, May 1969, 39. 

8. Ibid. 

9. Richard Simpkin, Deep Battle: The Brainchild of Marshal Tukhachevskii (London: 

Brassey’s, 1987), 46. 

10. Richard M. Swain, “B. H. Liddell Hart and the Creation of a Theory of War, 1919–1933,” 

Armed Forces and Society, Fall 1990, 40. 

11. Basil H. Liddell Hart, Thoughts On War (London: Faber and Faber, 1944), 300. 

12. Basil H. Liddell Hart, The Liddell Hart Memoirs, 2 vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s 

Sons, 1965), 1: 90. 

13. Liddell Hart, Thoughts On War, 163. 

14. Ibid., 29. 

15. Matson, 41. 

16. McGranahan, 66–67. 

17. Liddell Hart, The Liddell Hart Memoirs, 1: 64. 

18. Basil H. Liddell Hart, Strategy: The Decisive Wars of History (New York: Praeger, 1954), 10. 

19. Ibid., 104. 

20. Simpkin, 102. 

21. Liddell Hart, Strategy, 335. 

22. Liddell Hart, Thoughts On War, 238. 

23. Swain, 43. 

24. Liddell Hart, Strategy, 339. 

25. Ibid., 338. 

26. Simpkin, 105. 

27. Ibid., 89. 

28. Ibid., 177. 

29. Swain, 38. 

30. Basil H. Liddell Hart, “Killing No Murder: Correspondence with the Editors,” Army 

Quarterly, January 1928, 400. 

57 
31. Reid, 70. 

32. Simpkin, 123–24. 

33. Ibid., 92. 

34. Ibid., 179. 

35. Liddell Hart, When Britain Goes to War: Adaptability and Mobility (London: Faber and 

Faber, 1935), 71–72. 

36. Liddell Hart, Thoughts On War, 173. 

37. Simpkin, 86. 

38. Ibid., 197. 

39. Liddell Hart, The Liddell Hart Memoirs, 2: 188–89. 

40. Liddell Hart, Thoughts On War, 172. 

41. Ibid., 265. 

42. Ibid., 308. 

43. Liddell Hart, When Britain Goes to War, 56. 

44. Liddell Hart, Thoughts On War, 48. 

45. Ibid., 70. 

46. Simpkin, 180. 

47. Ibid., 43. 

48. Ibid., 94. 

49. Ibid., 214. 

50. Liddell Hart, Thoughts On War, 157. 

51. Ibid., 172. 

58

Chapter 5 

Recommendations 

Historically, close air support has occupied a lower priority in the hierarchy 

of Air Force missions than strategic bombing or interdiction. In theory since 

the days of the Air Corps Tactical School, and in practice since World War II, 

the Air Force has focused primarily on delivering a strategic blow to the 

enemy’s industrial and economic centers of gravity. Secondarily, the Air Force 

would interdict the flow of men and materiel to the enemy’s fielded forces. 

Close air support, for a variety of reasons; some historical, some doctrinal; 

was viewed as both a less effective and a less efficient application of the air 

instrument.1 

In spite of a decades-long attempt at reconciliation by both sides—going 

back to the Johnson-McConnell Agreement of 1966—the Army and the Air 

Force still do not agree fully on the application of doctrine to joint operations. 

There are two principle issues: (1) The relative priority and importance of air 

and ground campaigns, and when apportionment of effort should shift from 

one to the other, and (2) The translation of apportionment decisions into 

sorties directed at specific operational tasks in support of the ground 

campaign.2 The theoretical concepts of CAS have been constant since World 

War II. They are a continuing conflict between two views, one of 

respon-siveness, the other of centralization for theaterwide applicability. 

As our historical survey showed, plentiful air and ground resources have 

permitted past commanders the luxury of ducking the difficult decisions as to 

apportionment and allocation of CAS. In World War II, CAS was apportioned 

with a numbered air force to each army group and then allocated with a 

tactical air command in direct support of each field army. In Korea the Air 

Force was enamored of the interdiction effort. It devoted only between 10 and 

15 percent of its sorties to CAS, normally allocating only 96 sorties to the 

Eighth Army each day. Vietnam saw an uncharacteristic rise in the 

apportionment of CAS. CINCPAC made it the first priority of air operations 

in South Vietnam. On a typical day the Seventh Air Force flew nearly 800 

CAS sorties. Finally, in Desert Storm, planners provided over 600 CAS sorties 

per day for the short ground offensive. US ground forces have not suffered 

from air attack for the past half century and because of this have rarely gone 

without CAS. 

This may be more difficult in future operations, when US force drawdowns 

result in a much smaller force structure.3 Admiral James Winnefeld believes 

that “efficiency in the application of airpower is often sacrificed for 

expediency, particularly when US ground forces are threatened. The prudent 

59 
joint commander thinks ahead to how he will make decisions and what 

factors will influence them in unlikely or unplanned contingencies—or when 

scarcity of tactical air assets is the driving factor.”4 That is exactly what this 

study has tried to do. It has tried to think ahead to apportionment and 

allocation decisions regarding the employment of limited close air support 

assets. 

We synthesized a definition of close air support as a force that can be 

employed at the operational level of war. It should be massed against the 

enemy’s decisive points to maximize its psychological and physical shock 

effects. CAS is best viewed as a form of vertical fire and maneuver, seamlessly 

integrated with the fire and maneuver of ground forces. It should not be a 

subordinate element, added after the fact to redress a ground limitation. 

To achieve this integration the current system of apportionment and 

allocation should be changed. The current system begins at the ground 

battalion level and rises through the land force hierarchy. Each echelon above 

the battalion examines and approves lower preplanned CAS requests. These 

requests accumulate as you go up the chain of command until reaching the 

corps. At that point the ASOC transmits the overall corps request to the AOC. 

The JFACC, after consultation with the JFLCC, recommends the 

appor-tionment of CAS to the JFC. Based upon the JFC’s apportionment 

decision, the JFACC then allocates the CAS sorties to the theater ground 

commander. The JFLCC then distributes these CAS sorties to his subordinate 

ground units. This is a system built for the tactical employment of CAS. 

Although the JFLCC is responsible for the integration of the vertical fire and 

maneuver of CAS with the horizontal fire and maneuver of the ground 

element, it is not accomplished with an operational level view. In the current 

system, CAS is an appendage. CAS is flying artillery. 

In comparing the airpower theories of Liddell Hart and Tukhachevskii, we 

saw two contrasting views on the integration of airpower with ground forces. 

Tukhachevskii viewed airpower as fire support and subordinated it to the 

maneuver of the ground element. This has historically been the US method. 

Although Tukhachevskii sees CAS as having some utility above the tactical 

level, particularly in isolating the enemy, he failed to use it as a coequal fire 

and maneuver element with the army. Liddell Hart, on the other hand, 

viewed airpower as a coequal member of a team. Its psychological effect 

should be used to paralyze the enemy. This author’s theory of CAS is that it 

should be used to isolate and demoralize the enemy. Depending upon the 

situation, ground maneuver may dislocate the enemy for destruction by CAS, 

or, in the more traditional sense, CAS may dislocate the enemy for 

destruction by ground forces. It does not always have to be one way or the 

other. Currently, the only person who has the requisite authority to 

accomplish this integration is the JFC. 

In some respects, apportionment and allocation are the central focus of 

attempts to solve interservice conflicts over joint air operations. What should 

be hit and how much of the available resource base should be committed to 

the effort are fundamental issues of military judgment.5 They are also key 

60 
aspects of service doctrine and culture. The average senior military officer, in 

the US Army or US Air Force, is a prisoner of his own experience, his own 

culture. These are almost entirely tactical, focused on ground battle at 

division level and below, or the “gorilla” strike package hitting a target.6 

Because of this, it is no surprise that commanders are primarily concerned 

with the battle right in front of them. It is no wonder that CAS is employed in 

that vein. CAS should not be employed as a purely tactical measure, nor 

should it be discounted because it lacks direct strategic impact. If properly 

massed, employed against decisive points, and integrated as a coequal 

partner to the ground maneuver force, CAS can have operational level effects. 

Martin van Creveld addresses what such an airpower force might do in a 

Desert Storm type scenario. “A maneuver-oriented air force would have done 

much less against the Iraqi rear and also avoided extensive strikes against 

Kuwait except, perhaps, as a way of pinning down the enemy and misleading 

him as to the location of the main effort. Instead, it would have waged a brief 

and concentrated campaign to facilitate the task of VII Corps; once the Hail 

Mary maneuver was under way, it would have focused on preventing 

movement by the Republican Guard or, should it have moved nevertheless, 

tearing it to pieces in the open desert.”7 

Although I do not agree with his desire to completely disregard the Iraqi 

rear, the flavor of his description is accurate. Again, though, the airpower 

does not always have to facilitate the ground element, sometimes the ground 

element can facilitate the air. 

The most effective uses of airpower in close air support in World War II, 

Korea, and Desert Storm were in preplanned missions designed to break 

through enemy defenses or to stop a penetration. In these missions airpower 

could be massed, and the full shock of the attack exploited before the enemy 

could be reorganized.8 Preplanned missions historically have been the most 

productive since there is better integration of the air and ground effort in 

accordance with a specific plan of action.9 

Recalling Joint Pub 3-56.1, air apportionment sets a percentage and/or 

priority to air operations or geographic areas. Throughout the airpower 

continuum, the JFC’s knowledge of the capabilities of airpower and his 

apportionment authority allow him to adjust airpower application as the 

overall campaign phases and the immediate situation require. With this in 

mind, the JFC should apportion CAS to provide maximum operational level 

effect. Obviously, it would be best to have air superiority as a prerequisite. 

However, there may be extreme cases where CAS must be employed as the 

first priority, regardless of the status of the air battle. Similarly, one cannot 

always assume that interdiction will be a higher priority than CAS. In a short 

duration campaign, against a well equipped and supplied adversary, 

interdiction’s effects may not be felt prior to the cessation of hostilities. 

Finally, any future adversary has certainly learned from Desert Storm that 

he cannot afford the United States the opportunity to engage him carte 

blanche from the air. He is more likely to force the ground battle at the 

earliest point possible. The analysis of this study leads to the conclusion that 

61 
CAS should be allocated to the main weight of effort. It should not be evenly 

distributed among the ground forces so that everyone gets their share. This 

allocation must be done through detailed coordination between the JFACC 

and the JFLCC. These CAS missions, as vertical fire and maneuver forces, 

must be fully integrated with the ground forces. The ground commander does 

not own these sorties. Rather, at times they will be in support of him, at 

others he may be in support of them. 

The current Joint Target Coordination Board (JTCB) is structured to 

integrate the targeting of airpower with the needs of the component 

commanders. It is a totally air oriented board. As such, its utility to solve this 

problem is limited because it does not attempt to shape the ground battle, 

only the air battle. What is needed is a Joint Strategy Board (JSB) which will 

replace the JTCB. The JSB must not be merely a renamed JTCB. That is 

because the JTCB has a great deal of political and adversarial baggage 

attached to it. The JSB would have to meet regularly, probably daily. The 

JSB’s charter would be to integrate the overall strategy for the theater, not 

just the air strategy. All component commanders, whether functional or 

service, would be members. The JSB would be chaired by the deputy CINC. 

The JSB would try to arrive at a consensus between the component 

commanders. However, the deputy CINC would have the authority to direct a 

course of action in the name of the CINC, in the absence of a consensus. 

Having the Deputy CINC as the chair helps downplay the historical tendency 

for the CINC to be his own JFLCC and overrule the other components. The 

focus of the JSB would be on the integration of the operational plans of the 

components. If US warfare is joint warfare, then this is the best way to make 

it joint. However, jointness should not mean that every component or service 

has to be a player in every operation. Jointness should mean using the best 

tool for the job. The JSB would help in selecting that tool.10 

To achieve this level of integration is not an easy step. There is much 

inertia to overcome and there will be a degree of fear towards the change. We 

must fix service cultures as much as the process for these kind of joint 

operations to work. This is because CAS is fundamentally a matter of trust. 

Despite historical experience to the contrary, the Army does not believe that 

the Air Force will always show. This may be do to a lack of perceived resolve 

to do CAS or a perception that the Air Force’s views it as not a core 

competency. They may also believe that the Air Force may be more involved 

in its own strategic air operation. The Army may not believe that the Air 

Force will sacrifice its $40 million aircraft to the attrition possible on a lethal 

modern battlefield. It may also be the Army’s lack of faith in the speed and 

responsive of the ATO cycle. It is up to the airmen to bridge this gap and 

build that trust. To do this it might be helpful to show them the message 

General “Buster” Glosson, CENTAF/DO, sent to the airmen of Desert Storm 

on the eve of the ground war. 

PLEASE PASS THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE TO ALL WING LEADERSHIP 

AND CREW MEMBERS ASAP: 

62 
THE GROUND WAR HAS STARTED. OUR NUMBER ONE JOB IS SUPPORT OF 

THE GROUND FORCES. CLOSE AIR SUPPORT AND AIR INTERDICTION MISSIONS ARE NOT WEATHER CANCELED BY SOME DECISION MAKER REMOVED FROM THE SCENE. THE TIME HAS COME FOR EVERY FLIGHT 

LEAD TO MAKE EVERY REASONABLE EFFORT TO ATTACK THE TARGET 

AND GET HIS FLIGHT BACK HOME. OUR GROUND GUYS ARE DEPENDING 

ON EVERY SORTIE. FROM NOW ON, IT IS UP TO EVERY AVIATOR TO MAKE 

IT HAPPEN.11 

Notes 

1. John Schlight, The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia: The War in South Vietnam 

(Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1988), iii. 

2. James A. Winnefeld and Dana J. Johnson, Joint Air Operations: Pursuit of Unity in 

Command and Control, 1942–1991 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1993), 137. 

3. Ibid. 

4. Ibid., 165. 

5. Ibid., 136. 

6. Richard M. Swain, Lucky War: Third Army in Desert Storm (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: 

US Army Command and General Staff College Press, 1994), 182. 

7. Martin van Creveld, Air Power and Maneuver Warfare (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air 

University Press, 1994), 220. 

8. William W. Momyer, Air Power in Three Wars (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing 

Office, 1978), 275. 

9. Ibid., 277. 

10. Lt Col Maris “Buster” McCrabb, School of Avanced Airpower Studies, helped me 

immensely in conceptualizing the structure of the JSB. 

11. CENTAF, TACC CC/DO Log (U), 24 February 1991. (Secret) Information extracted is 

unclassified. 

63

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