Services Learn to Get Along
David Axe | August 07, 2006
The Army and Air Force must overcome deep cultural differences to effectively fight the nation's wars, say representatives of the Air Force's new center for air-ground integration.
The Army's reorganization into lighter brigade combat teams with less artillery has forced it to rely more on close air support, says Lt. Col. Paul Schmidt, a squadron commander at the Joint Air-Ground Operations Group, or JAGOG. At the same time, Schmidt adds, close-quarters urban battles have made air support a trickier and more urgent affair than in previous conflicts. But different languages and incompatible ways of doing things have kept the services from working closely together.
JAGOG aims to change that.
The group's four squadrons teach six courses for as many as 5,000 students per year. On the Army side, JAGOG instructs command staff, forward observers and fire support officers in how to talk to the Air Force and best integrate its aircraft into their operations. On the Air Force side, the group instructs ground-based and airborne controllers in the language of ground forces and methods for supporting them from the air.
JAGOG's lessons sometimes boil down to "talk to each other".
Case in point: Maj. John Peterson, an F-16 pilot and a JAGOG instructor, recalls a difficult close air support mission he flew over Fallujah in early 2004. Ground forces were asking him to hit insurgents in a particular building, but after several passes he still couldn't pick the target out of the crowded landscape. "Then I asked them, 'You got a laser designator?' They said yes."
The troops shot their laser at the target; Peterson spotted it and rolled in to attack. He says he should have known to ask about the laser designator at the outset; ground forces, for their part, should have known to volunteer the information. "That's why this building exists," Peterson says, gesturing at the JAGOG facility at Nellis Air Force Base in North Las Vegas.
What differences separate the services?
JAGOG instructor Master Sgt. Craig Hillsman, who spent eight years living and working on Army bases, cites just a few of the ground service's quirks: "The way they speak. The equipment they have. The way their people are trained. The Army is a huge machine."
More to the point, explains JAGOG's Lt. Col. Kirk Emig, the Army is a machine whose actions are "event-based". "They don't know at what timeframe an event will be", just that it will happen in a certain sequence. Emig says the Air Force, on the other hand, is time-based -- aircraft launch on a strict schedule.
Synchronizing forces with such different mindsets requires communication and compromise, Schmidt says. "We almost need to get to the point where we're thinking and acting like one service."
But no one at JAGOG believes that's actually going to happen.
"You're not going to fix it all," Emig says, "but robust joint training will make us better equipped to operate in a joint environment."
To that end, JAGOG orchestrates exercises at two of the Army's "dirt" training centers: "Air Warrior I" at the National Training Center in the Mojave Desert and "Air Warrior II" at the Joint Readiness Training Center in Louisiana. At these exercises -- as many as 20 annually -- JAGOG students are put to the test as Air Force jets make attack runs under the direction of Army and Air Force controllers, according to battle plans drawn up by Army command staffs. Both the controllers and the staffs receive training at Nellis.
Schmidt says he would like to see more exercises, but that funding is limited.
Despite their differences, JAGOG officials insist the services' hearts are in the right places. "You won't find a guy in the Air Force who doesn't want to support the guys on the ground," Emig says.
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,108937,00.html
David Axe | August 07, 2006
The Army and Air Force must overcome deep cultural differences to effectively fight the nation's wars, say representatives of the Air Force's new center for air-ground integration.
The Army's reorganization into lighter brigade combat teams with less artillery has forced it to rely more on close air support, says Lt. Col. Paul Schmidt, a squadron commander at the Joint Air-Ground Operations Group, or JAGOG. At the same time, Schmidt adds, close-quarters urban battles have made air support a trickier and more urgent affair than in previous conflicts. But different languages and incompatible ways of doing things have kept the services from working closely together.
JAGOG aims to change that.
The group's four squadrons teach six courses for as many as 5,000 students per year. On the Army side, JAGOG instructs command staff, forward observers and fire support officers in how to talk to the Air Force and best integrate its aircraft into their operations. On the Air Force side, the group instructs ground-based and airborne controllers in the language of ground forces and methods for supporting them from the air.
JAGOG's lessons sometimes boil down to "talk to each other".
Case in point: Maj. John Peterson, an F-16 pilot and a JAGOG instructor, recalls a difficult close air support mission he flew over Fallujah in early 2004. Ground forces were asking him to hit insurgents in a particular building, but after several passes he still couldn't pick the target out of the crowded landscape. "Then I asked them, 'You got a laser designator?' They said yes."
The troops shot their laser at the target; Peterson spotted it and rolled in to attack. He says he should have known to ask about the laser designator at the outset; ground forces, for their part, should have known to volunteer the information. "That's why this building exists," Peterson says, gesturing at the JAGOG facility at Nellis Air Force Base in North Las Vegas.
What differences separate the services?
JAGOG instructor Master Sgt. Craig Hillsman, who spent eight years living and working on Army bases, cites just a few of the ground service's quirks: "The way they speak. The equipment they have. The way their people are trained. The Army is a huge machine."
More to the point, explains JAGOG's Lt. Col. Kirk Emig, the Army is a machine whose actions are "event-based". "They don't know at what timeframe an event will be", just that it will happen in a certain sequence. Emig says the Air Force, on the other hand, is time-based -- aircraft launch on a strict schedule.
Synchronizing forces with such different mindsets requires communication and compromise, Schmidt says. "We almost need to get to the point where we're thinking and acting like one service."
But no one at JAGOG believes that's actually going to happen.
"You're not going to fix it all," Emig says, "but robust joint training will make us better equipped to operate in a joint environment."
To that end, JAGOG orchestrates exercises at two of the Army's "dirt" training centers: "Air Warrior I" at the National Training Center in the Mojave Desert and "Air Warrior II" at the Joint Readiness Training Center in Louisiana. At these exercises -- as many as 20 annually -- JAGOG students are put to the test as Air Force jets make attack runs under the direction of Army and Air Force controllers, according to battle plans drawn up by Army command staffs. Both the controllers and the staffs receive training at Nellis.
Schmidt says he would like to see more exercises, but that funding is limited.
Despite their differences, JAGOG officials insist the services' hearts are in the right places. "You won't find a guy in the Air Force who doesn't want to support the guys on the ground," Emig says.
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,108937,00.html
