Urban Close Air Support.

Abstract

Abstract : During the six years since Desert Storm, the media has gone to great lengths to portray the technological mastery of U. S. air power. News videos and television documentaries have fired a barrage of stories of how high-tech weaponry enabled 'surgical' strikes that won the war. Perhaps the wrong lessons have been taught too well, however. Future conflict and changing doctrine will likely pit pilots in a mission vastly different from the deep air strikes flown into Iraq. This paper looks at the need to conduct close air support in urban areas; a mission driven by the likely nature of future war (or potentially operations other than war) when married with warfighting doctrine that relies heavily on air support as a means of massing fires. Though the necessity to fight and win in any environment at any level may seem obvious, training and weapon procurement programs do not represent a future capability in urban close air support. For combatant commanders, operational success will depend on this and other critical tactical capabilities. They must, therefore, ensure that training and the planning, programming and budgeting system produce the proper warfighting tools.