Aircraft turnaround times

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Tazak
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Aircraft turnaround times

Post by Tazak »

'Iceman' - Ground control this is Iceman bingo weapons over
'Ground control' - roger bingo weapons cya in 30min out

So Iceman heads to either the nearest airfield (where they happen to have ammo for his aircraft) or his home airfield, lands, taxis into his aircraft pit, gets rearmed, refuelled, taxis back onto the runway, takes off, flies to the FEBA in 30min......

Something is not quite right with that to me (most likely the comms chatter as well), granted during the 6day war the Israelis were noted for rapid turnaround of aircraft 7 min, and I don't want to put our airmen nor ground crews down but 30min to fly to base, refuel and rearm, fly back to combat zone is a bit quick, plus I think most would agree that airfields in Europe would be at major risk of being attacked in someway (Spetsnaz, SSM or runway denial airattacks).

Should aircraft get longer turnaround times or be 'fire your lot and cya next battle'??
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CapnDarwin
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by CapnDarwin »

Tarzan. I agree. There is so much more detail and options to work into the engine dealing with air assets and the interactions of such in the game. The whole if and when you get air assets could get more gray. So could turnaround times. Definitely things on our list to look at and add down the road so feel free to fire off some ideas.
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CaptCarnage
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by CaptCarnage »

I don't think in reality aircraft would be assigned to a specific theater - isn't it more like battle groups get a number of sorties available to them?
I think it's in Command Ops where they say every XX minutes there is an Airstrike available to you.
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by cbelva »

I think it is not best to compare FPC with Command Ops. Btw, Command Ops is a great game, I own it and play it. However, they are different wars/time periods and different scales. Command Ops is played over days while FPC is played over hours. However that being said. You could do something like Skyhigh suggested with FPC. The aircraft available is assigned by the scenario designer. In the editor you can set the arrival time for a aircraft, but you can also set a withdrawal time. You can therefore set to have an aircraft arrive at a particular time and withdrawn at a particular time (say 30 minutes after it arrives). You would then either use it then or loose it. And you can do this as many times as you wish in the editor. Personally, I don't think 30 minutes would not be realistic. Normally in an operation at the scale of FPC, you would have aircraft assigned to be available for your operation. It may not be for the entire time and it may not be available until a specific time. But that should be spelled out in the opord and normally coordinated by the ALO
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by CaptCarnage »

For what it's worth, I have begun reading "Red Army" by Ralph Peters and in the early chapter a Russian army general asks for the allocation of more "sorties" to support his ground operations. Not specifically for more aircraft.
"One must always distrust the report of troop commanders: 'We have no fuel' [...] You see, if they become tired they suddenly lack fuel" - Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by MikeAP »

ORIGINAL: Tazak

'Iceman' - Ground control this is Iceman bingo weapons over
'Ground control' - roger bingo weapons cya in 30min out

It's actually WINCHESTER for ammo, and BINGO for fuel. No worries. Interesting post, and I agree that there are many what-if's that play into the scenario.

Just to name a few...

Where is the nearest airfield? Is it in France, Germany, or Keiflavik? Think...10 minute RTB, 10 minutes on the ground, 10 minute return to FEBA...there's your 30 minutes. I think the 7 minute case for the Israelis is (outstanding) realistic because of the proximity of their airfields to the FEBA.

How many other sorties are going on that require a constant 'turn and burn' for ammo resupply? This affects the ground crews ability to get aircraft in the air quicker

What is the eny/friendly CAP situation? This is not modeled in game, so we assume it as clear.

Granted, I've only worked with aircraft in a COIN environment, not a decisive action scenario where this stuff comes into play. Maybe we have an aviator on the forums that can share that knowledge.

Bottom line; This should be something that is, at a minimum, given to the player as part of his briefing - an explanation as to CAS sorties.
ORIGINAL: Skyhigh

For what it's worth, I have begun reading "Red Army" by Ralph Peters and in the early chapter a Russian army general asks for the allocation of more "sorties" to support his ground operations. Not specifically for more aircraft.

Correct, thats not how aviation works. Ground commanders never request the platform, only the effects.

Meaning, a commander wants a enemy command post destroyed, he wouldn't ask for an F-15 Strike Fighter. He would request a 'destroy' mission, and the aviators would decide on the best platform.
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by CapnDarwin »

Somewhere I have a whole model written out for both air superiority and interdiction to go along with the CAS functions. It will see the light of day probably in the 2.1 engine down the road. What we probably can do is add in an element of chaos to the TAT when units are out of ammo. 30-90 minutes or even gone for the game type of effect. Also look at randomizing the time/if they show up and hiding that from the OOB. You get a radio message of assets on station in XX minutes. Enough to allow the scenario designer to place those in and also set the gain on the random effects.
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by battlerbritain »

Also the use of CAB ranks for air support?

Just a thought...
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jenrick
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by jenrick »

My knowledge of air support and it's allocation is based on the modern (2000+) era of combat arms. Things may have been done entirely different in the time frame FCRS covers.

At the level most scenarios are run at (brigade and up basically) their will be a very high level of abstraction in terms of air support for the command staff. They will know if they should expect air, and they can request air, but exactly what they'll get will normally not be up to the staff. They can specify needs (tac air to engage expected enemy armor and foot mobiles, or a strike on a hilltop held by a dismounted MR platoon), they can specify wants (A-10's to kill the godless commies!), but what they end up with is entirely up to the air planning staff building the Air Tasking Order (ATO). They'll do their best to accommodate the ground need, but it's a zero sum game. If air power goes to one engagement they can't be at another at the same time.

The ATO spells out both pre-planned strikes, and general CAS (fly to this location, make contact with this TACP, and kill whatever they want you to kill). Nothing is added to the ATO, only changed or removed. The ATO has EVERY SINGLE air asset in theater doing something (including having maintenance pulled on it). Only by modifying a task (rather then dropping CBU's on hill 242, divert to this grid and work CAS for example) can air units be rerouted. Obviously if there are enough losses that a target can't be struck, it has to be either reassigned or dropped from the ATO. Now with that said there are always air assets assigned to CAS that are basically sent to a holding point and then dispatched as needed.

Once the ATO goes live, all the different parts and pieces have to play their roll. It's all down to the minute timing to de-conflict air corridors (avoiding mid air collisions in the dark of night), have air units ingress and egress through the appropriate safe routes (to avoid a blue on blue from an itchy air defense unit), have the escorts meet up with strike package at the right time, and the SEAD units lead rather then follow, etc. It's a monumental undertaking to build an ATO, and the Air Force troops in theater basically either support the airplanes doing the fighting, or are supporting getting the ATO built and implemented.

So assuming a commander gets allocated air power, they should know that they will have some strike aircraft for CAS work (occasionally with a time frame for when to expect them), or that their target's were approved and will be struck (and occasionally a time frame for the strike). Now a commander can request units for CAS or a strike, but this has to go through whatever structure has been setup to handle the call for air support. Once the call goes out, the planners and controllers are responsible for 1) Finding out if there are any uncommitted air assets that can assist and 2) Getting them into the battle space without dying (that's a whole 'nother ballgame). If the only available assets are 2 F-117's with 2000lb LGB's on board and the ground commander needs a MRR dealt with, they probably aren't going to pull those F-117's. Same with a flight of A-10's armed with Mavericks, they're not going to be tasked to drop a highway bridge, no matter how bad the ground commander asks for air to drop the bridge.

For CAS, assuming air has either been tasked from the get go in the ATO, or has been sent from resources available how it is employed would be up to the commander that called for it. They can call for a specific target or location to be struck, or they can have the air unit contact a particular call sign on the ground (usually a FAC/JTAC/TACP/etc.) who will work the air strike. Even if the commander specifies a specific target or location, there is still usually an air liaison on the staff who will handle the strike, very rarely will an air unit just roll in on their own without checking with ground if they aren't detailed a target from the ATO.

So air units should work similarly to artillery where the player assigns them a target location (and by extension a target unit at said location usually), or they should act like artillery direct support and be at the beck and call of a unit to attack as the tac AI see's fit to use them.

Now how that attack goes would probably be very different in the cold war versus our modern conflicts. Currently we drop single bombs, fire a single missile etc. The air defense threat is pretty low (particularly if at altitude). In Europe against the WP, the AD threat would have been massive. "One pass, haul ***!" as they say. Even a dedicated CAS aircraft like the A-10 would be in and out of the battle space to minimize their exposure to AD threats, meaning availability every few minutes for a pass. Strike aircraft would be in and out.

No air asset is tied to a battle or ground commander once it's expended it munitions. In a low threat low tempo environment they might loiter as a show of force until other units with munitions arrive, but in a high threat or high temp environment it's back to base to rearm. Now it is possible that the same aircraft might be right back to handle the next pre-planned strike/CAS mission, or to answer a call for a strike/CAS but that would be to the whim of the ATO or controllers.

With that all said, the re-arm time for aircraft is immaterial, it's much more based on what assets were assigned or have been assigned once the call for air support goes out. If a battle is considered pivotal you'll have lots more air, but they wont be the same aircraft (maybe the same type and load out though) most likely. If it's important enough you'll get whatever is available and keep getting it so long as you need it. If you're not that commander though, you may get one air strike pre-planned in the ATO, and once their done they'll be off to support that other commander after they refuel and rearm.

-Jenrick

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Mad Russian
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by Mad Russian »

That's outstanding information jenrick. Thanks for sharing.

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Tazak
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by Tazak »

Excellent info jenrick.

If we combine jenrick's info and Capn Darwin comments:
What we probably can do is add in an element of chaos to the TAT when units are out of ammo. 30-90 minutes or even gone for the game type of effect. Also look at randomizing the time/if they show up and hiding that from the OOB. You get a radio message of assets on station in XX minutes. Enough to allow the scenario designer to place those in and also set the gain on the random effects.

I think that having aircraft leave after expending ammo would be more in line with what would've been seen, along with an element of random entry times with a 'on station' time set by scenario designers
i.e. player will have air support in approx. 3 hours into the scenario with time over target area of 2 hours, so the aircraft becomes available from 3 to X hours into the scenario, and withdraws either 5 to X+2 hours into the scenario or when ammo is expended.
This would ensure that air support is a more valuable asset rather than just spamming airstrikes as you can do at present.

Hiding the aircraft would be great addition I think so the player is not sure what he will get until it becomes available, long term vision might be that the scenario designer selects a 'strike package of IB, CBU or PGW' then the game engine randomly selects aircraft with that loadout so each time a scenario is played a different aircraft appears
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by z1812 »

I imagine you could use the scenario editor for this. Decide the turnaround time you would like, have the air asset enter at a particular time and then have it withdraw. Choose your next asset, have it appear later in the game and then withdraw it. That combined with a restricted ammo amount could, to some extent, mimic turn around times.
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by CapnDarwin »

z1812, that would be the way to do it.
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by Mad Russian »

We already do that. I have aircraft enter and then exit at specific times in many instances.

Glad you all think that's such a good idea!! Great minds think alike! [:D]

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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by jenrick »

That combined with a restricted ammo amount could, to some extent, mimic turn around times.

Again, turnaround time for a specific aircraft or flight or aircraft SHOULD be completely unrelated to how the ground commander gets air support.

A rough model of how a more "realistic" system might be implemented:

1) The scenario designer specifies available air units with entry and withdrawal times. These should be short windows, no more then 10-15 minutes. Most aircraft don't have the reserve's to loiter in the area, and the AD threat would be way to high to want to. Remember that there a lot of AD assets with ranges in excess of 40 km that are deployed in the WP rear. No one is going to drill holes in the sky for 2 hours, 100' above ground level to stay out of the threat envelope while waiting for tasking. 5 minutes of loiter time would probably be pushing it. Now certain close support aircraft like the A-10 would loiter, but it would be in and out of the battle space setting up attack runs. The 10-15 minute window reflects the fact that aircraft dispatched to an area, don't always get there on time.

2) The player EITHER designates a location for a strike when air arrives, or details it to support a particular unit when it arrives (ie. just like artillery direct support). This can be done well in advance, or in the command cycle prior to the arrival or the air support. If no orders are given for the air support, they can either leave the air without dropping any ordinance, or a random unit gets direct support (that FAC/JTAC/TACP/etc. got in touch with the aircraft first).

Ideally the player would be able to assign multiple ranked (1st priority, 2nd priority, etc.) target locations, or units to support to handle multiple AC's checking in. It would be a bit beyond the actual scope of a Colonel or General, but being able to detail a type of mission to a location would be something their air liaison officer would do (tank busters to this FAC, and the general CAS mission to this target location to attack enemy artillery, etc.).

3) Once the aircraft drop their munitions they are gone. If the scenario designer assigns another flight of AC to arrive 1 second after the departure of the other AC, groovy that's their business.

4) Possibly give the player the option to request additional air at a VP loss. This signals putting out a codeword call for help, that is normally not ignored. Every commander will be asking for additional air all battle long, but putting out a codeword (the old "broken arrow" for instance) will get a response if any air craft are available.

Two options exist in this case. 1) The scenario designer assigns what forces are available and when they arrive. 2) Randomly generated aircraft arrive randomly. Both have their pluses and minuses.

A brief example of how it would work:

The NATO player is launching a counter attack on against the flank of a WP formation. In their pre-deployment they detail the lead units of their assault formation to receive any air support that arrives. As they expect to encounter WP armor they use the drop down to select anti-armor AC as prefered. The player also see's that they can call a "Broken Arrow" for a 5000 VP penalty if they need to.

About 2 hours into the scenario, as the NATO and WP forces are beginning to engage the air arrives. One 4 ship flight of F-4 Phantoms arrives on station armed with CBU's. They aren't exactly the A-10's the player was hoping for, but hey work with what you've got. The F-4's are assigned to support the unit with priority #1 by the Tac AI, which then directs them to strike a particular hex containing WP units. The F-4's make their one run, drop their ordinance and then are gone, all DURING the players command cycle.

Several hours later, no additional air support has been forthcoming and the players attack is in dire straights. They are close to 6000 points of objectives, but have no realistic chance of breaking through. The player elects to use his "Broken Arrow" hoping to recoup the loss via the objectives. He assigns multiple units air priority, but sets the preference to none in the drop down. Anything landing on the heads of the WP units is good at this point. He also designates several hexes as target locations again with no preference.

The air units begin to arrive, first in a trickle and later in a rush. The scenario designer decided that this scenario represents a major NATO assault that would be fully supported even at the detriment of other actions taking place in theater. To represent this, there is a large amount of air power that arrives first slowly as units nearby are dispatched, and then much faster as units arrive from further away.

The Tac AI parcels out the air support, sending it between ground units and target locations. Bombs, rockets, etc rain down upon the WP.

Obviously this would take some major work to implement, but I think it would a decent bit to the air support system. Also as much as it would change the nature of the current gameplay, helo's should also work in a somewhat similar fashion. That however is the subject of a different post.

-Jenrick
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by Mad Russian »

ORIGINAL: jenrick


A rough model of how a more "realistic" system might be implemented:

1) The scenario designer specifies available air units with entry and withdrawal times. These should be short windows, no more then 10-15 minutes. Most aircraft don't have the reserve's to loiter in the area, and the AD threat would be way to high to want to. Remember that there a lot of AD assets with ranges in excess of 40 km that are deployed in the WP rear. No one is going to drill holes in the sky for 2 hours, 100' above ground level to stay out of the threat envelope while waiting for tasking. 5 minutes of loiter time would probably be pushing it. Now certain close support aircraft like the A-10 would loiter, but it would be in and out of the battle space setting up attack runs. The 10-15 minute window reflects the fact that aircraft dispatched to an area, don't always get there on time.

-Jenrick

This simply is a bad idea and it's why it doesn't happen now. For you to have only a 10-15 minute targeting window won't work.

Because it's so important to game play I've done a lot of work on how CAS is applied to the game. IF the game had set turn lengths that would work. Since the game doesn't it won't. If I bring in air support at the 3 hour mark of a game where is your turn sequence? Are you at 20 minute turns or 55 minute turns? That is all dependent on what kind of day you are having. If you are at 55 minute turns you desperately need the CAS I've tried to give you BUT of course you only had it for the 15 minutes in the middle of your 55 minute turn cycle and since you didn't target them, they left.

That is not going to be what you want to hear. With that situation in mind I normally give you 2 hour CAS missions. Enough to get it, determine the best place to use it and target with it. I also try to allow for if there is bad weather that they will loiter long enough for it to possibly clear for them to give you the mission you are requesting. I consider that the CAS package my consist of several aircraft that come and go in the stack. As you said, they won't sit around forever. The way the game does turns with all the variables involved, they do in game terms. At least some air deliverable package does. If after my normal 2 hour time frame is up and you still haven't used it then the CAS is diverted elsewhere.

CAS in FPC isn't just planes on target. There are a lot of other issues to consider.

Good Hunting.

MR
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jenrick
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by jenrick »

I agree that with the variable time of the command cycles that directly controlling air in short windows in unfeasible. See #2 in my post, in short the player predesignates target locations for the strike, or assigns the strike to support a particular unit, so that air support engages without direct intervention. I also agree that there is a lot more to CAS then just the planes on target. I also get that some some abstractions are required for the simulation to work as well.

I'll reply in more detail later when I have a keyboard to type with.

Sent from my phone.
jenrick
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by jenrick »

To address some of the points you made MR:
If I bring in air support at the 3 hour mark of a game where is your turn sequence? Are you at 20 minute turns or 55 minute turns? That is all dependent on what kind of day you are having. If you are at 55 minute turns you desperately need the CAS I've tried to give you BUT of course you only had it for the 15 minutes in the middle of your 55 minute turn cycle and since you didn't target them, they left.

What I am proposing is that air support instead function much like artillery. It is assigned an objective ahead of time and when it become available, whether that's 1 minute into the command cycle) or 8 hours later, it attacks a location or supports a unit when it arrives. You can assign target locations, or units to provide air support to during any planning phase (from pre-scenario start on out). The orders are acted upon when the air craft arrive on station, whether almost immediately as the phase begins, or 8+ hours later into the scenario. Air power can be extremely powerful but in a contested sky, against strong AD, it should be far less "user friendly" in terms of WHEN it is able to use it's power.
With that situation in mind I normally give you 2 hour CAS missions. Enough to get it, determine the best place to use it and target with it. I also try to allow for if there is bad weather that they will loiter long enough for it to possibly clear for them to give you the mission you are requesting. I consider that the CAS package my consist of several aircraft that come and go in the stack. As you said, they won't sit around forever.

I understand why with the current implementation it's done this way, and in that framework I don't have a problem with it being done that way. As I was positing a more "realistic," or at least granular, system I'd say that having a flight loiter for 2 hours would be contradictory to the goal of my proposal with the current cold war environment. In Vietnam a 2 hour loiter time for Skyraiders for instance, is certainly not out of the question. For that matter loiter time could even be a scenario specific variable, to simulate higher or lower threat environments, range from airfields, etc.

Believe me, having worked in the console gaming industry for a number of years, I know this isn't a trivial code change to implement. I also don't have any major problems with how air works in the game currently. I'm just proposing a possible method of changing the system IF the decision is made to change that CAS implementation.
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by jenrick »

Another option that would increase the realism somewhat of the current CAS model, without hopefully requiring too much effort for the coders:

The CAS system works the same as currently, but add a variable time for the strike to take affect that is in the range of the window for the CAS flight to be on station.

Exmp: The CAS flight is available for 3 hours, from 1530-1830. The player issues an order for a strike at 1549. A random amount of time to execute the strike is added to the normal initiation time of the strike. The range of time add is from 1 to 161 minutes. The actual variable would range from 1 to (Exit time of flight - current time) minutes.

The availability window of the CAS flight then functions instead like a timeframe for when the strike will actually arrive, rather then a marker of when you have aircraft circling overhead waiting for a target.

-Jenrick
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RE: Aircraft turnaround times

Post by Sabre21 »

I spent a good deal of the 80's stationed in Germany as an attack helicopter pilot. Our turn around time was dependent on a few things. Distance to the FARP, weather conditions, and threats along our route of flight. We almost always flew contour modes until we got within a few klicks of the FEBA when we would tend to hug the earth even more so commonly referred to as Nap of the Earth (NOE).

Typically we would have a main FARP within 20 k's of the FEBA and as we pushed out into Indian country (I was mostly in the air cav), we would have jump FARP's positioned in zones that we cleared so if all we needed was fuel, we could turn around in about 15 to 20 minutes. If ammo was needed it didn't take much longer. We hot rearmed and refueled. Rotors would continue to turn while 3 or 4 ground crew rearmed us and another was refueling. Typically spare ammo cans were kept ready so when an aircraft came in you pulled out the empty and slid in the loaded one and hooked it up. Rockets and missiles were pretty quick too.

We didn't keep a jump FARP in position too long, usually one or two loads per bird and that was it. Then they would reposition forward or if out of fuel/ammo would head back to the rear while another jump FARP was leapfrogging past them. So attack helicopter and recon assets could get back into the thick of things pretty quickly.

The attack helicopter companies and battalions were heavy assets that would be positioned in holding areas awaiting for adequate targets to present themselves. In the case of say an attacking Soviet regiment, the air cav units would track them and the air mission commander would establish a kill zone along their route of march. One or two AH companies would be brought in, arty would be coordinated, CAS would be positioned at their IP's (Initial Points), and sometimes even ground assets were coordinated with. As the main body of the threat force entered the kill zone, the dance would begin. Timing on this event was critical and measured in seconds. The pilots new the time it took for their missiles to reach the kill zone and would unmask and fire at ADA and C&C vehicles first. Lead vehicles would also be targeted. As the first missiles made impact, arty would be arriving on target to button up everyone and destroy what they could. As the first barrage was rounds complete the CAS was beginning to unload their ordinance and the AH's would fire a 2nd missile or rockets to help cover the CAS egress. As the missiles impacted a 2nd barrage was beginning to strike while all the helicopters would egress out.

As for the fast movers, we worked a lot with them as I kind of described above. Typically there would be a pair or two of A-10's, F-16's, or whatever other type of ground support aircraft on call as we needed them providing the mission planned for them. If they were low on fuel they would be replaced by other aircraft. Some missions we never got support, it was all dependent on what priorities they might already have had.
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