The
US Department of Defense predicts that ground forces of the future will
wage tomorrow’s wars by replacing large numbers of personnel and
organic firepower for advanced technology and superior maneuverability.
Those forces must be prepared to face an unconventional enemy who will
operate in small, lethal units interspersed with the civilian population
rather than facing coalition forces with massed formations. This
scenario of blurred lines of battle and difficulty determining friend
from foe resembles very closely what the US military faced in Vietnam.
This
study will address the successes and failures of United States airborne
forward air controllers (FACs), particularly in Vietnam, and whether
combat lessons learned were passed from service to service or
historically from conflict to conflict. The FAC mission has not
significantly changed since the end of the Vietnam War, and a thorough
study of operational and tactical lessons learned by those aircrew will
significantly enhance today’s FACs ability to find and destroy dispersed
enemy forces in a wide array of environments.
OBTAIN DOCUMENT: The History of the Airborne Forward Air Controller in Vietnam
