RetroWARTHINK 019a: Lazy, Static Land Base Airmen: AVOID D.O.T.G. by Being Ground-Mobile! Transfer Unwanted Transport & CAS Aviation to the U.S. ARMY, Part 1

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40694/amphibious-mc-130j-transport-is-on-special-operations-commands-wishlist?

QUOTE:

The U.S. military, as a whole, has been exploring concepts of operations in recent years that focus heavily on being able to operate from austere and remote areas with very limited infrastructure in the event that large, established bases are destroyed or are otherwise unavailable.

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Wait for Your Break-Bulk

NSA 47 is a potentially fatal disaster for America; creating a criminal CIA that murders our Citizens with mental (mass media immoral state worship for Type As and nihilist/hedonism for Type Bs) and physical addictive drug poisons and instigates perpetual wars for Wall Street. The Department of Defense (DoD) is hardly that--its always on offense provoking conflicts with sado-masochist, separate service USAF FIREPOWER instead of war smothering, Army MANEUVER & combat ENGINEERING. To sabotage maneuver, a malignant narcissist USMC pontificating Luddite ad hocery instead of prepared U.S. ARMY war machinery mechanical advantage; the abandonment of amphibious warfare properly done with British-General Percy Hobart-style engineer tanks [www.combatreform.org/sappertanks.htm] is no surprise from a lazy vanity club interested in dress uniforms and public adulation instigated by other service trash-talking as a part of tribalist virtue-signalling. USMC smug declarations of lies like "amphibious operations never fail" (USMC's Koh Tang island in 1975, British Gallipoli in 1915, Japanese Milne Bay, New Guinea in 1942 where the U.S. ARMY--not marines--were the actual "1st to fight" on offense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huaWOyDzm1c) are grotesque reality denials put forth long before there were grifting nihilist-hedonist Marxist WOKETARDs playing victim identity politics--had it not been for God sending bad weather (TBATE) and Sir Francis Drake's fire ships (TBAM) in 1588 smashing the Spanish Armada with an invasion marine korps of troops, horse and cannon inside, THERE WOULDN'T EVEN BE AN ENGLAND OR AN UNITED STATES with which to have a divisive, lying, braggart corps.   

NSA 47 must be revoked for America to survive; the CIA as well as the political persecution FBI must be DISBANDED. DoD needs to return to the only-when-necessary, WAR Department. Air power has failed to fully and properly develop under a centralized USAF bureaucracy only interested in selfish try to win wars by FIREPOWER types of aerospace weaponry and neglects TRANSPORT and Close Air Support (CAS); these functions should return to the U.S. ARMY where they were highly successful in WW2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwK9jWbkBxQ

https://www.bitchute.com/video/7oizJdvxvTYM/

Transportation by air/space is bottle-necked by having to break-bulk load/unload things while the transport is exposed to enemy fires--the CIVILIAN transportation world realizes time wasted is not only lives but money lost--is Sea/Air/Land ISO containerized--the USMIL should use the same in their own weaponized "BATTLE BOXes" with transports that quickly pick them up pre-loaded with Army things--and drops them off in seconds--LTG Gavin's KIWI pods realized necessary in 1947 but rejected by the disinterested, FIREPOWER-centric USAF.

www.combatreform.org/battleboxes.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qNUWcn7NvE

C-27Js and C-130H/Js should be transferred to the U.S. ARMY to own & operate at the maximum forward unit delivery efficiency by parachutes & stealth gliders. A new KIWI pod, stealthy, Air Cushion Landing System (ACLS) or Pantobase ski, amphibious C-130 successor must be fielded thru the Army's budget--not be a non-existent fluff study in the we-pull-gs-and-are-superior-to-thou, fighter jock USAF "Mafia".   

www.combatreform.org/c130.htm

Got to Have Some CAS

The USAF ugly mess is that it doesn't want to do CAS at all to help Army maneuver and only does the minimums to spite the latter from having their own Army Air Corps that can. Ponder back-stabs over the AH-56 Cheyenne gunship, the CV-1 Caribou, C-27J Spartan for examples. USAF The self-serving USAF's TacAir (bombers, fighter-bombers) priorities are:

1. Air Superiority

2. Geostrategic bombing enemy civilian infrastructure to force surrender

3. Interdiction

4. CAS

5. Transport

The USAF would rather have its transports airdrop pallets of missiles to do bureaucratic glory functions than CAS outfitted as downward-pointing gunships or airdrop or airland U.S. ARMY Airborne and non-parachute capable maneuver units to the 720 degree, Non-Linear Battlefield (720 NLB). The USAF hopium is the war will be over long before it has to do MANEUVER-centric CAS and battlefield transportation. Even for the USAF's beloved priorities, rather than risk Airmen lives they'd rather send a drone than a man--a drone swarm of expensive throw-aways making them actually a form of field artillery in blue suits and not an Air FORCE. Details:

http://defensenews.va.newsmemory.com/

04/12/21

‘IF WE CAN CHANGE, WE CAN WIN’

An U.S. Air Force war game shows what the service needs to hold off — or win against — China in 2030

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The USAF centralizing monster was created around a do-everything 300 mph fighter-bomber born in North Africa in 1942. Even 300 mph prop planes with just a pilot and no observer(s) cannot find elusive enemy targets because they are moving too fast so the U.S. ARMY created STOL Grasshopper observation planes with removable wings co-located with MANEUVER elements in field artillery units with observers and low altitude (under 2, 000 feet) agility to HUNT and FIND camouflaged enemies radioing in target locations to affordable tube/rocket fire providers for suppression/destruction.

www.combatreform.org/grasshoppersmuystreturn.htm

When the attack function was added to helicopters by adding fixed wings and observation planes which already had them--like the superb OV-1 Mohawk, the childish USAF had a conniption fit like a spoiled child not getting their way--at the cost of American lives in Vietnam and afterwards when foes couldn't be found. USAF bureaucratic selfish functional treason can not be tolerated.  

www.combatreform.org/killerbees2.htm

Armored A-10 Warthog attack planes should be transferred to the Army and upgraded into OA-10Ds with more powerful engines, folding wings for ground mobility to co-locate with maneuver units, downward pointing autocannon for better strafing without dangerous diving and a 2nd seat for an enlisted JTAC observer/emergency pilot.

www.combatreform.org/aircommandos.htm

https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/leavenworth-papers-24-forging-the-ninth-army-xxix-tac-team.pdf

QUOTE:

Most significantly, the Germans learned the importance of mobility for both their ground and air forces, and equipped flying squadrons and ground establishments with sufficient transport to keep up with fast-moving troops, enabling continual support through the advance and only infrequent interruptions for a change of base.[32]

While advocates of the ground forces requested a dive bomber capable of operating accurately in close proximity to ground forces, air advocates preferred to focus on light, twin-engined bombers with the necessary range and payload to raid enemy airfields, making them far more useful in the air superiority campaign than for close support.[37] The AAF also adopted the distinction between “tactical” and “strategic” air forces expressed in German doctrinal manuals, but it was clear that it did not value the two equally.

Despite wartime protestations that all aviation had to be concentrated under a single air commander, the AAF was more than happy to assign obsolete reconnaissance and artillery-spotting aircraft to the tactical air forces while retaining the most capable front-line fighters and bombers in the “strategic” force, where they would be less likely to be drawn into the ground battle.

Prewar exercises demonstrated the inadequacy of this separation, as the army-cooperation-type aircraft, such as the O-47, proved inadequate for either reconnaissance or artillery spotting, leading the army to eventually develop its own light [Grasshopper STOL] aviation, using liaison aircraft assigned to individual artillery battalions for correction, coupled with demands for more capable interdiction and close support aircraft to intervene in the ground battle.

In short, France was a disaster for the RAF. The shortest response time achieved from requests for air support to aircraft overhead was four hours, and this required officers phoning London on ground lines to arrange support.[39] As a result, aircraft often arrived too late to effectively intervene, and advancing German ground forces eventually overran their airfields.

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This is EXACTLY what happened in Korea 5 years later!

NORKS invaded South Korea over-running SOUTHK airfields. Re: Rock Hudson's LTC Dean Hess, USAF: "Battle Hymn" F-51 Mustang movie.

NSA 47's 1st Failure: Interdiction in Korea

Contraprop Spitfire XIX smashes coastal target in North Korea

https://www.navalofficer.com.au/strangle/

QUOTE:

A serious bureaucratic bunfight raged in Washington between 1947-49 regarding the separation of the U.S. Air Force from the U.S. Army and a newly created “unified” Department of Defence that would oversee all the fighting services. Following the theories and leads of Guilio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard and Billy Mitchell, U.S. Air Force advocates, ably led by Secretary of Defence Louis Johnson, claimed that sufficient numbers of the USAF’s grand new B-36 bomber, first flown in August 1946, would make large expensive navies and armies superfluous and therefore a waste of money.[2] Their strongly-held fallback position was that even if navy or army rumps insisted on keeping tiny little auxiliary air forces, simple economy-of-force and air safety considerations demanded a single authority to purchase all air-related assets and, importantly, to control all air operations in one geographical theatre. That authority, of course, rested with the USAF.

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Which means since the USAF doesn't give-a-damn about helping the U.S. ARMY; transports don't improve with KIWI pod modularity and CAS ARMORED MUDFIGHTERS with folding wings don't get purchased; all the effective-by-accident sturdy air-cooled engine, P-47 Thunderbolts gotten rid of ASAP, replaced by UNARMORED fragile liquid-cooled engine, "sexy" F-51 Mustangs whose wings also don't fold and suffered horrendous losses in Korea when they became available Hess-style with some airfields to operate from; the Army should have kept an "auxiliary air force" of trailer-ground-mobile like STOL Grasshopper observation planes, folding wing, armored, 2-seat (officer pilot & enlisted observer) F-51s and/or F-47s and C-82 and/or C-119 Flying Box Car transports able to parachute drop light tanks:

www.combatreform.org/lighttanks.htm]

TF Smith Needed Folding-Wing F-51O MUDstang or F-47O MUDBolt Fighter-Bombers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPWIrVt-j1o

Non-Folding Wing F-51 Mustangs clutter the USS Boxer's Flight Deck en Route to Korea

The Korean debacle unfolds:

https://www.navalofficer.com.au/strangle/

Consistent with the NSC warnings, North Korea suddenly invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950 in the first stage of a war that was to last a little over three years. More than half the South Korean Army was destroyed within the first few weeks. By the end of July, UN ground reinforcements, chiefly under-strength American Army units fed piecemeal into the battle, found themselves pushed back into a small “Pusan Perimeter” pocket in the southeast corner of the peninsula.

Here was an opportunity for the first test in the cauldron of war of the Johnson-USAF domination-by-air strategy. If that strategy was sound, North Korea’s major communications centres and industrial bases would be bombed to a standstill within weeks. Its army would then fold and the ground forces would just mop up and take control of the civilian population.

A-26 Invaders: Best Seen in Spielberg's Aerial Fire-Fighting movie, "Always"--NOT the Bay of Pigs Debacle where Rear-Facing Self-Defensive Armament was Unwisely Removed www.combatreform.org/airbornebayofpigs.htm. 

On 27 June the United Nations Security Council called on member nations to help South Korea. American B-26 Douglas Invader twin-engined tactical bombers and fighters of the Far East Air Force based in Japan commenced interdiction raids that night. B-29s followed up with heavier bombardments the next day.

Chiefly British Commonwealth warships initiated a highly successful naval blockade of the entire Korean coast within hours of the UN resolution. HMS Triumph, a British light fleet carrier with about 24 aircraft aboard, and USS Valley Forge, an American Essex class carrier with about 70 aircraft closed Korea. Triumph launched 12 Seafire Mk 47s and seven Fireflies to raid Haeju airfield at 0615, 3 July 1950. Valley Forge launched a series of raids against Pyongyang airfield using 12x AD Skyraiders, 16x F4U Corsairs and 8x F9F-2 [jet] Panthers about the same time. The Panthers shot down two Yak-9Ps, Spitfire-equivalent Russian-built [prop] fighter bombers.

Beware also of simple sortie number comparisons, even for similar-category aircraft. For instance, the USAF might have flown far more fighter-bomber sorties to the Pusan Perimeter than the USN, USMC and RN, but effect, in terms of weight of high explosive delivered on target on time, is what counts. [www.combatreform.org/highexplosives.htm] Many early USAF fighter-bomber Close [Air] Support sorties were inappropriate. Jet aircraft with only two small rockets or just .50 [heavy] machine guns sometimes monopolised the radios, air space and time over the front lines while more capable USN and USMC aircraft were forced to wait or even to jettison their more suitable bombs.[25]

Again, the USAF took great pride in their “daylight precision bombing”, particularly from B-29s. However, the USN cleaned up USAF B-29 failures many times, e.g. Wonsan oil refinery 13 July 1950 and the Seoul rail bridge 19 August 1950.[26, 27] Many argue that the war was brought to a conclusion not because of USAF influence--but because of the USN’s shifts to heavy air strikes on strategic targets, particularly power plants, in June-October 1952.

What was Operation STRANGLE? Following a similarly-named operation in Italy during WW II* [EDITOR: against Western foes], Operation STRANGLE (Korea) was devised by the USAF Fifth Air Force Vice Commander, BGEN E.J. Timberlake, in May 1951, to interdict [Eastern, highly stoical] enemy road and rail traffic before it could resupply the front lines. Eight north-south routes were identified, 20 to 80 miles north of the foremost troops. [28] There was some overlap, but generally the Fifth Air Force (including aircraft from West Coast carriers such as HMAS Sydney) was responsible for the two western routes. TF 77 targeted the two central routes from carriers normally deployed off the East Coast, while the mainly shore-based marines took care of the three easternmost routes.[29]

The RAN chose Australian Fireflies for bridge-dropping and tunnel-blocking tasks. They usually carried two 500 lb bombs and 240 rounds of 20mm. After shifting in late October 1951 from a 30-degree dive bomb to a 10-degree anti-submarine glide bomb profile, with 37-second delay fuses, Firefly pilots became expert at dropping bridge spans and blocking tunnels. For armed reconnaissance sorties of the road, rail and waterways networks, RAN Sea Furies typically carried eight 3-inch ballistic rockets with 60 lb HE heads, 600 rounds of 20mm and two 45-gallon drop tanks. Unlike the RAAF, USAF and USN, no RAN aircraft ever carried napalm in Korea.

The USAF’s Far East Air Force (FEAF) allocated about 100x [UNARMORED] B-26 Douglas Invader medium bombers as night intruders and their entire [UNARMORED] F-84 Thunderjet fighter-bomber fleet to Operation STRANGLE. Despite some modest success in its early months, aircraft losses quickly mounted as the North Korean and Chinese displayed unexpected skills at camouflage, bridge repair, logistic flexibility and, particularly, shooting down aircraft with light weapons. Between August 1951 and March 1952 FEAF lost no fewer than 243 fighter-bombers and another 290 sustained major damage. This was four times the aircraft replacement rate, if those aircraft with major damage are included. In human terms, 245 airmen were killed or missing and 34 wounded.[30]

Bridges were dropped, tunnels were blocked and virtually no traffic moved by day across the middle of North Korea during Sydney’s watch. Trucks and trains moved at night, but they were difficult to see. Operation STRANGLE reduced rail traffic to about five percent of its pre-war capacity during its first couple of months, but together with increased night road transport and even human A-frame back-pack porters, that limited capacity was sufficient to support the static enemy front line. Despite targets being sown randomly with up to 24 hours delay-fused bombs, most simple road and rail track cuts were repaired or by-passed within hours. Big bridges over fast-flowing rivers were harder to repair but, given time, nothing seemed to daunt the brilliant [Eastern] enemy engineers and their seemingly endless supply of labour and repair material. The enemy also quickly worked out what the next most likely target might be and redeployed their light anti-aircraft weapons accordingly.

Originally planned to last 45 days, Operation STRANGLE was extended continuously as it tried to meet its objectives. By December 1951, the Fifth Air Force had concluded that Operation STRANGLE was not working, but in the absence of an acceptable alternative, General Ridgway insisted that it continue.[31]

As Sydney was leaving in February 1952 and possibly prompted by Sydney‘s urgings, MGEN Jacob Smart, the FEAF deputy operations commander, commissioned a study that counted massive Operation STRANGLE losses for little gain. The study recommended change to an Air Pressure Strategy that included some interdiction, but prioritised destruction that would cause “permanent loss to the enemy and…drain his strength”.[35]

June-October 1953

Following the defection of North Korean BGEN Lee Il on 21 February 1952 and his debriefing by USN officers, it was learned that the enemy was delighted with the Washington policy of exempting the big Yalu River hydroelectric generating stations from attack. They supplied power to China as well as North Korea.[36] Initiated by USN TF 77 staff officers, approval was eventually obtained to take out these targets with USN dive bombers. The naval aircraft had a better chance than B-29s of hitting the target without overflying China or, worse, accidentally bombing China. Between 23 and 27 June 1952, coordinated attacks by USN and USAF aircraft destroyed 11 of the 13 generating plants in North Korea, eliminating 90 per cent of their electrical power.[37]

The first target was the big Suiho plant, the fourth largest in the world. Antung, a big Chinese air complex housing 250x MiG-15s, was only 35 miles away, hence the large fighter cover for the strike aircraft. Also defending the target were 28 heavy AA guns and 43 lighter automatic weapons, many radar-controlled. On 23 June 1952, a three-carrier strike force of 35 AD Skyraider dive bombers, each loaded with one 1,000 lb and two 2,000 lb bombs, were protected by 84x USAF F-86 Sabres and 24x USN F-9F Panthers. The USAF followed up with coordinated attacks from 124x F-84 Thunderjets, but their tiny bomb-load made it doubtful that they contributed much. 

No aircraft was lost, although one diverted to Seoul to land wheels up after receiving flak damage. The Suiho bombing alone resulted in a 23 per cent loss of electrical power in northeast China and caused serious Chinese production shortfalls. The four-day campaign reduced power by 90 per cent in North Korea, causing a two-week blackout and serious disruptions to industry and agriculture.

However, Chinese and Soviet technicians rushed to repair the damage from these raids with small generating plants. Over time, these countermeasures, together with power-saving economies, successfully insulated the front lines from the effects of the raids.[38]

However, it must be acknowledged that Korea was seen by many in 1950-53 to be a sideshow fought by the Reserves, not a real war. The “real war” was always Euro-centric and it kept America’s newest and biggest three Midway class carriers and the big British fleet carriers in the Atlantic or Mediterranean, far from Korea. Therefore it might be difficult to derive any important generalisation other than to note that Korea was the first of many little wars over the past half century. All were resolved with non-nuclear weapons. None validated the Douhet/Trenchard/Mitchell hard line position that victory could be achieved by air power alone. All American and British interventions employed aircraft carriers and sometimes Air Forces, but all depended on close cooperation with ground troops.

Contrary to USAF assertions back in 1948 that aircraft carriers would be quickly sunk in future conflicts, it has been not the carrier but the in-country airfield, such as at Da Nang, that has proven vulnerable to enemy action [EDITOR: so far].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Firefly

Despite several incidents of aircraft being struck by anti-aircraft fire, the Firefly proved to be relatively rugged. The type was routinely used for strike operations against targets such as bridges and railway lines to damage North Korean logistics and communications. As the war went on, pilots developed new low-level dive-bombing techniques to achieve greater accuracy.[5]

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Ground Forward Air Controllers (GFACs) & Airborne Forward Air Controllers (AFACs)

The German campaign in Russia proved to be a repeat of Poland and France on a much larger scale, at least until the Russian weather and geography intervened at the end of 1941. German attacks on Soviet airfields won the essential air superiority and the Soviet Air Force (Voyenno vozdushnye sily, or VVS) lacked the ability to capably direct or control their forces, resulting in heroic but suicidal attacks on superior German formations. In yet another German innovation, later falsely claimed to have been created sui generis by Allied airmen, “von Richthofen in 1941 placed experienced Stuka pilots in Mark III Panzers equipped with air-ground radios, to serve as mobile forward air controllers. For the first time, Luftwaffe CAS units could coordinate ground attacks right from the front lines.”[44] Army commanders, convinced the RAF’s independence had been the root of the failure, insisted on the formation of an “Army Cooperation Force,” that would develop new aircraft types specifically for ground support missions and place them under the exclusive control of the ground commander. Increased mobility for air squadrons in order to help them keep up with the advances and withdrawals across the empty desert.. Most often, the “tentacle” consisted of a team mounted in a half-track equipped with a bulky VHF radio, enabling them to keep up with armored formations.. One of these innovations, borrowed from the British, was the “Rover Joe” system of air controllers attached to forward units of the ground forces. From a [n unarmored wheeled] jeep equipped with a VHF radio, fighter pilots attached as liaison officers to the ground forces could contact available aircraft and then direct attacks on units in the immediate front, speeding the response time and insuring more effective attacks with lower risks to the ground forces. This system spread throughout 12th Air Force and the Fifth Army during the Italian campaign. [51]

Another innovation included the “horsefly” forward air controllers. In an airborne version of the “Rover Joe” program, pilots who had completed their initial tour volunteered to fly light, liaison-type aircraft over the front lines, conducting reconnaissance and directing air strikes onto enemy positions and formations. As historian Christopher Gabel related in his excellent study of the 1941 GHQ Maneuvers, “to encourage experiments with light liaison airplanes, the firms of Piper, Aeronca, and Taylor offered the free use of eleven Cub-type sport planes for the maneuver season,” which was a complete success and resulted in the adoption of these types within each artillery battalion.[29] Due to a shortage of dive bombers, the AAF requested two Navy dive bomber squadrons equipped with the SBD Dauntless, identical to the AAF’s A-24. Only the 1st Armored Brigade proved capable of coordinating an attack with supporting aircraft, achieving a limited breakthrough on 18 September, but it could not prevent Third Army forces from overrunning some of the Second Army’s forward airfields.[37] In the second phase of the maneuvers, troops of Maj. Gen. George Patton’s 2nd Armored Division duplicated this feat when they swung around the Second Army’s western flank and captured the army’s main air base at Barksdale Field. But this was not the only envelopment he had planned to throw his opponent off balance.

RAF A-20 with Rockets

An airborne raid on Pope Field captured the airdrome for several hours and would have cost the 1st Air Support Command most of its aircraft and trained personnel by the time nearby ground forces liberated the field. [6] Not content with these advantages, Lieutenant General Drum sought to prove the old adages, “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying,” and “all is fair in love and war,” by illegally moving his troops into their jump-off positions ahead of time, in violation of his orders. The L-4s and L-5s were eventually assigned directly to ground formations, increasing their utility for reconnaissance, courier, and transportation, and absolving the AAF or responsibility for their care and feeding. [14] The lower speed also promised improved reconnaissance, as the higher speed P-39 and P-40 fighters and A-20 light bombers assigned to the observation squadrons often missed well-camouflaged positions and introduced location errors in their reports, placing one tank battalion over three miles from its actual location near Flatwoods.[15] The lack of support was unfortunate, as 17 November brought the largest German armored counterattack of the offensive. CCB of 2nd Armored planned to continue their attack through Apweiler to Gereonsweiler and hoped to be in the latter village by nightfall, but a mobile formation from the 9th Panzer Division that was already west of the Roer River upset their timetable. As day broke, a force of an estimated 45 Mark V (Panther) and Mark VI (Tiger) heavy tanks supported by infantry, hit two battalions of the 67th Armor Regiment at Puffendorf just as they were forming up for their own assault. The German superiority in both main gun range and armor protection quickly told, as the frustrated gunners watched their 75mm rounds ricochet off the German tanks. Throughout the day, the unsupported medium Shermans lost tank after tank, even after pulling back into the village, until by late in the day some companies had only a few remaining. Fortunately, reinforcements from CCA, built around the 66th Armored Regiment, helped stabilize the situation, but prevented them from supporting a drive on Setternich. But the stubborn resistance held Puffendorf while inflicting losses on the attackers. A separate attack by ten Panthers pierced Immendorf but failed to regain the town. 2nd Armored had held but it was completely defensive and lacked critical air support. McDonald noted, “Fighter-bombers of the XXIX TAC braved unfavorable elements to maintain a semblance of air cover over the battlefield through most of the day, but mists and rain denied any real contribution against pinpoint targets like tanks.”[38] AAF aircraft continued to work well with the light aircraft assigned to the artillery battalions. An air observer for the 224th Field Artillery Battalion spotted tanks near Bourheim and had his battery mark them with white phosphorus and red smoke, enabling aircraft to attack and destroy them. As the ground advance approached the dense city of Julich, intense anti-aircraft fire from positions concealed inside the city pushed the supporting aircraft to altitudes where identification of targets became difficult. [76] The artillery’s smoke rounds and incendiaries increased the likelihood of spotting a target during the brief run through the worst of the German flak.[77] Another observer from the 283rd FA Battalion later did the same later with three tanks near Koslar. As they had at Gereonsweiler a week earlier, aircraft struggled to dig German defenders out of prepared positions, but proved particularly adept at breaking up counterattacks when they left their protective cover.

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* The Original Operation STRANGLE in WW2. Details in Part 2:

https://1sttac.blogspot.com/2021/04/retrowarthink-019-lazy-static-land-base.html

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Semper Airborne!

James Bond is REAL.