AI Air Defense

[Suhiir]

I keep forgetting the rest of the world defines "Air Support" differently then the USMC.

"In 1947, the United States Air Force became a separate service, intent on strategic bombing. U. S. Air Force Forward Air Control expertise existed only on paper. Their doctrine ranked air operations importance as being primarily concentrated on strategic bombing, with interdiction operations secondary, and close air support last. The Air Force believed in central control of close air support originated by FACs within Tactical Air Control Parties assigned to the Army at regimental and divisional level.

By contrast, the U. S. Marine Corps placed its TACPs down to battalion level. When deployed on operations each USMC infantry company is allocated an FAC.

The greatest practical difference between the two systems lays in their very definition of close air support.
The Air Force considers air strikes anywhere within artillery range of friendly units to be close air support.
The Marines defined it as air strikes within 50 to 200 yards of friendly troops, delivered within fifteen minutes of request."

Up until the invention of laser guided artillery (and even now) the USMC has preferred their version of close air support over artillery because a Marine pilot can place a bomb where it's needed, on a target, instead of somewhere in the vicinity like artillery.