Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Beam me up Scotty I can't be this old !

Tom this is high tech stuff these days of course and doubtful any weapons on the the New Ghost Rider 130 platform can be operated manually as all targeting is software enabled... but damn I sure would have liked to have had one of their bigger guns !

I'd have settled for a simple handheld GPS over 30-year-old topo maps annotated in French and Cambodian.

Renegade, when guys of our era shoot the breeze with today's guys and we describe what we did and how we did it, the youngsters of today simply go slack-jawed. "You did WHAT?!" Of course, by the time we quit doing it that way, it was already on the raggedy-ass edge of being unsurvivable and new guys are seeing our methods in light of today's threat levels - and enemy technology. Our jobs are as extinct as pterosaurs.

That might be the case from the pilots side with technogy.
Ground side concepts still basically the same plus added technology
I been outta the game 12 yrs.
Schit changes
Im sure I would have a learning curve.

But I dont have ta worry about that.
LOL!!!

502nd SOP marking freindlys day and night.
SOP,s need ta be understood by all elements involved.
Prior too, not during on the fly.

Orange side day, glint side night
Vs 17 long axis parallel to line.
Short axis friendly side.
Pilot knows friendly on short axis side.
Vs 17 requires time to set up though and not good under fire...

Day and night
Lazy V fast method
Each squad in a platoon always carried same color smoke
Red yellow green
PL PSG purple
Flanks chuck out far as possible
Center sets out arms lenght
Everything forward of base of V is enemy
Wind direction and blooming source dont matter. Its defineable.

Night same concept with IR strobes.
Thats basically ad hoc oh schit factor stuff.
Plus each of us had a square of glint on top of our brain buckets for night recogintion
A line or position of grunts being illuminated by a aircrafts IR is pretty conspicuous also.
Throw in heat imagery with it also.
Works in conjunction well.


Having ALO,s and FO,s with viper systems and gps Iff transponder is also the prefered method.
They got assets on call .
Update the assets on approach paths, visual land marks, friendly line marking description or gps grid.
Army FO,s often multitask between arty and air assets.
ALO,s company , bn, bde assets mostly.

You guys had ta deal with canopy.
That would be a huge challenge for sure.
Compared to desert/ mountainous barren areas basically and urban areas.

In panama training.
Single color smoke from a approach path for a gun run
Or a IR strobe from a approach path.
Important to get direction line of approach path straight big time.
Always from rear to front preferred
A 90 oblique was bad juju
45 oblique accecptable


I enjoy reading you guys stuff.
Might not comment on it much.
But read it all the time.
My grandfather did 3 wars .
WW2, Korea, Vietnam.
He died in 97.

Just thought I would jump in with a ground guys thoughts from my past.