Combat Aviation Advisors

[cooterscout]

Are there any facts or rumors regarding where the CAA mission will be headed in the future? The last I heard is it is totally discontinued with no official plans for reinstatement. https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/ready-fire-aim-great-power-competition-without-combat-aviation-advisors

Can anyone with experience there comment on their time there? From the outside, it seems like it was a good time: unique deployments, lots of cool training for skills outside of the plane, and doing meaningful work. 

[tac airlifter]

3 hours ago, cooterscout said:

Can anyone with experience there comment on their time there? From the outside, it seems like it was a good time: unique deployments, lots of cool training for skills outside of the plane, and doing meaningful work. 

Define "meaningful work."

Edited October 1, 2023 by tac airlifter

[Bigred]

1 hour ago, tac airlifter said:

Define "meaningful work."

Circa 2013-2016, I personally saw them doing a lot of good things in SE Asia. It was impactful on partner nation real world operations. 
 

In my opinion, they were such a small part of AFSOC, and they operated so far outside of the normal scope of what AFSOC does, that it was easy to downplay and overlook what they did. Having worked with both Army ODA and these guys, the CCA dudes were more like ODA in employment (FID) than what one would typically think of with AFSOC. 
 

 

[Lawman]

Circa 2013-2016, I personally saw them doing a lot of good things in SE Asia. It was impactful on partner nation real world operations. 
 
In my opinion, they were such a small part of AFSOC, and they operated so far outside of the normal scope of what AFSOC does, that it was easy to downplay and overlook what they did. Having worked with both Army ODA and these guys, the CCA dudes were more like ODA in employment (FID) than what one would typically think of with AFSOC. 
 
 

A large portion of the AvFID mission set was handed off to USASOAC and then kind of passed down to the SFAB to own.

The problem isn’t that there is no concern at the Strategy level to build partner capability. SFAB exists entirely because of an understanding of that (and not just to teach Afghans how to do jumping jacks).

The problem is there is already not enough personnel within Army Aviation to pull for taskings, or to assess and maintain in the SFAB/SOC side. We’ve got a Major who just went over to SFAB to start doing this, only reason was because he was allowed to is he is medically hard down. His flying days are done. Same is true for the senior warrant population. If you can even find them at the rate we are all scrambling for the exits or dropping papers.

Compo 1 (the big regular Army) doesn’t care because from its view this is a staff as available when the active CABs are all fighting to get 65-70% manning.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tac airlifter]

11 hours ago, Bigred said:

Circa 2013-2016, I personally saw them doing a lot of good things in SE Asia. It was impactful on partner nation real world operations. 
 

In my opinion, they were such a small part of AFSOC, and they operated so far outside of the normal scope of what AFSOC does, that it was easy to downplay and overlook what they did. 

“Impactful on partner nation real world operations” is a great way to answer my question.  Well stated.  Your next sentence is equally as true.

You’re right they employed like an ODA.  Except Army ODAs were doing the Lords work in AFG and accepting huge risk to help ANASOC commandos increase lethality.  If the CAAs had been helping the US Military do things we needed and asked them to do, they’d still exist today.  Instead they did one off GCC requests and DOS partnerships.  Ok, that’s not nothing, but in the world of finite resources they lacked a convincing articulation of benefits provided to those paying the bill.  Combine that with some odd cultural idiosyncrasies and their fate was unsurprising.

Edited October 2, 2023 by tac airlifter

[Bigred]

52 minutes ago, tac airlifter said:

“Impactful on partner nation real world operations” is a great way to answer my question.  Well stated.  Your next sentence is equally as true.

unfortunately SE Asia was not important during that timeframe.  We needed folks in KNTC, needed them flying formation airdrop with AFG 208s, needed them helping Niger use ISR aircraft to patrol the border with Libya, needed them teaching the Danab rudimentary capacity in speaking to aircraft, etc. They were MIA in the many fights this nation was actively engaged in at that time.  They were exorbitantly expensive compared to other units, not skilled at integrating with other units or articulating their purpose. 
 

You’re right they employed like an ODA.  Except Army ODAs were doing the Lords work in AFG and accepting huge risk to help ANASOC commandos increase lethality.  If the CAAs had been helping the US Military do things we needed and asked them to do, they’d still exist today.  Instead they did one off GCC requests and DOS partnerships.  Ok, that’s not nothing, but in the world of finite resources they lacked a convincing articulation of benefits provided to those paying the bill.  Combine that with some odd cultural idiosyncrasies and their fate was unsurprising.

 The fact they were staffing anything in SE Asia while the AFG AF and SMW had non-vol T-6 FAIPs attempting to instruct tactics is an unforgivable crime and the permanent shame of the CAA enterprise.

I agree, to an extent. It wasn’t the entire squadron, it was two dudes. And they were really damn good. So it wasn’t like the entirety of the 6th was running around down there. 
 

I can’t speak to the bigger picture wrt Air Force employment since I was an outsider looking in back then. The irony is that what they were teaching and working towards aligns almost perfectly with what big Air Force is trying to do in that AOR these days, but at that time it wasn’t CENTCOM so people were like WTF are they doing? 

[ClearedHot]

I remember a staff meeting on the third floor of the AFSOC/HQ, the then AFSOC/CC was openly bashing CAA and the 6th SOS.  I am paraphrasing but he kept saying "tell me one time when this program got me access to a country".  

[Swizzle]

1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

I remember a staff meeting on the third floor of the AFSOC/HQ, the then AFSOC/CC was openly bashing CAA and the 6th SOS.  I am paraphrasing but he kept saying "tell me one time when this program got me access to a country".  

...aaahhh, so its not about *their* capacity but ours! And our access through..so proxies.

B̶y̶, w̶i̶t̶h̶, through, through, through!

To be fair, the present ongoing war is through.