Air-strike coordinators need lighter equipment: tac-air controllers on the ground are still burdened by heavy combat gear.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Brief Article

Putting bombs on target is, in large measure, the responsibility of U.S. Air Force specialists known as tactical air control parties. The TACPs typically are assigned to Army combat units to request and direct air strikes against enemy targets on the ground.

Armed with maps, compasses, grease pencils, radios, laser designators and rangefinders, the TACPs do a job that still remains, for the most part, dependent on their ability to make complex computations and deliver target information under high stress, in the fog of war.

That explains why only 40 TACPs, who wear black berets, are assigned to the U.S. Army Special Forces. When the war erupted in Afghanistan after 9/11, they were among the first to begin directing air strikes. Altogether, the U.S. Air Force has about 1,000 career TACP specialists. A TACP generally is a two-person team.

Among those TACPs attached to Army Special Forces in Afghanistan was Timothy A. Stamey, who called in scores of air strikes between October 2001 and January 2002. Now a retired Air Force master sergeant, Stamey received the Silver Star and Meritorious Service Medal for his efforts leading an 11-day bombing campaign during that conflict.

Even a minor mistake by a TACP can result in the bombing of friendly forces.

It is the TACP's duty to make sure that U.S. fighter jets attack the correct target. TACPs live, train and deploy with Army units.

An Air Force program called "TACP modernization" began more than two years ago, aimed at supplying the TACPs with new radios, laser rangefinders and rugged laptop computers for data processing, messaging and electronic-map display. The 10-year, $350 million project so far has delivered nearly 1,000 new multi-band portable radios and a couple of hundred high-performance laser rangefinders. But the rugged PC remains a work in process, plagued by excess weight and difficulties in developing software that can interface with innately incompatible radios, aircraft and munitions from different services.

TACPs read the target coordinates--via voice radio--to the pilot assigned to drop bombs. If the coordinates are off even by one digit, the outcome can be fratricide. But because TACPs are experienced and well trained, "human error happens infrequently, Stamey told National Defense.

While deployed in Afghanistan, Stamey said that some pieces of equipment fielded in recent years under the TACP modernization program turned out to be winners, such as the AN/PRC-117F radio--made by Harris RF Communications--and the Mark VII laser rangefinder, made by Northrop Grumman Corp.

But the equipment is only part of the equation. Remaining calm and collected is key to the success of the TACP. "Human error is nor a problem, as long as you double check yourself," he said. "With the fog of war and Murphy's law, that's where it happens."

During the war in Afghanistan, he said, "I didn't have a problem, because I double checked every single thing that I'd done." Experience helps a great deal too, said Stamey. "I've been doing this for a long time. Some of the younger guys get a little more excited. That is when you can get human error.

Stamey said he is optimistic that the TACP modernization program is moving in the right direction, even though he said that some of the equipment still is too heavy. Iris not unusual for TACPs to lug more than 150 pounds of gear to the battlefield. A lot of that weight is in the form of batteries that are needed to operate energy-hogging laser designators.

The PRC-117F radio was well received, he said, because it replaced three older radios...