[760] The bombline had been moved in to an average of 3–4,000 meters from the MLR in December 1952 to expose more targets to the “mass” strike treatment.
Then, too, the Marine system of maintaining aircraft “on air alert” resulted in CAS requests being filled in 5 to 15 minutes. Air support requests screened in the regular manner by Eighth Army and FAF at the JOC level resulted in a delivery of ordnance to the target in a minimum of 30 minutes and delays sometimes of nearly four hours.[761] During fluid situations, when the division required more than 40 sorties per day, the “on station” system proved more tactically effective than the FAF pre-planned “on call” procedure.
[761] PacFlt EvalRpt Chap. 1, No. 6, p. 1-15.
Operational differences between the Marine-Navy and Army-Air Force type of CAS in a critical ground situation were never more apparent than in a major CCF last-ditch effort when the enemy slammed against ROK defenses in the Kumsong area. An end-of-war report noted:
CCF penetration of the II ROK Corps sector, in July, 1953, brought clearly into focus the ineffectiveness of the Air Force-Army close air support (CAS) system during periods of fluid operations. CCF eruption through the II ROK Corps MLR and deep into friendly territory eliminated, as effective or practical, the complete reliance by 5th AF on pre-planned CAS strikes (using aircraft from the ground-alert pool), against fleeting targets or targets of an immediate nature. These types of targets are considered normal during a fluid situation.
The inadequacy of communications for rapid transmission of air support requests in the CAS system employed in Korea, the impossibility of only four TACP’s per division (U.S. and ROK Army) to keep up with frontline battalion battle actions in order to control CAS strikes, and the over-centralization of control of CAS request approvals and CAS aircraft allocation were all clearly demonstrated during that period of fluid ground operations in July.[762]
[762] PacFlt EvalRpt No. 6, p. 10-3.
Despite the accommodation reached during the Korean War, many of these fundamental differences in doctrine and employment of air support to ground troops in combat persisted until recent years.[763]
[763] For a penetrating discussion of interservice problems dealing with air-ground liaison and communications, use of FACs, and CAS capability, etc., see U.S. Congress, Rpt of Special Subcommittee on Tactical Air Support of the Committee on Armed Services, Otis G. Pike, Chairman (House of Reps., 89th Congress, 1 Feb 66), Washington: GPO, 1966.
As military history has shown countless times in the past, wars are fought under the prevailing difficulties of the time. There never was a war waged under ideal conditions. A reflection on operational problems of the Korean period is predicated on the thought that a review of them—and the solutions effected where possible—may help avoid their repetition in a conflict of the future.