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bobdina
08-18-2009, 09:18 PM
Language differences, crowded radio channel impede air support


COLIN KELLY /S TAFF
By Erik Holmes
eholmes@militarytimes.com
NANGALAM, Afghanistan — The firefight at Watapur Valley exemplifies what soldiers and Air Force tactical air control parties face in nearly every encounter with the enemy: a torrent of bullets and a host of communication problems.
Some of the breakdowns are language-based; others are related to equipment. The July 29 battle here had both.
A French air force fighter, for example, dropped the first bomb that day — 20 minutes after Tech. Sgt. Joel McPherson, the joint terminal attack controller, first made the request. McPherson had to radio the target coordinates and friendly forces locations to the French pilot several times before he was fully understood.
“It’s just [that] they’re foreigners, so they’re hard to talk to,” McPherson told the increasingly impatient Army ground commander in explaining the delay.
Flight operations in Afghanistan are conducted in English, but lan*guage proficiency among the foreign pilots varies widely. They speak to JTACs and command and-control elements in English but sometimes talk to their wingmen in their native languages.
Those conversations in foreign languages keep the JTACs from hearing all available information, which in turn slows down the bomb drop, said Staff Sgt. Clinton Herbison, the other JTAC involved in the Watapur Valley firefight.
“It obviously takes more time for me to work through the language barrier,” he said. “It’s just making sure everybody’s talking about the same thing.” Working with the French presented another problem: the country’s more restrictive rules of engagement for airstrikes. McPherson had to assure the French pilot more than once that the area was clear of structures and civilians.
There are “different caveats to the [rules], and some are more stringent than others,” Herbison said. “It just depends on which country you’re talking about in particular as to what you can and can’t do with them.” U.S. forces also are careful not to attack civilians or places they might be, but the process to clear a strike moves faster when working with other Americans.
There are difficulties in working with the U.S. Army, though.
McPherson and Herbison described the relationship as generally smooth but noted factors that make the JTAC’s job — providing safe and accurate air support to troops on the ground —
more difficult.
During the Watapur Valley engagement, the biggest issue was communication. Soldiers in the field, company headquarters, helicopter support and JTACs all worked on a single radio frequency. (The JTACs used a different frequency to communicate with the fighter jets and other JTACs at an operations center.) Herbison counted 14 users on the channel, making it difficult to get on the radio.
McPherson was with the main Army unit in the valley, so he could speak directly to the ground commander and fire support officer, who calls in artillery fire. But Herbison, on a ridge above the battlefield, had difficulty passing information to them.
“If we had been taking small arms casualties, it would have been pandemonium,” Herbison said of the crowded airwaves.
Also in the skies that day was an Army Apache helicopter.
From his high-ground observation post, Herbison was in the best position to see the friendly forces and pass safe strike coordinates to the Apache.
He struggled, though, to get through to helicopter pilots.
JTACs rarely control the helicopters, a crucial part of air support. The airmen are qualified to do so, but the Army usually keeps that responsibility with its fire support officers.
An Army soldier lost his leg during the Watapur engagement in an apparent friendly fire incident when an Apache attack helicopter fired on his position.
The Army would not comment because the incident is under investigation.
McPherson and Herbison also would not talk about the incident.