You raise a possible but unlikely scenario.

The guys [and gals] ‘circling above’ are NOT ‘a couple of k’s from where they think the are’. They always know where they are. CAS aircraft have the navigational tools needed to maintain situational awareness at all times.

The problem and the worry is that the CAS drivers don’t always know where YOU are [the friendly on the ground] in relation to the enemy’s position, especially in a non-preplanned strike. Is the enemy too close to friendly positions to drop? In close combat, friendlies can’t always mark their positions visually to be seen from the air because it will draw hostile fire.

The friendly must know their own position coordinates first, before giving the reference points to the target they need hammered. In the confusion of battle, the friendly might mistakenly transmit their own position coordinates in place of the target coordinates in the 9-line, with tragic results, as has apparently happened on one occasion. Training and doctrine strive to prevent these errors, but it’s still the fog of war.

When mistakes happen, its easy to blame the air, but the fact is everyone involved is responsible for their part of clarity.

Oh, and she saved the damn thing too! 30+ years later and it’s still hanging around somewhere.

Also, the 1st Cav at Ia Trang faced an enemy, albeit a uniformed one in the form of the NVA, who had the tactic of trying to close quickly, so the air and artillery superiority of our forces would be taken out of play, for fear of friendly fire, even if it menat taking lots of casualties to get far enough across the battle space to mix it up that closely. The difference is most civilians got out of the way back then…increasingly, we aren’t seeing that anymore, on land or at sea.

“Know and transmit your own position clearly and often.

Knowing your own coordinates and transmitting them correctly prevents friendly air from making you blue-on-blue toast.”

I’m imagine that wouldn’t always help when the guys circling above are a couple of k’s from where they think they are.

Seemed like he’s turn up, work out where the good guys were, where the bad guys were, what weapon and heading was appropriate for whatever turned up to party and then mark it all out for them.

Now, this may put a crimp on the airborne feats of derring-do those fixed wing guys enjoy talking about but the only argument I can see is perhaps someone somewhere thought low and slow in countries so awash with RPGs just wasn’t a good idea.