FAC (Forward Air Control) F-100 Supports U.S. Army 1967 US Air Force Film Report FR-848

more at http://quickfound.net/

'This film presents documentary footage of Air Force F-100 aircraft as they provided close air support to Army units in Southeast Asia during Operation Shenandoah.'

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_air_control_during_the_Vietnam_War

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The forward air controller (FAC) played a significant part in the Vietnam War from the very start. Largely relegated to airborne duty by the constraints of jungled terrain, FACs began operations as early as 1962. Using makeshift propeller-driven aircraft and inadequate radio nets, they became so essential to air operations that the overall need for FACs would not be completely satisfied until 1969. The FAC's expertise as an air strike controller also made him an intelligence source, munitions expert, communication specialist, and above all, the on-scene commander of the strike forces and the start of any subsequent combat search and rescue if necessary.

Present as advisors under Farm Gate, FACs grew even more important as American troops poured into Vietnam after the Tonkin Gulf Incident. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) would swell its FAC complement to as many as 668 FACs in Vietnam by 1968; there were also FACs from the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and allied nations. For the early years of the war USAF manning levels were at about 70% of need; they finally reached 100% in December 1969. The FACs would be essential participants in close air support in South Vietnam, interdiction efforts against the Ho Chi Minh Trail, supporting a guerrilla war on the Plain of Jars in Laos, and probing home defenses in North Vietnam.

As the war came to center on the Trail in 1969, the FAC role began to be marginalized. Anti-aircraft (AAA) defenses became steadily more aggressive and threatening along the Trail as the bombing of North Vietnam closed down. The communist enemy moved their supply activities to nighttime, quite literally leaving the FACs in the dark. The American response was twofold. They used fixed-wing gunships with electronic sensors to detect communist trucks, and onboard weaponry to destroy them. They also began putting FACs in jet aircraft and in flareships as a counter to the AAA threat. At about the same time, emplaced ground sensors began to complement and overshadow FAC reconnaissance as an intelligence source. FAC guidance of munitions also began to come into play in 1970.

By the time the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the U.S. and its allies had dropped about six times as many tons of bombs as had been dropped in the entirety of World War II. A considerable proportion of this tonnage had been directed by forward air controllers...

By 1968, there were 668 Air Force FACs in country, scattered at 70 forward operating locations throughout South Vietnam...

The communists used Cambodia as a sanctuary for their troops... On 20 April 1970, the Cambodian government asked the U.S. for help with the problem of the border sanctuaries. On 30 April, the U.S. and South Vietnam sent ground forces into Cambodia to destroy communist supplies and sanctuaries. They were supported by a huge air campaign. Four Tactical Air Support Squadrons were committed to the effort—the 19th, 20th, 22d, and 23d. To handle such a massive effort, a TACP was committed, relaying its instructions to FACs through a central airborne FAC dubbed "Head Beagle". When he proved unequal to handling the volume of incoming air support, a Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star was assigned to the task in December 1970. Although American ground forces withdrew from Cambodia by 1 July, the air interdiction campaign continued. A detachment of the 19th TASS, the French-speaking "Rustic" FACs, remained to patrol in support of Cambodian troops. The American FACs would covertly support the Cambodian non-communists by directing massive U. S. air strikes until 15 August 1973...