Courtesy Photo | Marine Air Support Squadron 2 Marines setup direct air support center Feb. 21, on...... read more read more
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Marines from Marine Air Support Squadron 2 occupied an empty field and set up a fully operationally capable Direct Air Support Center (DASC) in under their goal of 120 minutes, at Camp Prince Jetsada, Chonburi province, Thailand, Feb. 21.
“Today was all about how we train to be as fast as possible.” said Capt. Curtis Smith, director of the DASC. “The Direct Air Support Center comes ashore in phase two of an amphibious operation -- by then, there are already Marines in contact with the enemy. MASS-2 owes them the same speed and intensity that they are giving the fight.”
It took a crew of over 100 Marines to execute the mission, said Smith, and at least 42 different military occupation specialty (MOS) designations. There is no specific DASC MOS...there are just DASC Marines.
“We never want the battle to wait on the DASC to send them the air support they need. We need to be faster, we need to be better,” said Smith. “We are focused on highlighting our capability to set up our full DASC in under two hours. In order to command and control the airspace in support of the ground combat element, we did so in 72 minutes.”
Service-members of the Royal Thai Marine Corps and the Republic of Korea’s Marine Corps looked on as MASS-2 was able to integrate the aviation and ground combat missions together through the capability of the DASC.
“It is always a great opportunity when we get to work with our partner nations in the Pacific,” said Smith. “The DASC doesn’t care what nationality you are, we will take immediate air control requests from any unit in the battle space to support the area of operation.”
The deployment of a DASC through an amphibious assault helps ensure an effective response to regional crises. And prior to this exercise, the full DASC had not come ashore from amphibious shipping in this theater since 1993. MASS-2 typically deploys its capabilities via aviation assets.
The deployment was a first in another sense as well.
“The system we have available to us now has not been ashore since it has been developed,” said Staff Sgt. Drew Christmann, the DASC crew chief assigned to this exercise from MASS-2. “We were able to bring the most modern version of our command and control system ashore, which has never been done before.”
| Date Taken: | 02.21.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 02.24.2018 02:05 |
| Story ID: | 266763 |
| Location: | TH |
| Web Views: | 275 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Cobra Gold 18: DASC setup by MASS-2 on Prince Jetsada Camp, Thailand, by SrA Timothy Tweet, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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