I don’t even know what this one stands for. But it was a combined live fire exercise led by Afghan Tactical Air Controllers (ATACs). ATACs are trained by coalition JTACs to be the eyes on the ground and call in air strikes. In this exercise, it was the first time they were tasked with also coordinating ground assault from a couple Humvees with mounted machine guns for suppressive fire between the air strikes they call in from their Super Tucanos and machine gun fire from the gunners in Mi-17 helicopters.
It was an ambitious exercise but a great first step in advancing the coordination of assault tactics for the air controllers. I thought they did a great job.
We found out about the exercise too late to coordinate bringing external media, so my multimedia guy Bjorn and I went to cover the exercise with video and still photos. I feel like I got some of the best photos I’ve shot since I’ve been here all in this one day.
unfortunately, the photos didn’t make it out of theater to share on this blog.