One thing that is not clear from the video and from the transcript is who was "netted-in" to what. That begs the question, were the British troops on the ground listening in to the same TACAIR channel as the pilots, they should have been. If they weren't then that could possibly be down to the piss poor comms system that is used by the British Armed Forces, poor performance (clarity and range) and lack of channels.

The assumption that you can just chatter away on radio in a combat situation and automatically be heard by someone is also slightly naive. In the transcript there appeared to be confusion as to the number of vehicles making up the intended target group. One minute it was five vehicles "revetted" (stationary and hidden in a temporary earthwork), the next it's four strung out along a road, clearly two different groups. That indicates very poor, if any, ground control. "Target Ident" calls and information passed to the pilots also seemed to be very vague compared to what we used about thirty years ago.

dianavan's parting comment in her post of 06 Feb 07 - 09:42 PM, speaks volumes:

"Ebbie - World War II was a long time ago. Technology has changed quite a bit since then and George Bush was not Commander in Chief."

You see if you can't hammer Bush with it it's not worth discussing.

Recognition - In my time in the military (cold war era), during training, irrespective of course subject, we had what were called "Threat" Lectures. These were always accompanied by a snap test at sometime during the course. The lectures were dull and repetitive and consisted of photographs/partial photographs of enemy/friendly, ships, aircraft and vehicles. Fail the "Threat" Lecture test and you failed the course. I would imagine that the same thing is done today, particularly if you are actually putting troops into a combat situation. I know for certain that they go on a very comprehensive OPTAG before they deploy.