Joint Exercise GOLD FIRE-I ~ Task Force Ozark The Army was dissatisfied with Air Force close air support and was forming its own air arm. Its growth was rapid. The Army, not the Air Force, was becoming the acknowledged leader in vertical flight and ground-effects assets. The helicopter filled a dual purpose for the Army but was a sinister threat to the Air Force. Although rotary-wing aircraft offered the Army a credible means of increasing air support, it placed great pressure on the Air Force to enhance ground support capabilities or risk losing that mission and the attendant budget to the Army. Both services made half-hearted attempts to resolve their differences, taking a stab at a joint testing program using the 11th Air Assault Division. However these efforts were characterized by competition rather than cooperation. The Air Force created its own board whose findings not surprisingly refuted the Army’s. In contrast to the airmobility concept, the Air Force suggested a joint service combat team structure. Central to the Air Force concept was an assumption that in a joint force, by Air Force tactical air—offered more practical and economical means of enhancing the mobility and combat effectiveness of Army units than Army air assault divisions. The Air Force concept was tested in October and November 1964 in exercise Goldfire-I, but it was quickly evident that nothing new was being offered with regard to close air support of ground forces. The uninspiring results of Goldfire-I and the success of Army tests led in January 1965 to a recommendation by the Joint Chiefs, with the Air Force dissenting, to cancel Goldfire-II. The Joint Chiefs responded, again with the Air Force in dissent, by recommending approval of the Army request for an airmobile division.
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