Fire Support: Killing System or Battlefield Shaper?

If artillery is given credit for a large amount of battle damage, but doesn’t set the conditions for successful maneuver, was this fire support successful? Often, as I’ve watched a maneuver after-action review or fire support AAR, the Fire Support Officer (FSO) was credited with a “job well done” if the artillery killed many enemy combat systems, and criticism if it didn’t. There didn’t seem to be much consideration given to whether the fire supporter met the commander’s intent or supported the commander’s scheme of maneuver. As long as there are many enemy vehicles destroyed, fire support did well, according to this judgment. But in reality, even if the indirect fires did not cause a large amount of battle damage, but set the conditions for maneuver to be successful, then the fire support was used correctly and should be remembered in the back-slapping that follows a successful mission. Even “success” can be a murky concept: If the commander wanted his fire support (FS) to destroy a motorized rifle battalion (MRB), and the indirect does indeed accomplish this task, but with the majority of kills coming from the third MRB when the battle is all but over, did the fire support do its job? My contention is that if the OPFOR was able to get through a maneuver commander’s defenses and decimate his unit with his first echelon because the artillery was not focused at the right place at the right time, then regardless if the number of enemy vehicles killed, we do not have success. If the maneuver commander is unable to get enough combat power on the objective to finish his mission because the artillery is counter-firing, rather than suppressing and obscuring the objective, the fire support did not do its job. I have often seen TF commanders, even after losing, lean over and give his FSO a pat on the back merely based on the battle damage assessment (BDA). When I was going through advanced individual training (AIT) back in April 1976, I was told that the best anti-tank weapon was another tank. I know there are other systems that will also do well against armor. The point was that artillery may destroy some combat vehicles but its primary mission was to assist in the battle, not win it. The task force commander does have a tool for giving the FSO better guidance, called Essential Fire Support Tasks (EFSTs), but if not used correctly, they still will not make for a successful mission. In most EFSTs, I see the same statements, depending on the type of battle being fought. “Destroy the Regimental Artillery Group (RAG),” or “Destroy one MRB or motorized rifle platoon (MRP),” or “Fire artillery FASCAM (family of scatterable mines) to separate the Forward Detachment and the Main Body,” or “At 0600, Fire SOSR.” These EFSTs will not assist the maneuver commander in attaining success unless they are linked with what the maneuver forces or the engineers are doing at the time. Firing counter-fire while the maneuver forces or engineers are doing a breach, or when the enemy has moved up to breach our obstacles, may not be in the best interest of success. I’m not saying to ignore the counter-fire fight at this time, but if the maneuver commander has told the FSO he wants a critical friendly zone (CFZ) over the point of penetration, that does not mean a CFZ that is 1 kilometer by 1 kilometer. The artillery can quickly become so overwhelmed with Priority One acquisitions that they cannot effectively engage any. Or they try to engage all acquisitions with a lower volley count, having little or no effect on OPFOR artillery. If the CFZ had been made small enough to cover just the breach site, just those incoming artillery missions that affect that very critical event in the battle will be answered. This would have freed up assets that would have better been used to shoot smoke and suppression missions. This type of scenario may not destroy a MRP but it will get enough combat power on the objective so that the maneuver force can take it down. If the fire support element (FSE) had planned numerous radar zones, they may destroy the RAG, but at what cost? If, after destroying the RAG, they concentrate on the objective, they may even destroy a MRP or more, but did the maneuver commander lose too much combat power going through the breach because we focused on the enemy artillery, whether or not it was firing on our forces at the breach site? The EFSTs might have been met; we may have checked the block and credited artillery in the BDA for that night’s AAR, but did we shape the battlefield for the maneuver element’s success? Another problem concerns the firing of the artillery-delivered family of scatterable mines (FASCAM). As Col. Anderson noted in his September 1998 Field Artillery Journal article, units at Combat Training Centers (CTCs) rely heavily on FASCAM, but these minefields are seldom adequately covered with direct or indirect fire systems. He further states that, “Commanders and FSOs tend not to understand the tradeoffs they incur firing this resource-intensive munition.” An EFST that has the artillery firing a FASCAM to separate the FD (forward detachment) and MB (main body) is an example of that. Artillery-delivered FASCAM is not a blocking obstacle or a turn-ARMOR — 47