A joint publication for U.S. Artillery professionals July - August 2018 Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. Headquarters, Department of the Army. PB 644-18-4 http://sill-www.army.mil/firesbulletin • 1 Table of contents 3 Rocket artillery and its place in decisive action By Capt. Clint Custer Editor Marie Berberea 7 Learning to speak maneuver Art Director By Capt. Joshua Urness Rick Paape, Jr. Assistant Editor 10 Fires supporting maneuver Monica Wood The need for an update The Fires staff can be reached by email at usarmy. By 1st Lt. David Brister [email protected] or by phone at (580) 442-5121. 12 The 2017 Knox, Hamilton and Gruber Awards Disclaimer 16 Resurrecting the light cavalry’s fire support Fires, a professional bulletin, is published bi- monthly by Headquarters, Department of the Army Restructuring the IBCT squadron fire support teams to under the auspices of the Fires Center of Excellence, maximize capability 455 McNair Ave., Fort Sill, OK 73503. The views ex- By Capt. Kyle Robert East pressed within are those of the authors and not the Department of Defense or its elements. The content 18 Head, heart, gut contained within Fires does not necessarily reflect the U.S. Army’s position or supercede information in oth- A personal, ethical decision-making methodology er official publications. Use of new items constitutes By Lt. Col. Seth Hall neither affirmation of their accuracy nor product en- dorsements. Fires assumes no responsibility for any 21 E-62nd THAAD and Patriot interop success unsolicited material. By order of Mark A. Milley, Gen- By Sgt. 1st Class Sergio Arana and Sgt. 1st Class Marcus Wofford eral, United States Army, Chief of Staff. Official: 22 Brigade deep battle 2.0 UAV-Fires teaming in support of the brigade deep fight By Capt. Joseph Schmid Gerald B. O’Keefe Administrative Assistant to the 25 US air defense artillery foreign advising Secretary of the Army The strategic NCO leveraging the operational art Auth. 1513304 By Maj. Christopher Garnett 27 Reactive counterfire Wilson A. Shoffner An algebraic approach Major General, United States Army By Chief Warrant Officer 3 Jeremy Taylor and Capt. Steven Hojnicki Commanding General, Fort Sill, Okla. 32 Preparing air missile defense, joint force Purpose Originally founded as the Field Artillery Journal, against near-peer threat Fires serves as a forum for the discussions of all Fires By Maj Bryan A. Card professionals, Active, Reserves and National Guard; disseminates professional knowledge about progress, 36 Artillery’s role in sea-based expeditionary development and best use in campaigns; cultivates a common understanding of the power, limitations and Fires application of joint Fires, both lethal and nonlethal; By Maj. Adam Ropelewski fosters joint Fires interdependency among the armed services; and promotes the understanding of and in- 38 Big sky, little bullet teroperability between the branches, all of which con- Tackling the Army’s airspace and joint Fires integration tribute to the good of the Army, joint and combined forces and our nation. problem Fires is pleased to grant permission to reprint; By Maj. Daniel Threlkeld please credit Fires, the author(s) and photographers. 42 Rethinking risk, airspace for decisive action By Lt. Col. Dave Pasquale 48 Going the extra 1,000 miles Preparing a field artillery brigade for a near-peer adversary By Maj. Rich Farnell and Capt. Brennan Deveraux 52 In the next issue of Fires 2 • Fires, July-August 2018, Red + blue fight club Soldiers of A Battery, 2nd Battalion, 130th Field Artillery, 75th Field Artillery Brigade, 35th Infantry Division, from the Kansas Army National Guard, work with U.S. Air Force crew to load two M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), pre-dawn, in preparation for the Oper- ation Diamond Torrent exercise, at an airbase in the United Arab Emirates. (Staff Sgt. Tina Villalobos/U.S. Army) Rocket artillery and its place in Bydecisive Capt. Clint Custer action As a kindergartner, I remembered seeing know how to use rocket artillery to shape counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare eroded images on CNN of these large box-shaped their fight. our capabilities as we reorganized to fight a vehicles shooting hundreds of rockets into My next NTC rotation was no differ- different enemy. Emerging threats in North the sky when the Gulf War started. I asked ent. We were pushed to the side and rare- Korea and Europe have further highlight- my parents what was happening and they ly called upon to engage any target that ed the gap in firepower that has developed told me that in some place called Iraq, the wasn’t a stationary command post. I need- since the War on Terror began. Army was defending people that had been ed to know why my unit was seen as an af- Our maneuver brothers and sisters have attacked and needed our help. Fast forward terthought and not an asset and it was not forgotten our role in decisive action. When 20 years, and I found myself leading my very hard to find the answer. they stopped calling for our support, we own platoon of rocket artillery. Unfortu- Decades of fighting in Afghanistan and changed ourselves to stay in the fight. These nately, I saw just how much had changed Iraq against insurgent cells and terrorists changes have not been good. We are no lon- since I saw them in action on CNN. When I have decimated our Army’s rocket artil- ger organized to effectively support ma- was tasked to support a maneuver brigade lery capabilities. The Gulf War was the last neuver in a near-peer fight. Our weapons at the National Training Center with rocket time the U.S. Army successfully employed are not designed to provide mass firepower artillery, I was excited to see how effective rocket Fires in support of combined arms over a wide front. The Air Force has sup- we would be on the battlefield. Instead, I maneuver in a decisive action fight. The col- planted us in shaping the deep fight. All of learned that maneuver commanders do not lapse of the Soviet Union and the shift to these changes have negatively affected our http://sill-www.army.mil/firesbulletin • 3 Marines with S Battery, 5th Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, stage a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System in preparation for a Command Post Exercise (CPX) aboard Camp Pendleton, Calif., Feb. 6, 2018. (Cpl. Andre Heath/U.S. Marine Corps) ability to fight and win our nation’s wars. Rocket Launcher System (MLRS) battalion tionally, there are only three field artil- It is critical we address these changes and was three batteries of nine launchers each lery brigades providing Fires to shape the take steps to reverse them or we will have for 27 launchers in a battalion. The same deep fight for maneuver. Eighteenth Field significant challenges shaping the fight for battalion has nearly half the fire power 30 Artillery Brigade supports special opera- our maneuver forces in the future. years later, reorganized as two batteries tions, 17th Field Artillery Brigade supports At the height of the Cold War, a Multiple of eight, for a total of 16 launchers. Addi- I Corps and 75th Field Artillery Brigade 4 • Fires, July-August 2018, Red + blue fight club tion, but without organic long-range Fires, they are little more than administrative headquarters. Giving DIVARTY organic rocket artillery would enable them to shape the fight without taking resources from the brigade combat team. Currently, Nation- al Training Center rotations simulating a decisive action fight only allocate a single platoon of rocket artillery to the division headquarters. What was 27 launchers at a minimum is now only four. The COIN environment has forced rock- et artillery to innovate in order to stay rel- evant. This has led to increased focus on precision guided, high explosive weapons. The use of forward operating bases (FOB) has also changed how rocket artillery is em- ployed in the field. Establishing and secur- ing a position area for artillery on the bat- tlefield is a lost art among section chiefs and platoon leaders that never left the FOB. The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HI- MARS) is a fantastic weapon system that enables long-range rocket and missile pre- cision Fires to be readily employed around the globe. By reducing weight and placing the launcher module on wheels instead of tracks, it is air mobile, however, it sacrifices half the ammunition capacity of the M270. Another consequence of the War on Terror is the U.S. Army’s pivot away from Dual Purpose Incendiary Cluster Munitions (DPICM). DPICM creates unexploded ord- nance on the battlefield and that has many negative long-term consequences for mili- tary personnel and civilians alike. Those consequences do not make them less im- portant in a conflict with a near-peer adver- sary. The Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rocket and Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) are precise mu- nitions that work great for high-value tar- gets, but are not capable of disrupting large formations. The Russians have continued to use the BM30 Smerch against ISIS with great success and are clearly advancing their capabilities while we are content re- furbishing Reagan-era technology. This shift in priorities has given com- manders the freedom to quickly move launchers from FOB to FOB in Afghanistan supports III Corps. To make matters worse, but it has not given DIVARTY any organic and Iraq to eliminate high-value targets 75th FA allocates three of its five rocket bat- long-range artillery to shape the fight for with precise strikes and virtually no collat- eral damage.