Successful defensive operations against a near peer threat require units to thoroughly conduct engagement area development. Most units are able to effectively execute defensive operations, but struggle with the detailed planning required for obstacle emplacement and the time distance analysis required to choose effective locations for obstacles, indirect fires, and direct fires.
Discussion
During National Training Center rotations, training units understand how to plan a defense, but lack the ability to synchronize assets and integrate effective indirect fires. Units also struggle with integrating obstacles because not enough analysis is done to determine the amount of time, number and type of engineer assets, and how much Class IV is required to achieve the desired obstacle effects. Units also fail to position direct fire assets such as tanks, Bradleys, or Strykers beyond the counter mobility obstacles and thus do not provide a security zone for the engineers as they construct the obstacle belt. This leaves the engineers vulnerable to enemy indirect fire and spoiling attacks.
After units determine where to kill the enemy, the decision of what type of counter mobility obstacles units choose to construct will depend on how much Class IV fortification materials they have on hand, the engineer assets available to them, and how much time they have to construct obstacles. Units must also consider where to build survivability obstacles and whether or not they will have time to dig these defensive positions.
The use of Fires throughout rotations is generally a weakness. A lack of detailed planning for defensive operations limits the rotational training unit’s ability to synchronize enemy maneuver with Fires. Fires technical rehearsals often lack sufficient detail with regards to observer plans, refined Target List Worksheets, and TTLODAC-driven planning. Additionally, the lack of associated triggers for when fires are called and who initiates them prevents units from disrupting the enemy’s movement and often prevent rotational training units from regaining momentum during their counterattack. Units also do not effectively conduct the time/distance analysis in order to determine when to fire their artillery or mortar targets. The S2, FSO, and TF Engineer should create a comprehensive fires plan based on estimated enemy travel speeds and formations, amount of time it will take the enemy to breach specific obstacles, and how long it will take to process and fire each target. Doing this level of analysis and planning will allow units to create effective triggers in order to quickly synchronize fires and achieve the desired effects against enemy formations.
Best Practices
Units that conducted detailed planning and asset management were able to effectively integrate obstacles while also synchronizing Fires with the enemy’s movement.
Plan and Integrate Obstacles
For defensive planning, units should always assign an officer, regardless of branch, the role of Task Force Engineer. Having a trusted agent tasked with planning the placement of counter mobility and survivability obstacles will pay dividends when the unit goes into the defense. Often a unit’s S3 and Plans Officer focus solely on offensive operations that lead up to or follow the defense. Most units do not have an assigned TF Engineer and therefore fail to assign this role to anyone on the Battalion Staff. They instead leave the defense planning efforts to the attached Engineer Company Commander who may or may not be with the Battalion while they are conducting MDMP for the operation. Assigning an officer within the Battalion as the TF Engineer allows him/her to integrate their planning efforts with the rest of the staff and ensures that they plan within the commander’s intent. They can also reference Army TM 3-34.85, Engineer Field Data as a tool in helping them plan the defense. Using Chapter 5 (Defensive Operations and Obstacle Integration Framework), Chapter 6 (Constructed and Pre-constructed Obstacles), and Chapter 7 (Landmine and Special-Purpose Munition Obstacles), will allow the TF Engineer to effectively plan and integrate obstacles to achieve the commander’s intent. These chapters list the engineer assets, materials, time and planning factors required to construct a Disrupt, Turn, Fix, or Block obstacle as well as survivability obstacles. At all levels, any trusted officer or NCO can use Army doctrine as a source of reference for technical data, tactics, techniques, and procedures for information most commonly needed by engineers.
Most units only push the Battalion Scouts forward, which do well in identifying maneuvering enemy formations, but cannot effectively disrupt or delay an enemy attack. Units should always send an element forward to protect the engineer assets in order to provide them enough time to execute a Rearward Passage of Lines through the obstacle in the event of an enemy spoiling attack. If units do not provide ample security forward of their obstacles, they risk losing their engineer enablers to enemy direct and indirect fire.
Plan and Integrate Indirect Fires
Fire support planning is the continuing process of analyzing, allocating, and scheduling fires to describe how fires are used to facilitate the actions of the maneuver force. A fire support plan is a plan that addresses each means of fire support available and describes how Army indirect fires, joint fires, and target acquisition are integrated with maneuver to facilitate operational success. “Successful fire support planning is the result of the FSCOORD/chief of fires, and FSO’s aggressive contribution to the commander’s planning and decision making process. In making this contribution, they employ principles of fire support planning, coordination, and execution as a guide. In advising the maneuver commander on the application of fire support, the FSCOORD/chief of fires/brigade fire support officer also review fire support requirements against basic fire support considerations that guide fire support planners in the development of fire support plans” (para 3-10, Ch. 3 FM 3-09, 04 April 2014).
Fire Support Teams that executed Fires Technical Rehearsals prior to the Battalion’s Combined Arms Rehearsals were better able to understand the overall defense plan and also ensured that they understood the commander’s intent. Doing so also created shared understanding across the battalion and allowed companies and platoons to identify windows of opportunity to exploit the enemy’s weaknesses. Company and platoon FSOs that understood the Fires plan were able to ensure that all subordinate leaders could effectively execute the primary and alternate observer plans.
POC: Capt. Omar Cavalier, Tarantula 03A, Battalion Operations Trainer, at omar.m.cavalier.mil@mail.mil
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