Category Archives: Warfighting

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Offensive Operations for the Field Artillery Battalion and Below

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The purpose of this paper is to provide a context for Field Artillery (FA) units executing offensive operations in a Decisive Action Training Environment (DATE). The specific unit of focus for this paper is the Brigade Combat Team’s (BCT), Direct Support (DS) Field Artillery (FA) Battalion. The primary audiences for this paper are Fires Battalion Staff Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers, Battery and Forward Support Company Commanders, and First Sergeants. This paper is a collaboration of Key Developmental billet complete Observer Coach Trainers (OC/Ts) with an aggregate of ~100 rotations of experience at the National Training Center (NTC) Fort Irwin, CA. 

1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division fires an artillery round from an M777 Howitzer while conducting calibration during Decisive Action Rotation 20-05 at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif, Mar. 05, 2020. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Kamryn Guthrie, Operations Group, National Training Center.)
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Defense of the Cajun Bayou

Choose Your Course of Action

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Brigades that come to the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) will fight a brigade fight. Every unit, regardless of echelons or component, from the squad through the battalion, from infantry to military police to transportation to aviation, will leave better than they arrived after enduring the crucible training event here in Louisiana. However, small unit training can occur anywhere. The swamps and humid head of Fort Polk offer a unique opportunity. Through rational design and Observer Coach Trainer coaching, brigades can focus on their role in shaping deep, synchronizing maneuver, allocating resources, and setting conditions necessary for battalions to succeed in both the offense and defense. This book is an effort to reach units prior to their arrival in Louisiana by giving them realistic scenarios to think about while following the Cajun Brigade through the planning and execution of a defense.

Soldiers with 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, take movement guidance Nov. 12, 2017, during the brigade’s rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center, Fort Polk, La. (Photo by Joint Readiness Training Center Public Affairs Office)
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Objective Rhino (IBCT PLT Attack)

The Company Leader TDG 20-03

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You press your hands deeper into your pockets, hoping they find warmth. “What the hell did this place do to piss off God?” You want a pinch of Copenhagen, but it’s too damned cold to pull your hands out to get one. Your platoon has been in its patrol base for six hours, but you haven’t slept. In just fourty-five minutes you can rotate out to the D Company vehicle that is in a security position. They might not let you run the heat, but maybe you can find some relief from the wind. ”Hey, you awake?” your squad leader says as he shoves you. “Get your team up and moving, Red Warrior 6 just called into the CO. We got a mission. WARNORD brief in 5 minutes.”

Photo retreived from 1-12 IN from their 2019 PLT LFX. Image by Capt. Chelsea Hall.
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Improving Company Performance in Offensive Operations

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The U.S. Army’s Combined Arms Battalions (CABs) form the core of the Armored Brigade Combat Team’s (ABCT) striking power. They include main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, 120mm mortars, and infantry squads. This impressive grouping of combat platforms and soldiers requires the company commander to skillfully employ and integrate platoons. Company commanders enable the CAB commander to rapidly combine arms. Based on observations of CABs executing offensive operations at the National Training Center (NTC), numerous shortfalls exist at the company level that impact the CAB’s ability to maintain momentum and extend operational reach. Units that can’t perform fundamental company and platoon-level tasks during the plan, prepare and execute phases of an operation will stall the CAB commander’s efforts to synchronize actions and achieve desired effects against enemy formations. To minimize this degradation in combat power, armor and mechanized infantry company commanders should consider the following best practices.

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The Science of Control

Synchronizing Current Operations

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The current operations (CUOPS) cell is essential to translating plans to orders and eventually the execution of combat operations. The CUOPS integrating cell “is the focal point for controlling the execution of operations. It “involves assessing the current situation while regulating forces and warfighting functions in accordance with the mission, commanders intent, and operations.” (ATP 6-0.5) CUOPS synchronizes operations, sustains the common operational picture (COP) and mitigates risk to the mission. In the operations process, the CUOPS cell is the commander’s most prominent tool to understand, describe, visualize, and direct operations. Because of the cell’s importance, the CUOPS teams must organize and train personnel, information systems, and processes to enable the commander to make a decision base on understanding rather than data points.

Currently, main command posts, commonly known as TOCs, still must be housed in tents until the U.S. Army can make the mission command systems smaller and mobile. Photographer SGM Thomas Murphy
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The Non-Commissioned Officer Task Crosswalk Guide

Observations and Recommendations from NTC Ops Group

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The non-commissioned officer has always been the backbone of our Army.  No matter what type of conflict America has faced, our Non-Commissioned Officer Corps has risen to the challenge each and every time.  As our Army continues to refine our ability to conduct Large Scale Combat Operations, the non-commissioned officers of Operations Group at the National Training Center have truly risen to the challenge.  Outlaw 40 and the senior NCOs from throughout Operations Group constructed this handbook specifically for NCOs, paying particular attention to rotational observations and current doctrine.  They established a cross walk guide for numerous non-commissioned officer positions at echelon throughout brigade combat teams and clearly articulated how the great non-commissioned officers in a unit can help their team fight and win.

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Assuming Risk to Save Lives

Placement of the Battalion Aid Station During LSCO

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Long-gone are the days of wide area security operations from static, built-up locations. The changing nature of war will reward flexibility and an expeditionary mindset, and punish conformists. Commanders and units have become comfortable with medical plans that assume very little risk regarding placement of the Battalion Aid Station (BAS). With the Army’s renewed focus on large scale combat operations (LSCO), leaders must consider employing the BAS and medical platoon in ways that have largely went untrained and unpracticed. To save as many lives as possible, commanders and leaders must consider placement of the BAS as far forward as tactically feasible.

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Set the Trap (IBCT PLT Ambush)

The Company Leader TDG 20-02

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You have never been quite this tired, wet, and this cold in your entire life. You could have sworn that Atropia was primarily a desert. But no, your unit  – Task Force 1-28 Infantry – had to deploy to the other side of Atropia. No sweeping landscape and warm winters for you. And here you sit – a different day, a different puddle. You are in the middle of your platoon’s patrol base, next to your RTO,  while your squad leaders ensure security is set. “Ma’am – Crusher Main says there is intelligence that enemy forces are moving in our AO. They will be traveling to a resupply point along RTE ORION in the morning. CRUSHER 6 says we need to set an ambush.”

Image Retrieved from Task Force 1-28 Infantry, Black Lions Facebook Page.
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Building Your Brigade Staff Training Program

A Training Resource from NTC Ops Group

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Developing an effective training program represents a challenge for any unit. At the brigade level, simply resourcing and synchronizing a training program that creates capable subordinate formations easily consumes nearly all available time. Further, necessarily weighting the predominance of available training time and resources at the company level and below to maintain small unit proficiency constitutes another essential demand on a brigade’s organizational energy.

U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to 3rd Cavalry regiment, “Brave Rifles” Fort Hood, TX, provides security during Decisive Action Rotation 20-02 at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif., Nov. 08, 2019. Decisive Action Rotations at the National Training Center ensure Army Brigade Combat Teams remain versatile, responsive, and consistently available for current and future contingencies. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Kyler Chatman, Operations Group, National Training Center)
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The First Element

Leadership and Combat Power

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What does it take to bring the full power of the U.S. Army to bear upon enemies of America? Army Doctrinal Publication(ADP) 3-0 says that combat power “is the total means of destructive, constructive, and information capabilities that a military unit or formation can apply at a given time.”  Combat power contains eight elements which include the six warfighting functions intelligence, movement and maneuver, fires, protection, sustainment, command and control coupled with leadership and information.  The six warfighting functions are easy to comprehend with their tangible effects on the battlefield, but the effects of the other element, leadership, are often intangible and difficult to comprehend.  A recent training rotation at the National Training Center (NTC) provided a concrete case study about the true power of leadership leading to an infantry company with incredible lethality and the commander selected as the hero of the rotation.

Smoke billows to provide concealment for Soldiers as they maneuver across the battlefield to their next fighting position during a Combined Arms Live Fire Exercise as Joint Base Lewis-McChord Jan. 16, 2020. Soldiers execute small unit tactics during rehearsals including dry-fire, blank-fire and live-fire iterations to gain multiple repetitions and increase proficiency across the formation.