ANA artillery: training the trainer.

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For the past three years, the Afghan National Army's field artillery corps has been languishing. It has not progressed beyond simple direct fire despite millions of dollars spent and hundreds of trainers deployed. There are many reasons for this stagnation, but number one among them is the lack of training the U.S. embedded training team artillery mentors receive before deployment.

The ANA uses Russian equipment which is very different from U.S. artillery. So, expecting a U.S. mentor to excel without adequate preparation using Russian artillery is unrealistic. In the first months working with their ANA counterpart, most mentors ask themselves, "Who is teaching whom?"

Artillery mentors experience little in their careers that prepares them for this difficult mission. The ANA artillery's weapons, techniques and language are unfamiliar to the mentors. To make it worse, once in country, the mentors immediately are dispersed among the 34 provinces and have little contact with one another for the duration of their deployments, preventing them from learning from their peers.

As each mentor team is forced to fend for itself, a wide difference in the tactics, techniques and procedures develops from one ANA artillery unit to another. These differences weaken the credibility of the mentors and the Coalition as methods taught vary from team-to-team and year-to-year.

This article provides a primer for future artillery mentors heading to Afghanistan and also gives a "capability snapshot" for Coalition Force commanders working closely with the ANA artillery. Understanding the unique challenges the ANA artillery faces prevents Coalition commanders from expecting too much (which might lead to mission failure) or too little--which could render the ANA artillery as insignificant and continue to stifle its growth.

Current status. To understand how to train the ANA artillery, mentors need to know the ANA artillery's current training and capabilities.

Institutional training. Currently, the Kabul Military Training Center only trains the artillery skill of the artillery cannoneer. There is no formal training for fire direction specialists, forward observers, artillery NCOs and officers. As a result, the crews are capable at occupations and direct fire, but they must learn indirect fire techniques at forward deployed locations under the artillery mentors' supervision.

The weapons system. The Russian 122-millimeter, D30 towed howitzer is the primary weapon system of the ANA artillery. It is a simple, rugged, capable and accurate weapons system that sufficiently meets the ANA's needs when the system is used properly. However, this weapon was designed for the Soviet Army during the Cold War under a vastly different philosophy for fire support.

In the Soviet doctrine, the battery commander was both the observer and the fire direction center. He personally computed the firing data and sent it to the guns. In addition, the fires generally were delivered by massing multiple batteries onto preplanned targets. This created a rolling barrage ahead of the advancing Soviet troops. This method of supporting combat operations with fires is incompatible with fighting an insurgency because of its indiscriminant nature.

In contrast, NATO doctrine allows any unit in contact with the enemy the capability of adjusting limited and accurate artillery fire. Afghanistan is filled with small villages where poor farmers live extensively apart from the insurgency. Indiscriminate massed artillery fire from the Soviet Army's war in Afghanistan turned many of these otherwise neutral farmers toward supporting the Mujahedeen.

However, respect for the Afghan people requires the use of proportionate, accurate and timely artillery fire to mitigate the risk of collateral damage while still defeating the enemy. The protection of innocent Afghans is important as the ANA builds its credibility with its own people. It is also important to note the ANA leadership wishes to adopt NATO procedures to the greatest extent possible to gain world respect as a professional fighting force. The artillery mentors face the challenge of modifying the standard Soviet methods of employment of the D30 to meet these requirements.

Differences. Before work with ANA soldiers and the D30 howitzer can begin, there are a few basic differences between NATO and former Soviet TTPs that must be understood to alleviate confusion and potentially dangerous inaccurate fire.

Mils. First, all Soviet fire control systems use 6000 mils in a circle--not 6400 mils like NATO systems. This has little impact because both 6000 and 6400 mils are incorrect. A mil is defined as the angular measurement in which one-mil equals one-meter at 1000 meters. In truth, there are 6283.185 mils in a circle. The NATO standard rounds up to 6400 mils to simplify the math; the Soviets rounded down to 6000 mils. We apply the correction factor of 1.0186 when using the mil relation formula because of this residual error. The similar correction factor for 6000 mils is 0.955.

Complications with the 6000 mil system are not limited to the mil relation formula. U.S. style range deflection protractors, plotting boards and target grids are incompatible with the D30; the old Soviet plotting equipment must be used. It is difficult to use these items for adjusting fire in the NATO standard and worse yet; they can't be used for 360 degree operations. Also, when adjusting fire with an Afghan observer, the ANA FDC must be prepared to receive corrections using either compass because 6000 mil compasses--the most commonly issued compass by ANA troops--and 6400 mil compasses are available.

Firing data. The Soviet writing style for firing data is another area of confusion. Their standard practice was to place a hyphen between the second and third digit of deflections and quadrants. They would write 3000 as 30-00. The number is read as 30 and 00. Because the Soviets trained many of the senior ANA artillerymen, this writing style is one of the few "universal standards" across the ANA artillery corps.

The legacy Soviet TTP for determining map coordinates is prevalent among ANA soldiers. The Soviet method is backward to NATO methods and lists Northing followed by Easting. They also label the coordinates with letters for easy reference, such as X for Northing and Y for Easting. Without understanding this fundamental difference, it is easy to see how this could lead to a dangerous situation. During training, we found it better to refer to coordinates as "Y" (Easting), then "X" (Northing), followed by altitude, ensuring that the proper grid was relayed.

Munitions. There are two types of high explosive munitions for the D30 available to the ANA. The projectile is the same, but the powders are different. The first is marked on the canister and box as "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]." This is a solid charge, normally referred to in English as "full" and is intended for direct fire and indirect fire out to the weapon's maximum range. The second is marked "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]," commonly referred to as "reduced" or "reducible." This canister is loaded with five increments, four of which are removable to alter the trajectory and weapon's range.

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As expected, powder charges are also backward when compared to NATO standards. The charge is identified by the number of powder bags removed from the reducible canister and not the number used. For this reason charge four, the removal of four bags, is the D30's smallest charge.

Tabular firing tables. There are two TFTs available for the full and reduced charge HE projectiles--a Normal and a Mountain Terrain TFT. The differences between these two TFTs are the conditions used as "standard" when determining the values. The Normal Terrain TFT uses conditions based at sea level where the air pressure and temperature are higher. The Mountain Terrain TFT uses conditions based on an altitude of 1500 meters, where the air pressure and temperature are much lower.

Afghanistan is a high desert with an average altitude much closer to 1500 meters than sea level. When computing data without taking the time to accurately account for nonstandard conditions using the Normal Terrain TFT, which is sometimes referred to as "cold-stick," errors of up to 900 meters can result due to the lower air pressure and temperature alone. For this reason, the Mountain TFT is a better option for the ANA.

Challenges. Artillery mentors have had to work around a number of challenges to make the D30 fit the requirements of a modern army that is fighting an insurgency and to modify old Soviet practices to better integrate with NATO operations. These challenges are based on the Cold War design of the weapon system itself, equipment shortfalls and the lack of standardization across the ANA Artillery.

Weapons system design. The first problem is the weapon itself. The D30 was designed for massed preplanned fire against large forces on a linear battlefield. It does not easily convert to dispersed, responsive, precision, 360-degree operations against small bands of enemy forces.

The Soviet firing chart, which is complicated and intended to be used by the battery commander at the observation point, is the first issue to overcome. It does not support NATO style adjust-fire techniques because it was intended for use at the OP. Also due to the Soviet firing chart's rectangular design, it can not be used for 360-degree operations. Unfortunately, the 6000 mil sight on the howitzer leaves the ANA little choice, but to use it for determining the deflection from the guns to the target.

The deflection on the D30 sight is unlike any U.S. howitzer. The deflection increases to the right, not left; and it uses a fixed, not a common deflection. The deflection increasing to the right does not create much difficulty. However, the lack of a common deflection requires special computations for each gun. A fixed deflection means the deflection ring is locked, making it more like the azimuth counter on U.S. style sights than what we normally call "deflection."

Once the aiming reference, such as aiming poles, are in place, there is no way to "punch 3200." So, each howitzer has its own deflection to the aiming reference and its own deflection when oriented on the same target. In U.S. style howitzers, once the gun is oriented and an aiming reference is in place, the deflection is reset to an arbitrary number; 3200. This allows for all guns in a platoon to have the same deflection--known as a common deflection--when oriented on a target. The Russian TTP was not to announce deflection, but the difference from the azimuth of fire, which each gunner would then add or subtract from his deflection to his own aiming reference and apply the result to the sight.

The D30 sight also uses either a range drum in combination with a site dial or only quadrant elevation. Site is a correction for the difference in altitude of the guns and target. When using the range drum, a function of range-to-target is applied to the drum and site is applied to the site dial. The tube is then raised until the bubbles are level.

This method is good for speed, but lacks accuracy, because there are generally no nonstandard conditions applied to the range and the drum is based on the Normal Terrain TFT. For reasons stated above, huge errors result.

The other method is ignoring the range drum completely and applying a quadrant elevation to the elevation counter much like U.S. style sights. In this method, the elevation needed to reach the target is added to site. The result, known as quadrant elevation, is applied to the site. Because this best matches NATO standards, this is the recommended method for the training the ANA.

When the gunner uses the range drum, he selects the charge by moving a pointer on the drum. He selects I for full charge, O for reduced (all increments loaded), two for charge two, or four for charge four. For these charges, the range to target is divided by 50 to determine the Normal Terrain TFT drum setting. For charges one and three, the pointer is placed on O and four respectively. The TFT (column 2) must be used to determine the drum setting. Also, column 2 of the TFT must be used for all charges to apply the Mountain TFT values or to account for nonstandard conditions.

Site is computed slightly differently. There is no complementary site factor in the Russian TFT. Instead, there is a table in the back of the TFT where elevation and angle of site are used to determine a correction to the angle of site. This correction is the equivalent to what we refer to as complementary angle of site and is added to angle of site for the final site value.

Equipment shortfalls. A lack of required equipment is one of the most challenging problems facing the ANA artillery. Many units lack panoramic telescopes, direct fire telescopes, aiming circles, stakes and other basic-issue items. These items are being ordered, but it takes a long time for these orders to be filled. Much of the needed equipment has to be purchased from former Warsaw Pact countries and is difficult to acquire in the needed numbers in working condition.

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The Soviet equivalent to the graphic firing table, which allows for the rapid application of nonstandard conditions to firing data, is a weapon specific range arm used on the Soviet firing chart. This range arm has angled lines used to modify range to target which accounts for air pressure, air temperature, etc. This assumes the firing unit has the proper range arm for the D30 because all weapon systems will be different. Unfortunately, this is not the case for most ANA artillery units.

The ANA uses every available version of the Soviet firing chart from rocket to mortar systems. Most charts lack the proper range arm, but all of the charts measure deflection the same way--making them useful, but not ideal.

The lack of these specialized range arms requires accurate, very time-intensive, long-hand computations. Accounting for all available nonstandard conditions takes a trained FDC at least 30 minutes. Huge errors can result--especially if using the Normal Terrain TFT--if time is not taken to account for air pressure at least.

While some illumination and smoke rounds are available to the ANA, there are no TFTs for computing data for these munitions. The proper TFTs for these projectiles are being purchased through former Warsaw Pact countries, and hopefully this problem will be rectified in the near future.

Lack of standardization. The ANA lacks a formal FA school with a mandate to standardize the terms and TTPs to be used by all ANA artillery units. There is no standard call-for-fire, crew drill or even a standard word for azimuth of fire. Without these standards, the ANA artillery cannot learn to support any maneuver unit in contact with the enemy quickly without confusion--which could lead to fratricide. Standardization allows artillerymen to transfer from one unit to another and quickly integrate. Standards also allow leadership to define when a section or platoon is certified and can accomplish defined tasks safely.

Artillery is a complicated business in any language, but when non-Dari speakers attempt to teach these difficult concepts--through an interpreter--a large percentage of meaning is lost. Most interpreters move around and do not remain with the same training team for long periods. Very few artillery mentors are lucky enough to have interpreters with them long enough for them to understand the concepts themselves. To complicate matters, many of the standard English artillery terms are jargon and do not translate well to English--let alone Dari. Words such as lay, site, deflection, quadrant and declination are understandable to those who underwent formal training, but when translated through a college-educated civilian interpreter, it is impossible to predict how they will be translated. Every Fort Sill graduate knows the difference between deflection and azimuth, but according to a civilian dictionary they are nearly the same. In the U.S. Army, we have an entire manual dedicated to defining military terms to ensure common understanding. This level of standardization is still in its infancy in the ANA.

The solution. Many of the ANA artillery's challenges can be overcome with proper TTPs. Establishing these standards and TTPs were discussed at an artillery conference at the Kabul Military Training Center with artillery mentors attending from all Coalition partners from across Afghanistan. Lacking an ANA proponent for standardization, the assembled mentors agreed to numerous TTPs, which mitigate many of these challenges.

Probably the most important standardization is the use of common terms with the same meaning. Through the use of some of the more experienced interpreters, common terms were identified. These terms were codified on a number of artillery forms, which were distributed to the artillery mentors.

The forms are available on the Army Knowledge Online at https:// www.us.army.mil/ suite/kc/11235523. They include a callforfire card, record of fire, rapid fire table, gunner reference card, weapon record data card and a record of missions fired. In addition, both Normal and Mountain Terrain TFTs were translated into Dari.

These forms and tables use the same words for the same concept from observer all the way to the gun line. All of the words on these documents are written in Dari, English, and transliterated using Latin letters, which allows mentors to learn and try to use the proper words themselves. This will cut our reliance on the quality of the translation by the interpreter.

To overcome many of the equipment shortages and the shortfalls of the Soviet firing chart, we created a Microsoft Access program to compute firing data. This Afghan-Field Artillery Computer allows the ANA to use the D30 to conduct adjust-fire missions--accounting for all nonstandard conditions. The resulting firing data, which previously took 30 minutes, is computed in only five to 10 seconds. The program uses the same standardized Dari words from the forms to further cement the common terms into an ANA artilleryman's vocabulary.

The A-FAC is simple to use and requires very little training because it is in Dari. ANA soldiers, who in many cases had never used a computer, have been able to compute firing data with just four hours of training. This program is also located on the Army Knowledge Online for future mentors to become familiar with before their deployment. The program works on any computer with Microsoft Access 2003 or later.

To exploit this new Microsoft Access program and measure the nonstandard conditions needed to ensure accurate data, ANA artillery units recently

were equipped with laptop computers, weather gauges, propellant temperature gauges and global positioning systems. Using these items, the ANA can compute accurate and timely firing data--accounting for most of the five requirements for accurate predicted fire.

While the A-FAC will run on any computer, the laptops given to the ANA were modified to run only the firing computer and nothing else. This action attempts to prevent the misuse of the computers and to discourage theft.

The 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C., created a small artillery school to train the ANA artillery on this new equipment and TTPs. A platoon at a time was sequestered away from distractions for 28 days near Gardez. This initiative proved to be the best method for changing the culture of the ANA artillery and indoctrinating them to these new standardizations.

When the platoons are at their home bases, they routinely are tasked to conduct guard duties or join combat patrols, which prevent them from training on their artillery tasks. During their 28 days at Gardez, the platoons conducted daily classroom and hands-on training. At the end of the course, the platoon conducted a full-day, live-fire exercise. For the first time, these platoons were certified against an established written standard.

Key personnel from the platoon had to pass written tests. The entire section had to demonstrate their competence in occupation and live-fire crew drills. Once the platoon completed the course and was certified, the soldiers returned to their forward operating base--ready to provide basic counterfire support.

The way ahead. With the hard work of the artillery mentors, the partnership of Coalition units, new TTPs, standardized terms and documents, and the new automated A-FAC, the ANA artillery can conduct basic indirect fire relatively soon. However, this capability is not sustainable until the future ANA field artillery school begins training fire direction specialists, forward observers and artillery NCOs and officers. There are plans to create this formal institution, but it will be some time before the systems are in place.

Because of the immense responsibilities placed on artillery mentors, someone must assume the duty of formally training them enroute to Afghanistan. The challenges faced by these mentors are too great to expect them to learn on the fly. Before their deployments, they must receive hands-on training on the D30 and its peculiarities. They must understand the advances made by the previous mentor teams to continue those efforts. The current learning and relearning has stifled the ANA's progress. We can do better.

Without trained observers and fire supporters in the ANA maneuver units and an Afghan-led standardization program, the long-term goal of ANA artillery's firing in support of ANA ground combat operations will be a challenge. However, a certified ANA artillery platoon partnered with a Coalition target acquisition radar can be successful as a counterfire team.

This should be the first step toward our end state. Successful accomplishment of this mission will build pride and satisfaction and will speed the ANA artillery's growth and break its current stagnation.

By MAJ Daryl L. Fullerton, FA

Major Daryl L. Fullerton, field artillery, is the Deputy Lethal Fires Chief for the 82nd Airborne Division and Combined-Joint Task Force-82. He served as the executive officer for 2nd Battalion, 321st Field Artillery, (Airborne), 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, deploying in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Previous assignments include Firing Battery Observer/Controller--Trainer for Army National Guard units in Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania; and commander, Howitzer Battery, 3rd Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Polk, La.