Artillery--never leave home without it (and don't forget the "dumb" rounds). (Letters to the Editor).

I found your interview with MG Franklin L. Hagenbeck ["Afghanistan: Fire Support for Operation Anaconda"] and the article on "Joint Coalition Fire Support in Operation Anaconda" by LTC Christopher F. Bentley [both in September-October 2002] very interesting yet somewhat troubling. Both did a good job of discussing the good and bad points of the fire support they had available during Operation Anaconda. The one thing that troubled me was that neither seemed to be bothered by the fact that they had no artillery support available because no artillery units were allowed to deploy with them to Afghanistan. I find that appalling.

I'm an old airborne- and ranger-qualified infantryman. As you probably know, Infantrymen don't have much respect for folks who aren't infantrymen. However, I learned one very important thing from two years of combat as a rifle platoon leader and rifle company commander in Vietnam--never go into combat without artillery support and lots of it. So I always had a healthy respect for Artillerymen because I could rely on them to put the balls where I wanted them when times were tough, and times were tough everyday.

As a rifle platoon leader, I adjusted 105-mm, 155-mm and 8-inch artillery nearly daily and 175-mm on occasion. In those days, there was no forward observer (FO) at the platoon level, so I had to do it. Quite frankly, I doubt seriously that there are many people alive today who have adjusted more artillery in combat than I have.

In addition, I am troubled by this fascination that our Secretary of Defense and many others appear to have with "precision weapons." They seem to think that all it will take to win the next war is a handful of SF [special forces] guys with laser designators and a bunch of "smart" bombs.

Secretary of the Navy Gordon England said in an address to the Precision Technology Symposium in Laurel, Maryland, on 16 October 2002, "For the future, mass will be precision." Yeah, well, maybe. Obviously, he has never been in a real firefight with real bad buys in the jungle.

An SF guy with a laser designator would have been useless in 90 percent of the firefights I had as an infantryman, unless he had an M16 or knew how to adjust "dumb" artillery. Rarely in jungle or forest combat can you see exactly where the bad guys are, so you can have "eyes on the target," as these precision weapons' gurus like to say.

Hell, all I ever knew was that the bastards were "over there between 12 and 3 o'clock" or often between 12 and 12 o'clock. But I sure as Hell could get my butt down and get my men to shoot back with M16 and M60 fire while I "got on the horn" with the Redlegs and made a call-for-fire using my PRC-25 radio and my trusty compass. Using this late 1960s high technology, I usually could get HE [high-explosive rounds] on the target with devastating effects in five to 10 minutes, and I adjusted it by ear ("ears on the target"?) because I couldn't see the stuff exploding unless it was at night or the rounds were as close as 50 meters.

I doubt Fort Sill even teaches FOs to adjust by ear. That was the most valuable skill I had as a rifle platoon leader in combat. It was what stood between living and dying day in and day out. How would a laser designator or smart bomb have helped me?

Had I had to live without artillery support, like one of MG Hagenbeck's battalions did for about 24 hours, my men and I would not be here today. Dumb artillery adjusted by a smart infantryman made the difference between living and dying daily.

I also found that dumb artillery worked well day and night. It worked well in the rain, in the sun, in the wind and in cloudy weather. It didn't matter if the ceiling was high or low. No matter what the weather was, it was there when you needed it. It always worked.

I also used a lot of close air support [CAS] and attack helicopters in combat. They were great and useful to have. But, they were a scarce resource. It appears that they are still a scarce resource, based on MG Hagenbeck's and LTC Bentley's reports. They always will be a scarce resource. Anyone who thinks differently is not being realistic--to include our Air Force brethren.

An hour or so waiting for close air support or attack helicopters while being shot at by a determined enemy is a very, very longtime. Twenty-four hours is an eternity. When I had to wait for it, I could always blow the Hell out of them with artillery. When the fighter jocks showed up like the cavalry of old, it was easy to hold the artillery [fire] until they finished their work, then I could bring it back in.

That old artillery was dumb, but it was very, very effective. Regrettably, it appears that we have some folks in high places in our government and military who don't understand the importance of artillery support in combat. It would seem to me that the responsibility of reeducating these folks would fall on our Artillerymen. I would urge you all to do all that is humanly possible to train the "powers that be" that Field Artillery was, is and always will be the biggest killer on the battlefield.

We might need precision weapons for "snoop and poop," such as SF/CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] behind the lines--covert sorts of stuff. But anybody who thinks that snoop and poop is the only "face of battle" in the future is badly mistaken. Afghanistan and Kosovo are models for future conflicts, but they aren't the only models. If we ever have to fight the Chinese, Russians, Vietnamese or North Koreans, the Afghan model won't work.

No doubt, precision weapons will be very important to our success on the battlefield, but dumb weapons will still be necessary and valuable. We are kidding ourselves and putting the lives of our soldiers at risk to think otherwise.

On the future battlefield, when a rifle platoon leader finds himself under heavy enemy fire, he should be able to get the indirect fire support he needs in five to 10 minutes. Sometimes the situation will be such that he can have eyes on the target and precision weapons from the Artillery, Air Force or Navy will be what he needs, assuming the weather will allow support by such weapons.

But more often than not, he will not be able to see exactly where the bad guys are and he'll need dumb weapons that he can control by ear or eye. And with practice, he'll learn how to do that with great precison.

Only the Artillery can provide that kind of support. Failure to organize for and to provide such support for that rifle platoon leader is nothing short of criminal.

LTC(R) John M. Jenkins, IN Aiken, SC