FA essential to current and future force success. (The Update Point).

The Field Artillery is absolutely essential today to the success of our joint forces and the Army's combined arms team--and will continue to be in the future. Some have confused discussions about the viability of any particular weapons system with established requirements for indirect fires or the future relevancy of Field Artillery. The requirement for indirect fires is growing, and the relevancy of the Field Artillery is on the rise.

In the future, the Field Artillery, fully integrated with joint fires and all other effects-producing systems, will be more critical to the success of land forces in high-intensity conflict than ever before. This message is clear and being articulated repeatedly by our most senior civilian and military leadership in an unprecedented way.

Army studies, analyses and war games have informed us of the continuing need for land-based indirect fires and reinforced that a mix of mortar, cannon, rocket and missile fires will be required to meet the fire support needs of the force.

Window into the Future. How the Army wants its transformed force to operate is clear. The Army's White Paper "Concepts for the Objective Force" states, "Operations will be characterized by developing situations out of contact; maneuvering to positions of advantage; engaging enemy forces beyond the range of their weapons; destroying them with precision fires; and, as required, by tactical assault at times and places of our choosing."

This concept was the basis of the recently concluded Army Transformation War Game (ATWG) at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. It provided valuable insights that reinforce the importance of the Field Artillery and the employment of land-based indirect fires. In the War Game, the transformed force faced the full spectrum of operational requirements: high-intensity conflict, peace support operations and stability operations/deterrence. The force conducted these operations in the full range of environmental and terrain conditions, including mountainous, complex, urban, open-rolling and triple-canopy jungle.

The following are War Game observations applicable to the Field Artillery.

* In any environment, we must have a wide range of joint and Army indirect fire capabilities to engage targets successfully and be responsive to any echelon.

* Shaping operations will be continuous, will be conducted throughout the nonlinear battlespace, will require the sustained commitment of air- and land-based fires and will not end until the conflict is terminated.

* Removing the adversary's counter-strike capabilities early--his missiles/rockets, air power and air defenses--is absolutely imperative to ensure our successful access to the areas in which we must operate.

* Joint operations require interdependence among the services. The capability to fully integrate joint and land-based indirect fires is essential to engage the right targets with the right capabilities at the right time.

* We need a broader spectrum of non-lethal effects to influence outcomes across the full spectrum of operations.

* Our command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance ([C.sup.4]ISR) systems, including sensors, must function in all environments and be networked. To that end, the Networked Fires architecture must be an inherent part of the Army's battle command system.

* Integrated versus deconflicted airspace must be the norm. We must enable all airspace users--not restrict them in time or space. This requirement facilitates the deconfliction of the trajectories of our munitions and the loiter attack capabilities we will field.

* Finally, the future force needs an organizational element at every echelon that enables execution-centric, horizontally integrated fires and effects.

These insights harken back to immutable principles of land warfare. Land forces are an essential component of our armed services and will remain the primary means by which enemy armies are defeated and terrain is controlled. Land forces employ two primary military means to conduct warfare: fires and maneuver. Each complements the other.

Fires include joint air/sea- and land-based fires. Joint air/sea- and land-based fires, again, are complementary and fill mutually supporting roles essential to the successful prosecution of warfare. Land-based fires include the capabilities of systems that engage targets by direct and indirect means.

Our doctrine is based on these principles. FM 3.0, Operations states that "Firepower provides the destructive force essential to overcoming the enemy's ability and will to fight." (Paragraph 4-11)

Our leaders understand the critical role of firepower in land warfare--including artillery firepower. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz said, "Land warfare will continue to be a critical part of our defense strategy. And there's a vital role for accurate artillery in establishing battlefield dominance. ... The need for artillery has definitely not gone away. We need precise fires." (Department of Defense News Briefing, 8 May)

Future Indirect Fires. Indirect fires, especially those provided by the Field Artillery, will be increasingly important to warfare in the future. We will provide highly lethal and responsive operational and tactical fires.

Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White said, "... the requirement for indirect fire systems to support the United States Army ... across the full spectrum of conflict, 24/7, all weather, tactical, operational ranges, precise and mass targets, continues. And that requirement is valid and has to be met." (News Briefing, 8 May)

Our future operational fires will be long-range and precise to enable the initial engagement of systems--such as long-range ballistic missiles employed to deny us access to the enemy--and to support subsequent operational maneuver by offensive counterstrike and shaping operations.

We also will use land-based indirect fires to attack sophisticated enemy air defenses to open up protected air corridors for a precision air campaign in depth. These operational fires will be delivered from deployable artillery systems and complement the effects provided by joint systems, such as manned aircraft, naval cruise missiles and long-range naval gunfire.

Land-based operational fires will come from NetFires, the future combat system-non-line-of-sight (FCS-NLOS) and the high-mobility artillery rocket system (HIMARS) firing precision Army tactical missiles and rockets.

By doctrine, our tactical fires are to "destroy or neutralize enemy forces, suppress enemy fires, and disrupt enemy movement." (FM 3.0, Paragraph 4-15) We will continue to use the effects of indirect fires before forces are joined in order to destroy, dislocate, demoralize and disorganize our adversaries. We will seek to create an advantage for our maneuver forces and reduce or eliminate any advantages our adversaries might have. Indirect fires will isolate the battlefield, enable maneuver forces to retain freedom of action and posture those forces to enter close combat at a significant advantage.

The Field Artillery's enduring mission of close support for maneuver will create the conditions for decisive close combat. In making it possible for maneuver to close with the enemy, land-based indirect fire tasks will include preparatory fires, area fires (including suppression and obscuration), counter-battery, danger close and final protective fires. With future technologies, we potentially will be able to contribute a wide range of nonlethal effects to blind or disable the enemy, emplace unattended ground sensors or launch tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (TUAVs).

Our experience and analyses inform us that a combination of mortar, cannon, rocket and missile fires will be required to accomplish these tactical fires tasks.

Land-based indirect fires combined with joint fires are the critical elements of additional combat power the joint force commander can apply. They must be available to ensure success in the most critical stages of engagements when forces are joined with the enemy.

The FA and Networked Fires. Today, the Field Artillery clearly understands and accepts its role as the integrating agent to synchronize indirect fires with maneuver. Fires and effects integration will become even more critical to the transformed force.

The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) recently designated the Field Artillery Center at Fort Sill the lead for developing our Army's procedures for fires and effects integration and designing the architecture for Networked Fires for our Objective Force. Fort Sill is in the process of organizing an Enhanced Battle Lab to support fires and effects integration.

The concept of Networked Fires is to provide near-real-time integration of lethal and nonlethal effects, including complementary access to and support of joint sensors and fires capabilities. The intent is to fully access and integrate relevant Army, joint, multinational and interagency sensors, delivery systems and information. This will enable commanders at every echelon to have responsive, dynamic control over the application of effects and reach-back access to additional support systems. Networked Fires will provide optimal attack solutions by integrating Army, joint and multinational lethal and nonlethal systems with relevant sensors for attack and post-attack assessment.

Conclusion. The current and future forces of the Army will remain dependent on indirect fires as a critical component of combat power. Army doctrine, conceptual work and extensive analyses all reinforce that land-based indirect fires are essential today and for as far as we can project into the future.

I conclude with the words of our Chief of Staff of the Army General Eric K. Shinseki who could not have articulated the requirement for indirect fires more clearly. He said, "The Army's need for organic fires requires responsive, immediate, 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week, accurate support in all weather and terrain, capable of reengaging fleeting targets, and sustainable for as long as they are required. These indirect fire capabilities are what we must provide to our Soldiers as they fight to win the close battle." (Opening Statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 16 May)

In fact, as we move into the future, the transforming force will conduct tactical assaults only when required--as stated in the Objective Force White Paper.

The Field Artillery has a future, one that's vital to our Army's future.