Fires TTP for the COE. (The Update Point).

The world has changed. The United States is the sole remaining superpower with the world's most powerful military. Today's Army, however, continues to operate with doctrine, equipment and training methodologies developed in the Cold War era to counter large massed armored formations in open rolling terrain. Given the military superiority of the United States, it is unlikely that our potential adversaries will present this type of threat.

When regional operations draw the United States into conflict, it is most likely that those who oppose us will adjust their military capabilities. They will employ available high technology and adaptive, asymmetric tactics to avoid the strengths of our armed forces.

To counter this change, the Field Artillery community is developing tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) that ensure success in dealing with the challenges of the contemporary operational environment (COE).

Changes in the Operational Environment. Future opponents will attempt to deny US forces access to ports of debarkation and operating bases by employing long-range air and missile precision strike systems. We require sensors and counterstrike capabilities together with responsive techniques of employment to shield our initial entry forces.

Adversaries will use terrain and weather to negate US military advantages. Our tactics, sensors, weapons and munitions must be effective in all environments, including in complex, urban, mountainous and jungle terrain. Weather will continue to impact operations; all-weather fire support remains an imperative.

Threat operations will be less patterned within an asymmetrical battlespace. Instead of massed, linear offensive formations and echeloned defenses, we are likely to face small units, including dismounted infantry employing high-technology and adaptive tactics. This type of adversary will be difficult to predict, thus complicating our targeting process.

To be proactive, we will have to analyze enemy systems and attack their critical links, nodes, seams and vulnerabilities. We also must develop procedures to make our reactive fires system more responsive.

Adversaries may attempt to employ military capabilities in the immediate presence of civilian populations or in close proximity to potentially sensitive sites. This, too, complicates targeting and dictates we develop automated target recognition systems and discriminating lethal capabilities as well as nonlethal effects that can be delivered by the Field Artillery.

Enemy forces may seek to operate in closer proximity to friendly units to reduce the effectiveness of our indirect fire systems. We must counter that tactic by being able to deliver fires more precisely against both point and area targets in close support of our formations.

To protect their own high-value indirect fire systems, the enemy will employ mortars and artillery in a distributed manner, attempting to mass fires from dispersed locations while avoiding preparatory fires of long duration. We require omni-directional sensors that are capable of accurately acquiring indirect fire systems and that are linked directly through the command and control system to the shooters who can kill them.

The Training Centers. Elements of the COE have been introduced into our training regime in our Battle Command Training Program (BCTP) Warfighters, in our dirt Combat Training Centers (CTCs) and into Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) instruction.

Today, when units arrive at the National Training Center (NTC), Fort Irwin, California, they are subject to attack from guerrilla organizations attempting to disrupt their access. The NTC experience now provides a wider range of missions and threats and a less predictable, more freethinking enemy.

The opposing force (OPFOR) has changed from a Soviet-style enemy who could be templated and predicted to smaller, more dispersed units relying on greater initiative.

Field Artillery units are experiencing these same warfighting conditions in all major training events and independently developing TTPs that are producing successful outcomes. It is important we capture these innovative approaches for the benefit of the entire force.

Field Artillery Knowledge Online. One means of rapidly capturing and disseminating the most effective TTPs is by leveraging information technology. The Field Artillery School has been selected to become the proof-of-principle site for a Knowledge Management Center initiative. We are in the process of designing a knowledge site to enable total information sharing.

The site will include three core functions: a communities of practice capability that will enable information exchange; a structured search capability designed specifically for fire support and the Field Artillery; and a system that enables soldiers and leaders to request information and provide feedback to the Field Artillery School.

The military complexities of the 21st century require that we adapt our current capabilities to meet a different form of threat and at the same time prepare for the challenges of the future. The intricacies of the COE have served as the basis for developing the Objective Force concepts and future combat system (FCS) requirements.

Our present imperative is to record and disseminate the successful TTPs being developed by the current force to deal with the challenges of the COE, using this magazine and, in the near future, the FA Knowledge Online.