Relevant and ready: the FA now and in the future.

We are a nation at war and an Army transforming for the future. Our current operational commitments dictate that we provide our soldiers the best capabilities available to enable them to accomplish the difficult tasks they have been given. At the same time, the Army must restructure itself to ensure the right competencies and capabilities are available to sustain the nation's long-term commitments around the world.

**********

The world in which we are engaged is changing--as is our National Security Strategy. We are experiencing an unprecedented pace of technological development that will impact our ability to conduct warfare. This period of strategic change requires the Armed Forces of the United States to evolve as well. Posturing for the future while fully engaged in current operations, the Army must remain relevant and ready--and so must its Field Artillery.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The Field Artillery certainly demonstrated its readiness to deliver devastating firepower during our most recent major combat operations (MCO) in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Field Artillerymen made a tremendous contribution to combat success and again reinforced the principle that the effects of joint fires, including Field Artillery fires, win our wars.

Our doctrine and the emerging threat both clearly indicate that indirect fires and effects will become increasingly important in future MCO. To remain relevant, the Field Artillery must sustain the ability to provide fires in close support of maneuver, adapt our organizations and capabilities to meet future requirements and become the joint fires and effects integrator for the land component on future battlefields.

As Artillerymen, fire supporters and joint fires integrators, we must be absolutely competent and confident in the planning and application of the full range of joint fires and effects. Our institutional and unit training programs as well as the employment and replication of joint fires and effects in our Combat Training Centers (CTCs) must enable this proficiency. A transformation in training is essential to achieving the fires and effects outcomes we seek for the force today and for the joint force of the future.

Transformation into the Future Force with its related fires and effects concepts is ongoing now. Change for the Army and for the Field Artillery is with us today.

The Army and FA at War. Many of the immediate changes we are experiencing are driven by the lessons learned in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and OIF that can be disseminated quickly and applied in the field. Likewise, the requirements of soldiers and units engaged in current operations and those scheduled for rotational deployments are driving near-term material acquisition, unit training programs and organizational restructuring.

The FA was crucial to OIFI's success. Our soldiers, Marines and FA units did a magnificent job in combat--are continuing to do so in OIF II's security operations and stability operations (SOSO) with the attendant combat operations. After-action reports (AARs) from these units have provided numerous implications for the development of Field Artillery doctrine, organizations, training, leaders and materiel solutions.

Our Army is focused on expeditionary and offensive operations--so must the Field Artillery. For example, the AARs show we must improve joint fires doctrine and procedures, achieving common standards throughout the joint force. Also, targeting in the contemporary operating environment (COE) is challenging, and we must refine procedures to better prepare our observers, particularly in complex urban terrain. We must better prepare and equip our units to conduct SOSO.

Field Artillery organizations must increase modular capabilities. Fires and effects coordination cells (FECCs) should be established and properly manned and equipped at all levels. We require additional target acquisition units in the force. Combat service support (CSS) for FA organizations must be fixed.

Realistic training systems must be sustained and improved upon, wherever possible. If we are going to truly train as we intend to fight, joint fires must be included in our CTCs and the effects of all forms of indirect fire must be replicated effectively. We have to train our units to transition between MCO and SOSO. Finally, we require trained "universal observers" who are competent in the coordination and application of all indirect fire systems.

Our current leader training and development programs have produced outstanding leaders who proved exceptionally adaptive in the full-range of operational environments. Likewise, Field Artillery leaders at all levels must be experts in joint fires integration and competent in the application of the full range of fires and effects.

FA units require long-range communications and improved command and control vehicles. Our digital systems must be reduced in number and complexity. Our delivery systems demand longer range, and our munitions require improved precision. Mounted and dismounted targeting capabilities can be improved. Soldiers and units require greater self-protection capabilities. Munitions effects can be improved--sensor-fused munitions, such as sense and destroy armor munitions (SADARM), were extremely effective in OIF. We must solve the challenge of unexploded ordnance (UXO).

While we learned numerous lessons in OIF, the key lesson was stated by General (Retired) Barry R. McCaffrey, Commanding General of the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) during Operation Desert Storm: "Analysis will demonstrate that the dominant tactical weapon on the Iraqi Freedom Battlefield was artillery.... Artillery responds in seconds, lands within minutes, is impervious to weather, never runs out of fuel, provides smoke cover, illuminates targets and suppresses the fires of poorly located and identified enemy guns" ("Joint Firepower Wins Wars," Armed Forces Journal, October 2003).

The Army's Transformation Focus. As should be expected, a change in the senior leadership of the US Army resulted in changed direction for the force. The new Chief of Staff of the Army (CSA) General Peter J. Schoomaker has directed the detailed examination of 15 focus areas to determine the azimuth for the Army and, ultimately, changes for the Field Artillery.

Properly Training and Equipping Soldiers and Growing Leaders will remain fundamental to our Army. Four CSA focus areas relate to this purpose: developing soldiers with a Warrior Ethos, preparing future generations of senior leaders, training and educating Army members of the joint team and focusing training into the joint and expeditionary context in which we expect to conduct future operations. Field Artillerymen will be critical in the future joint warfight and must be trained accordingly.

The Army will continue its core capability of Providing Relevant and Ready Land Power to the nation. The CSA has focused on evolving the Current Force into a Future Force, enabled by network-centric battle command. Key components under examination include leveraging/enabling interdependent, network-centric warfare; creating modular, capabilities-based unit designs; developing a joint and expeditionary mindset; aligning the Army's Active and Reserve Components within the current security context; and exploiting Army Aviation's role on the joint battlefield. These focus areas likely will accelerate change in Field Artillery structures and command and control systems.

To better enable the Current Force, the CSA has focused studies on ensuring unit stability, continuity and predictability; enhancing the ability of installations to project power and support families; redesigning resource processes to be flexible, responsive and timely; clarifying authorities, responsibilities and accountability; and, finally, on communicating the Army story. Field Artillerymen can expect that personnel policies and assignment patterns will be changed as an outcome of these studies.

While near-term change should be expected, the Field Artillery has established a solid foundation from which to make a substantial contribution to the future warfight where integrated joint fires are expected to lead to battlefield dominance.

The Army and FA in Transformation. The Secretary of Defense stated our warfighting objective: "... the outcome we must achieve is fundamentally joint, network-centric, distributed forces capable of rapid decision superiority and massed effects across the battlespace" ("Transformation Planning Guidance," April 2003). "Joint, network-centric ... massed effects"--these are the business of Field Artillerymen, fire supporters and joint fires integrators.

Transforming Fires and Effects. The Army's extensive Future Force and future combat system (FCS) analyses are enabling the Army's evolution into the Future Force. The FA's fires and effects concepts and warfighting requirements are firmly nested in this work.

The "Fires and Effects Operational and Organizational Concepts" developed for the Future Force as a part of the Army's transformation effort support the outcome sought by the Secretary of Defense: fully integrated joint, interagency and multinational fires and effects.

Networked fires, a critical component of the future battle command system, will provide the network-centric linkage of sensors and effects producers to achieve massed effects across the battlespace.

The Future Force must have continuous, all-weather, all-terrain fires and effects--joint air-, sea- and land-based--enabled by networked fires and pervasive, redundant target acquisition capabilities.

Field Artillery close supporting fires and effects as well as counterstrike capabilities will support tactical engagements and battles in a symbiotic relationship with maneuver forces. Operational and shaping fires and effects will be employed to destroy key enemy capabilities, isolate the battlespace and deny the enemy an ability to reinforce.

Fires and effects organizations must be modular, tailorable and able to integrate lethal and nonlethal effects at all levels and in any environment.

Transforming fires for the Future Force will require extensive command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance ([C.sup.4]ISR) capabilities. Our targeting capabilities must extend from "space to mud" and be complementary to our effects producers.

The Army requires munitions that can produce desired effects in all types of terrain and environments. We must have increased precision with area-fire options, nonlethal effects applicable across the spectrum of military operations and, ultimately, discriminating munitions that will enable us in complex targeting environments.

The Future Force will be required to accomplish a wide range of fires tasks: long-range precision strike, shaping fires, fires at depth, fires to isolate, fires to protect the force and close supporting fires. A full range of fires and effects capabilities--land-based fires, air-delivered munitions, sea-based fires and rotary wing attack--will be required to accomplish all tasks and produce massed effects against all target sets in all environments.

Having a range of complementary fires delivery systems and effects producers ensures the joint force commander and land force commander can account for battlefield and system variables, such as the availability of delivery means, speed of responsiveness, risk, environment, weather, range, type of threat, dwell time of the target and required effects. A full range of joint fires capabilities is essential to the success of all elements of the joint force.

For the land force, delivery platforms must include a full range of deployable systems--mortars, cannons, rockets and missiles--to complement joint delivery systems and ensure immediately responsive fires for the land force, particularly in the close fight. Mortars are critical to the maneuver forces as a close supporting system, especially in the tactical assault. Cannons truly enable maneuver by providing an immediately responsive capability to kill and suppress targets that are the most dangerous to the force as it moves. Rockets enable the precision engagement of point and area targets at range. Finally, missiles enable the attack of high-payoff targets (HPTs) throughout the depth of the battlefield.

The Joint Training Center for Fires and Effects Integration, Fort Sill. OEF and OIF demonstrated the warfighting potential of integrated joint fires. These operations, likewise, highlighted the challenges of conducting complex military operations involving the application of fires from each of the services. Coordinating the joint attack of targets, synchronizing fires with maneuver, providing land fires to support aviation, achieving synergistic fires and effects, executing time-sensitive targeting and deconflicting joint fires are all operations that require joint standards and joint training.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

To achieve the intent of our emerging doctrine and realize the full potential that indirect fires and effects can bring to the future warfight, the Army and the joint force must train extensively on the integration, coordination and application of joint fires. At the lowest tactical level, commanders require individuals fully competent to access and apply the full range of joint fires. Battle staffs at every level must be proficient in planning, coordinating and synchronizing the effects of indirect fires. To help achieve these requirements, the FA Center and School, Fort Sill, has joined in a cooperative effort with the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) to develop transformational joint fires and effects training for individuals and battle staffs.

The Joint Fires and Effects Trainer System (JFETS) is being designed to produce a universal observer from any service or from special operations forces (SOF) who is capable of applying any effect from any service in any environment. JFETS also will serve as a collective training capability for battle staffs at every echelon to coordinate and integrate fires and effects.

JFETS will leverage virtual reality and artificial intelligence to create immersive, experiential training situations. The trainees will have to exercise their cognitive decision-making skills under the stresses of simulated combat situations.

JFETS will replicate any environment and weather condition, offering the opportunity to train observers in a specific terrain before they deploy to that terrain. By linking JFETS to simulations and field training, multi-echelon training is achievable with a potential for live-fire outcomes.

JFETS will consist of three primary training modules. The open terrain module (OTM) will enable the universal observer to master the skills to sense HPTs and engage adversaries with an appropriate mix of joint fires and effects. The urban terrain module (UTM) will train the employment of fires and effects in complex urban terrain while requiring the observer to limit collateral damage and avoid noncombatant casualties. The fires and effects command module (FECM) will train commanders and battle staffs to plan and coordinate the application of lethal and nonlethal joint fires, thus enabling joint, interagency and multinational fires and effects integration.

JFETS offers a revolutionary training capability. Completing its development will greatly enhance our ability to properly train the application and integration of joint fires. Because of the importance of joint fires in the future warfight, I believe that a Joint Training Center for Fires and Effects Integration, leveraging the training advantages of JFETS and our ranges, should be established at Fort Sill.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

FA Initiatives Now and for the Future. Future Force and joint concepts are clearly important; however, the FA Center and School is providing priority of fires to support our operationally engaged and mobilized forces. Together with our partners in industry and the Army, we fielded the M270A1 multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS), the sensor-fused SADARM, and the advanced Field Artillery tactical data system (AFATDS) Version 6.3.1 software to units about to execute OIF.

Additionally, we supported work to ensure the interface between AFATDS and the automated deep operations coordination system (ADOCS) being used extensively by V Corps. We supported the decision to deploy high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) for SOF and the first combat employment of the Army tactical missile system (ATACMS) unitary missile.

The FA Center and School is actively participating in several CSA focus area studies, particularly those that address organizational modularity and relevant force structure. But we also are playing an active role in addressing near-term capabilities for FA soldiers through Soldier as a System (SaaS), the Rapid Fielding Initiative (RFI), and Rapid Equipping of the Force (REF) programs. (See the figure.) For example in RFI, we have purchased commercial off-the-shelf dismounted range-finding and target-location optics to support our deployed and deploying light forces and, in REF, are aggressively pursuing getting a lightweight countermortar radar (LCMR) into the hands of our deployed units. We continue to provide a wide range of training support and new equipment fieldings to units identified for rotational deployments and mobilization.

Field Artillery systems to modernize the force that are being fielded or soon will be fielded include Paladin upgrades, the M777 lightweight 155-mm cannon (LW 155), M270Al, HIMARS, hand-held-digital devices, AFATDS, the lightweight laser designator rangefinder (LLDR), fire support sensor system (F[S.sup.3]) and dismounted optics.

Additional systems are clearly achievable in the near term, including the Phoenix radar, potential enhancements to the Q-36 Firefinder radar, Profiler (meteorological system), the improved position and azimuth determining system (IPADS), Excalibur (family of precision-guided munitions), the advanced cannon artillery ammunition program (series of 155-mm and 105-mm conventional ammunition with enhanced range and lethality), guided MLRS (GMLRS) and ATACMS unitary. The potential for course-correcting fuzes and smart submunitions are also evident.

In order to enhance our Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (SBCTs), we will field the LW 155 to modernize the M198 and increase the SBCTs' lethality by moving to a 3X6 organizational structure. Efforts are underway to address shortcomings in the SBCTs' fire support structure, better train fire supporters to integrate nonlethal effects and improve target acquisition capabilities.

Transformation of Field Artillery training and education is critical to our future. We have improved the development of a Warrior Ethos by implementing demanding realistic training in institutional events, such as the Redleg War and "walking-shoots." The tenets of the COE are being included in our training programs to better prepare soldiers and leaders to make an immediate contribution in their units. Revisions to the officer, warrant officer and NCO education systems are well underway as are our plans to train the Basic Officer Leadership Course (BOLC) at Fort Sill.

A full-spectrum FA training aids, devices, simulators and simulations (TADSS) strategy has been implemented that will improve our units' abilities to train at home station. The call-for-fire trainer (CFFT) will replace the guard unit armory device, full-crew interactive simulation trainer (GUARD-FIST) and include an additional functionality to train the employment of close air support (CAS). The fire support combined arms tactical trainer (FSCATT) and the FSCATT-towed (FSCATT-T) will remain critical crew training capabilities.

We are fully engaged in the development of concepts and capabilities for the Field Artillery in the Future Force. These have been documented in Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) work to date and will soon be published in a formal "Fires and Effects Operational and Organizational" document. Our work in support of unit of employment (UE) and multifunctional unit of action (UA) fires organizations continues. A major effort is underway to develop the fire support concepts and capabilities required for our forcible entry units.

Future Force systems, including the non-line-of-sight cannon (NLOS cannon), NLOS launch system (NLOS-LS), loiter attack missile (LAM), precision attack missile (PAM), multi-mission radar (MMR) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) dedicated to targeting are all under development.

An NLOS cannon demonstrator was produced as directed by Congress and began firing at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, in August 2003. It proved that a 155-mm cannon system with auto loading and a sustained rate-of-fire of six to 10 rounds per minute is achievable on a platform that weighs approximately 20 tons. The NLOS cannon shows great promise for accelerated fielding into the Current Force.

The Depth and Simultaneous Attack Battle Lab at Fort Sill is fully engaged in collaborative experimentation and our science and technology (S & T) efforts to validate Future Force and networked fires requirements. Nonlethal capabilities to achieve personnel suppression, equipment disablement and area denial are being developed. Additionally, the Battle Lab is deeply involved in improving the replication of fires at our CTCs, including suppressive effects.

The Field Artillery Center and School has an increasing role to play in the joint fires arena and is actively engaged in the Joint Forces Command's (JFCOM's) Joint Fires Initiative and its supporting Joint Fires Working Group (JFWG). The Joint Fires Initiative is developing doctrinal recommendations and training packages to enhance current and future joint fires capabilities. We will introduce a Joint Fires Integration Course to be taught at Fort Sill in the spring of 2004. A joint CAS (JCAS) training exercise to be conducted in conjunction will III Corps Artillery is likewise planned for the spring. Our intent is to continue to promote universal observer training and a Joint Training Center for Fires and Effects Integration at Fort Sill.

To improve strategic FA communications and the ability to rapidly disseminate tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) to the force, we are developing a collaborative web-based tool as a prototype for the Army--the Fires Knowledge Network--that will be part of Army Knowledge Online.

Improved communications about the capabilities of the Field Artillery and our role in joint warfighting concepts will remain critically important. There are those with competing views that air-delivered fires can replace the Field Artillery, that cannons are no longer needed, and that the Field Artillery is not a full-spectrum capability. OIF demonstrated otherwise.

The Field Artillery soldiers of Iraqi Freedom clearly demonstrated our Army's continuing requirement for the immediately responsive close supporting fires provided by our cannons and launchers. In Iraq today, our Field Artillery soldiers continue to display the Warrior Ethos that the Army seeks in all its soldiers.

Clearly the Army is changing and the Field Artillery will change as well. We will have a substantial role in the Army's Future Force and in the integration of joint fires in the future. Our Army will continue to require modernized, trained and ready FA units.

To Field Artillerymen everywhere, my thanks for what you do for the Field Artillery, for our Army and Marine Corps and for our nation. May Saint Barbara always be with you and may you always Create the Thunder!

Soldier as a System (SaaS) -- Program to identify and develop the minimum level of lethality and force protection capabilities needed by all soldiers. In addition, combat service support (CSS), combat support (CS) and combat arms (CA) will receive some unique equipment. Field Artillerymen are receiving the additional CA equipment.

Rapid Fielding Initiative (RFI) -- Initiative that fielded SaaS equipment to soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and is fielding to those preparing to deploy.

Rapid Equipping of the Force (REF) -- Initiative that is pushing mature or nearly mature government or commercial off-the-shelf technologies into development and fielding in Iraq or Afghanistan--those technologies that can be fielded in one year or less.

The Field Artillery Center is active in addressing near-term and future FA capabilities through the Army's SaaS, RFI and REF programs.

Major General Michael D. Maples became Chief of Field Artillery and Commanding General of Fort Sill, Oklahoma, on 23 August 2001; his change of command is 9 December, after which he will become the Vice Director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. He served as the 43d Commandant of the Field Artillery School and 34th Chief of Field Artillery. In prior assignments, he was the Director of Operations, Readiness and Mobilization and Director of Military Support, both in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans at the Pentagon; and Assistant Division Commander of the 1st Armored Division in Germany. As the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations in the Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) and for the Kosovo Force (KFOR), he planned and executed the entry of NATO forces into Kosovo. He also served as the Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, for V Corps and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations for the US Army Europe (Forward), Taszar, Hungary, during Operation Joint Endeavor. Among other assignments, he commanded the 41st FA Brigade in Germany, and the 6th Battalion, 27th Field Artillery, 75th Field Artillery Brigade, during Operations Desert Shield and Storm--the only Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS)-capable battalion in theater.

By MG Michael D. Maples

Chief of Field Artillery