December 2003
"Shoot, move and communicate." This three-part catch phrase is the key to tactical success in combat operations. Combined with the five elements of accurate predicted fire, they form the basis of the tactical and technical training of every junior leader in Field Artillery. The officer's basic course and career course, as well as the basic noncommissioned officer's course and advanced course, drill leaders in the understanding of these skills and their practice by professional soldiers. The majority of field training addresses tactical and technical problems related to these concepts, and operations orders are keyed, in five paragraphs, to understanding and executing both the maneuver and artillery commanders' intent within that framework.An artillery battalion trains to bring accurate, lethal and timely cannon, rocket or missile fires on the enemy. Its purpose is to destroy, neutralize or suppress the enemy and to give flexibility and decisive fires to the maneuver commander in the execution of his plans. The artillery has been called "king of battle" and "the greatest killer on the battlefield" and has earned its reputation. Even with the introduction of smart munitions and the stand-off capability of air power, the artillery is still needed for the close fight and for shaping operations, especially against a dug-in or armored foe; it is an integral part of the combined arms force under current Army doctrine. But what does the artillery do when the shooting stops?
Today, more than ever before, this is a relevant and pressing question. In the aftermath of World War II, the most widespread and devastating war in history, the armed forces of victorious countries were used in much the same capacity as our forces today are being used -- in a nation-building role. Yet, the parallels between the roles of the armed forces after that war and the current one end almost immediately. Among other reasons, the swift conclusion of major combat (which limited post-war planning), the decentralized nature of the Iraqi government, the need to accommodate various ethnic and religious factions, and the wholesale flight of officials at all levels mean that there is necessarily a greater reliance on the military in the nation-building process.
The Army's preparedness to accept this mission varies widely by type of unit. For some branches of the military, regime reconstruction can be an adjunct to their wartime mission. For the Military Police, PsyOps and Civil Affairs units, postwar duties do not differ markedly from missions for which they train in peacetime. The Ordnance Corps continues at least some of its wartime missions with the categorization and destruction of the materials of war, and the Engineers continue to enhance mobility and capability for the Army while improving the infrastructure of the state. For all of these units, their mission statements remain viable after major combat ends; they encompass the units' duties in war and peace. Combat units, however, while maintaining order, must, in the modern postwar environment, perform many other tasks. Arguably, only the Infantry is trained in many of the missions that the aftermath of battle requires, from responding to low-intensity conflict in urban environments and providing dismounted patrols to establishing strong points and checkpoints; experience has shown that this remains their primary focus. For the Field Artillery, as for some other branches of the Army, the postwar world is a strange and untried environment and a unique schoolhouse.
When the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) was alerted for combat in Iraq, it had anticipated the call by three months. Training for Warfighter, at the National Training Center (NTC), and during Ulchi Focus Lens had taken on an enhanced meaning: any one of these events might be the last before call-up and deployment. Focus on the wartime mission meant concentrating on how best to use fires to meet the maneuver commander's intent and to aid success on the battlefield. Postwar duties, while discussed by all levels, trained at section level and drilled at NTC, still took a backseat to combat operations. After all, there would be no postwar effort if we failed in combat. While we did not merely pay lip service to stability operations and support operations (SOSO), the emphasis remained, and rightly so, on warfighting. When events served to delay the deployment of the 4th Infantry Division, and with the stunning success of the coalition forces, the division found itself entering Iraq after most major combat had subsided into one-sided pursuit and destroy missions. In this environment, the role of the artillery was quickly reduced; since the enemy retreated into urban areas, and massed concentrations of troops and armor devolved into scattered firefights, the artillery -- and especially the rocket artillery -- rapidly found itself with fading opportunities to influence combat for maneuver commanders. As artillerymen looked for new ways to contribute to the success of the force, new possibilities arose.
The advance party of 2nd Battalion, 20th Field Artillery entered Iraq from Kuwait on April 24, 2003. Because of the lack of heavy equipment transporters (HETs), the battalion marched from Camp Udairi to Baghdad, and then to Taji, northwest of the city, closing by April 28. Within a few days, in order to extend the reach of our multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), we pushed the firing batteries forward to the maneuver brigades to reinforce their cannon battalions and the Q-37 radars forward to the division tactical command post (TAC). The battalion had traveled 400 miles and had pushed its combat power forward another 150 miles to get into the fight. By this time, however, the fragmented enemy left few targets for the rocket artillery to engage, and soon after, President Bush announced that major combat operations in Iraq had ended. The 2-20 Field Artillery (FA) -- proud to be known as the Army's first M270A1 battalion -- had not fired a single rocket. What, then, remained for the battalion to do? The answer was dismounted combat and security operations.
With the main part of combat operations ended, commanders and staffs were met with new challenges. Having readied their batteries for war, commanders now had to deal with preserving the peace. While combat was still an option for the force, the majority of the batteries' efforts would be directed toward policing actions, humanitarian support, infrastructure repair and nation building. The battalion headquarters, too, would have to change gears. Instead of directing and coordinating the batteries' fires and movements in support of the division's battle plan, the battalion's focus would now be on the coordination of resources to support the humanitarian and nation-building efforts.
The 2-20 FA was not the only Artillery battalion faced with these challenges. As the enemy resistance crumbled and forces melted away, more of the coalition's combat forces were assigned to other missions. In short order, fire support assets were task organized and reallocated. While they continued their fire support mission and delivered cannon fires against the enemy, direct support artillery battalions within the 4th Infantry Division gave up one firing battery each to what now became Task Force (TF) 2-20, while 2-20 FA gave up a rocket battery each to the 4th Infantry Division's 2nd and 3rd Brigades, and placed B Battery and its Q-37 radars under the direct control of the division TAC. The Q-36 radars continued their usual relationship with the direct support battalions. When the division returned B Battery to the task force and allocated B/1-44 Air Defense Artillery (ADA) to it in addition to its dedicated Air Defense assets (2/A/1-44 ADA), TF 2-20's new task organization looked like this: Task Force 2-20: HHS/2-20 FA, B/3-16 FA, B/2-20 FA, B/4-42 FA, HQ/C/2-20 FA, B/1-44 ADA (-), A/3-29 FA and 2/A/1-44 ADA.
Task Force 2-20 was itself task organized under Task Force Gunner. The division's major subordinate commands each assumed responsibility for a geographic region of central Iraq. The task force was composed of a heterogeneous group, including a company of engineers, a company of infantry from the Oklahoma National Guard (and later by a platoon of Macedonian infantry), an ordnance company, two chemical companies, as well as TF 2-20. However, since TF 2-20 was by far the largest unit in TF Gunner (numbering more than 650 soldiers), most of the tasks and duties of TF Gunner fell to the artillery.
In the first weeks after arrival, the focus of Task Force Gunner was on the defense of the military complex at Taji. The artillery batteries' duties quickly changed to extending, improving and maintaining a brigade-sized defensive perimeter. Battery quick reaction forces (QRF) became integrated into a post QRF, buttressed by formidable Linebackers and Bradleys from B/1-44 ADA, with Air Defense and Field Artillery soldiers performing mechanized infantry tasks. Perimeter patrols became combat reconnaissance patrols, outfitted in the same manner as the QRF, which reached out deep into the countryside.
The retrieval of ammunition and equipment beyond the perimeter that might be used by the enemy also received a high priority, and in the first month, the batteries' heavy trucks hauled more than 1,000 tons of small arms, anti-tank missiles, and mortar and artillery rounds from nearby fields. Organic M88s, working with HETs supplied from V Corps with civilian contractors, retrieved over 100 tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and artillery pieces, many of which were serviceable. Other tasks included identifying and isolating minefields and unexploded ordnance that ringed the base.
Task Force 2-20 headquarters quickly realized that a round robin tasking of missions that it received from TF Gunner to subordinate batteries would not work. For one thing, the types of equipment that these batteries owned were diverse, from Linebackers and Bradleys for the ADA, to M109A6 Paladins and M270A1 rocket launchers for the Artillery. Several of the batteries owned palletized load systems (PLSs), while the ADA and HHS/2-20 FA had heavy expanded mobility tactical trucks (HEMTTs). While all had 5-ton trucks and Humvees, there was no uniform number or type of either. Humvees, for example, came in all types and configurations, and assigning tasks merely by numbers of Humvees might mean failure, especially when the mission called specifically for cargo vehicles. The same proved true for the heavy trucks. HEMTTs are more suitable for some missions than PLSs are, and vice versa. Also, the types of crew-served weapons differed from unit to unit. While the ADA could be counted on to perform any defensive mission with its 25 mm chain guns and coaxial machine guns, and the Paladin batteries had an abundance of both M2 machine guns and MK-19 grenade launchers, an MLRS battery could mount but three each M2s and MK-19s. The varying sizes of the units also proved a challenge, since missions that one battery might be able to take in stride would overtax another.
As the battalion attempted to overcome its challenges, battery commanders and first sergeants had some of their own. Many of the tasks that their batteries assumed were not ones on which the soldiers had trained. Some involved common soldier tasks, such as sentry duty or radio watch, but some were utterly foreign to the mechanized artillery, such as dismounted patrolling, checkpoint operations and raids. The command team had to teach their subordinates the individual and collective tasks that supported each of these missions. Often, it was a learning experience for the senior battery leaders as well. Basic and senior artillery leader courses do not address many of these tasks, and trial-and-error was a common learning method.
Batteries also had difficulty managing resources, since their M88s and HEMTT wreckers were often tasked to find and recover abandoned or destroyed enemy vehicles, limiting the batteries' access to these vehicles and the maintenance personnel who operated them. Their PLSs and HEMTTs were used to load and deliver everything from school supplies to ammunition caches and weapons, with a similar draw on ammunition section soldiers. In addition, guns and Field Artillery ammunition support vehicles (FAASVs) were used as strong points or mounted weapons platforms at access control points (ACPs) along the walls of the complex, and the Linebackers and Bradleys from the ADA were used extensively on QRF, combat patrols and raid operations. When the number of vehicles in use grew excessive, maintenance management became a critical issue, since accomplishing services by platoon -- or even section -- proved nearly impossible. Services were often scheduled by individual vehicle, and sections might have to share one vehicle while another was in service. The high number of hours and miles placed on the equipment meant that preventive maintenance checks and services had to be thorough, regular and routine. Even so, the intense use of all types of equipment meant that wear and tear was increased, and despite the best preventive maintenance, breakdowns increased as well, leading to more creative management of maintenance assets.
As the number of missions expanded for each battery, personnel management evolved from an art to a science. The use of a troop-to-task list was a necessity, and few command teams have ever had a better grasp of their present-for-duty strength. Personnel management also included the need to schedule "down" time for the troops. As in any deployment, the day of the week became far less important than the date of the month, as soldiers counted the number of days deployed. Since many of the tasks involved 12- to 24-hour shifts (with no accounting for weekends), soldiers could quickly become burned out, especially over a long deployment.
Commanders and first sergeants used several methods to overcome this problem. They worked first to rotate soldiers through different duties -- which often involved some creative personnel management. A soldier might be guarding the front gate on one day, collecting arms in the village marketplace the next and finishing the week helping to pull destroyed T-72s out of a farmer's field.
The command team also had to ensure that a small percentage of the battery's soldiers were reserved each day from the force pool for some personal time. This, too, required careful management. Soldiers who went longer than their peers without a break could suffer from lower morale or greater fatigue. In short order, each command team had a spread sheet that listed every soldier in the battery, his current and future assignments, the length of those shifts and his time off, and the status of his (or his section's) vehicle.
By the middle of May, the number and type of tasks had become fairly standard, and as the task force adopted a rotation of particular duties among the batteries, the routine became somewhat predictable. The introduction of "right-seat rides" and a schedule of rotation ensured that every battery in the task force was trained on all defense tasks, whether at ACPs, the gates or on roving patrol.
Knowing the rotation and the demands of each position, battery commanders and first sergeants could better manage their soldiers and resources, and the task force could assume other duties that, without systems, would have proved difficult. As soldiers became more adept at roving patrols and gate guard, and as the numbers of ammunition caches in the countryside and the numbers of looters decreased, Task Force Gunner sought to extend its presence and influence in the district by doing more in the towns surrounding the Taji Military Complex. Doing so meant exposing artillery soldiers to new tasks and new challenges.
Among these new challenges was the problem of interacting with the civilians who welcomed and appreciated the American presence and limiting the power and influence of those who did not. Often, those who did not want American military presence signaled their dislike in violent ways. Isolating them while helping and protecting those who were trying to rebuild Iraq without the tyranny and torture of Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party became the main task force focus. Beginning in late May, armed attacks on U.S. soldiers at checkpoints and on patrols increased markedly, and the artillery-heavy task force was not slow to respond. Acting on informants' tips and on intelligence developed at division and Division Artillery levels, Task Force 2-20 planned and conducted a number of raids in conjunction with the ADA and the Infantry at Taji. Again taking the part of mechanized infantry, or supporting the raids as the headquarters element, Artillery soldiers fought without their big guns in house clearing and search and destroy missions against determined resistance. The raids killed or captured paramilitary forces and captured a number of large arms and ammunition in caches. Other combat missions included the establishment of sniper teams to protect the base from armed infiltrators and stronger and lengthier combat reconnaissance patrols.
These new challenges meant more to the soldiers than merely a change in their daily tasks. Without changing their military occupational specialties, these soldiers now had to think, perform and react like infantry soldiers. Although it is often said that every soldier is an 11B, in practice, few soldiers ever receive the opportunity to train as infantrymen. There is a great psychological transition that must be made. When MLRS crewmen go from computer operators to clearing compounds, or when cannoneers go from slinging projectiles to point blank firefights, they must make a mental transition to accept the fact that combat is immediate, personal and violent. The difference between pushing a button and pulling a trigger is immense. In early engagements, some soldiers were reluctant to pull that trigger, but when fired upon, they quickly appreciated that it was a necessary and desirable action. These soldiers had undergone what historians have referred to as a baptism by fire.
Battalion leaders also faced challenges when planning these combat missions. Task Force 2-20 was required to plan and execute many raids, using skills that were last used (in an infantry role, for many) in ROTC, OCS or at West Point. Although artillerymen routinely participate in the military decision making process with their maneuver counterparts and then, using those products, conduct their own mission analysis, course of action development, war gaming and orders production, they rarely do it strictly from the point of view of the infantryman. As the staff developed viable plans to conduct these raids, we had to return to our earliest training, as well as develop all available resources. As a result, we conducted reconnaissance from Bradleys or, when available, Black Hawk helicopters. We used M113s (tasked from the engineer company) and FAASVs as escorts for the support teams and as roadblocks. Every mission came with a written order and a cartoon that showed the relative positions and the timing of the events. All of our plans involved dismounted assaults and support-by-fire positions, carefully coordinated with the air defenders and the Infantry, and placed to ensure the greatest effect on the enemy and the greatest protection of friendly troops. It was an irony that as artillerymen, we could not plan for indirect fire support for these missions.
The artillerymen did not only assume new roles as gate guards or as mechanized infantrymen. There remained the task of helping those who were trying to establish a new kind of freedom in this ancient country. Protecting the World Food Program warehouses and workers helped to establish a reputation for American benevolence, and joint foot and wheeled patrols through nearby towns and villages in conjunction with the local police fostered the image of U.S. soldiers as peacekeepers rather than warmongers. Other stability and support missions soon followed these two, and task force soldiers assisted in the rebuilding and resupply of area schools, the protection of children during the resumption of school, the staffing and extension of medical clinics and medical care, and emergency medical assistance to accident and crime victims. Task Force 2-20 Redlegs helped to rebuild the police station and city hall, and the commander enjoyed a respected position as an advisor to the city council. Other protection missions included the collection of illicit weapons and ammunition, patrolling the polling sites of municipal elections and apprehending local thugs and transferring them to civilian jails or to the Gunner Jail, which various batteries guarded as a task force mission.
It has become clear to Task Force 2-20 soldiers that training for combat no longer means simply "shoot, move and communicate." In the future, training for war must include training for events that are tangentially related to the fight and training for those missions that units will perform when the shooting stops. In garrison, leaders must strive to find training opportunities that encompass these tasks and will enhance leader and soldier skills. Integrating military operations in urbanized terrain training or light infantry fire and maneuver into a larger field problem would hone proficiency in these tasks and would prepare soldiers for stability and support operations missions and low-intensity conflict. Patrolling techniques and checkpoint operations are excellent tasks to train shortly before deployment. Equally important are training scenarios that place the soldier in the midst of hostile, but unarmed crowds, or that force junior (and senior) leaders to confront civilian leaders who are demanding aid or protection. Finally, leaders must find opportunities to train and exercise various sets of rules of engagement adjusted to the threat situation or the level of conflict.
When the enemies' combat formations have melted away or have been destroyed, it will be the actions that units take to preserve the peace and to reconstruct the state that will take precedence. In the contemporary operational environment, much of the action that combat units will see will begin when the Artillery stops shooting.
MAJ. PETER K. BACON is the executive officer of 2-20 Field Artillery (FA) in Iraq. This is his second tour in Iraq. Previous positions include S-3, 2-20 FA and assistant S-3, 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) Division Artillery, Fort Hood, and FA battery commander. He also taught history at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. Maj. Bacon holds a master's degree in history. He was commissioned through ROTC.
