The Atrophy of Conventional War Fighting Skills?

[Bird_Gunner45]

The Air Force doesn't fly Cobras, US Marines do. I'd also suspect that while the B-52s were conducting air interdiction, the Cobras were providing close air support.

The A problem was the USAF "72-hour ATO" mindset, even after it was pointed out that the Taliban seldom gave 72 hours notice of their attacks. We quickly learned to rely upon Army/Marine aviation and artillery for our fires needs as the Air Force showed up with a different union.

Roger on that... interpolated Canadian policies onto our allies 

This still should have been a ops O to Ops O type deconfliction, though in the US system the G3 Helo is in the Air Defence Air Management (ADAM) cell with the AD pers, like what our doctrine would indicate we should do

 

[PPCLI Guy]

The problem is that, shooting down the UAV (or whatever) is the least complicated part- virtually anybody can do that.  The understanding and control of airspace through an ASCC function is the hard bit.

Is the Army just going to throw this hard won capability away?  If so, what are the implications?

Not at all - clearly we need ASCCs and UAVs - just not sure why we need them to be in a stand-alone and uniquely misnomered structure.  Do we need the CO / RSM, orderly room etc that comes with 4 AD?

 

[Journeyman]

If we stop referring to GBAD as "Div Assets," then maybe the Div would go away too.  :worms:

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

If we stop referring to GBAD as "Div Assets," then maybe the Div would go away too.  :worms:

We'd have to get rid of 4 ESR too though.....

 

[rampage800]

The A problem was the USAF "72-hour ATO" mindset, even after it was pointed out that the Taliban seldom gave 72 hours notice of their attacks. We quickly learned to rely upon Army/Marine aviation and artillery for our fires needs as the Air Force showed up with a different union.

and thats why there was G and X CAS and if it was that pressing than an Immediate could always be submitted but I don't think the ATO cycle was the problem.

Everyone has their own opinion on the ASCCs but I'd be more concerned about keeping TACPs at the Bde and Div level first.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

and thats why there was G and X CAS and if it was that pressing than an Immediate could always be submitted but I don't think the ATO cycle was the problem.

Everyone has their own opinion on the ASCCs but I'd be more concerned about keeping TACPs at the Bde and Div level first.

Why?  If you cannot effectively control and manage your airspace, how are you going effectively get aircraft to hit what you want hit? 

Frankly, it is not an "either /or" proposition.

 

[Ralph]

I cannot stress that I agree completely with every thing SeaKing Tacco has said in this post.

For a demonstration of how things could go terribly wrong, I will refer to p. 318 of Operation Anaconda: America's First Major Battle in Afghanistan. "The Cobras were flying the length of the valley. Suddenly, an explosion erupted underneath them. Then another explosion and another blossomed. Brunson Howard looked up an saw a B-52. B-52s were dropping 500-pound bombs through the Cobra formation. They could not communicate with the bombers, so they quickly flew out of the valley."

The book is full of examples of lack of air space control and coordination, due at least in part, to the absence of any agency in theatre to perform the function, and also to too many agencies each with a piece of the action. That is an over-simplification, but the book is worth a read, and not only for that.

If things are coming off a plane and there are ground troops, there should be a JTAC (who would indeed be able to speak to everybody in the air whether VHF or UHF). The ASCC doesn't/shouldn't touch anything in a ROZ when things are kinetic.

 

[Old Sweat]

If things are coming off a plane and there are ground troops, there should be a JTAC (who would indeed be able to speak to everybody in the air whether VHF or UHF). The ASCC doesn't/shouldn't touch anything in a ROZ when things are kinetic.

There wasn't one available and in any case on more than one occasion the CAOC overruled JTACs/FACs and took control of CAS and other sorties. Also, the aircraft often were operating on different frequencies and could not talk to one another. The example I cite was an extreme case of a fairly common occurence.

If you can, get a copy of the book and have a read of how not to run a theatre, and not just in the air.

 

[Ralph]

There wasn't one available and in any case on more than one occasion the CAOC overruled JTACs/FACs and took control of CAS and other sorties. Also, the aircraft often were operating on different frequencies and could not talk to one another. The example I cite was an extreme case of a fairly common occurence.

Yoicks!

 

[a_majoor]

I'm not so sure if this is representing "atrophy" rather than learning entirely new skill sets and working out the kinks. Even in the early '00's, the Reserve Brigade HQ where I worked was busy learning the ins and outs of using various "coordination centers" and developing the skillsets of OPP, while at the same time trying to manage with very limited military comms equipment and bandwidth. The Area G-6 used to get a a nervous twitch whenever we appeared since we were building exercises around fleets of Motorola's, IDEN equipped cell phones and field phones in order to patch everything together.

This higher level effort tended to suck in unit leadership, and of course there was lots of circling the vortex trying to make everything work. With attention focused there, you can understand why less attention was being paid to the more basic skill sets (or more correctly, why we never seemed to advance beyond constant repitition of fairly basic skill sets).

Some of the other things that happened during this time, like the total fascination with CQB/FIBUA/MOUT/URBAN OPS (insert buzzword here) might be seen as a reaction to this; giving the troops something interesting to do ("train to excite") to keep their interest and retention.

While this is obviously not the whole story, it can be taken as a cautionary tale.

 

[GnyHwy]

There wasn't one available and in any case on more than one occasion the CAOC overruled JTACs/FACs and took control of CAS and other sorties.

That's a good example of conventional fighting, and something that is misunderstood by some of the persons with newer skill sets. There are numerous reasons as to why the mistake may have happened, and I'm not convinced a JTAC would have made a difference.  What I take from this is that in conventional war fighting, air targets will often be beyond the eyes of a grounded JTAC, and higher level HQs will always reserve the right to attach/detach assets from tactical units, sometimes on the fly. 

This is why I would argue for 4AD/4GSR, as they will be plugged in to that CAOC, 2-3 levels above our tactical units that are formed by our horse regiments.  I know some that don't see a need for 4AD/4GSR would argue that one Bn sized unit  at the Bde can do this, but is it right to have one unit span the tactical, operational, and potentially strategic level?  That's a whole lot of Cols, Majs, and Capts at one Bn sized unit's HQ.

This higher level effort tended to suck in unit leadership, and of course there was lots of circling the vortex trying to make everything work.

I have witnessed this also, and have been guilty of it as well.  Almost everyone wants to be part of the big picture, and slip into doing what is perceived as more important, but at some point, leadership needs to stop having visions, stop creating the "perfect plan", and start executing.  I recommend that visions should not be allowed below Bde Comd.
 


 

 

[Old Sweat]

What I take from this is that in conventional war fighting, air targets will often be beyond the eyes of a grounded JTAC, and higher level HQs will always reserve the right to attach/detach assets from tactical units, sometimes on the fly. 

Agreed that the action you quote is normal and within accepted practice. However, in the situations I raised, the CAOC took control away from the JTAC/FAC and continued to execute the attack on the same target. Perhaps the staff believed it had better situational awareness than the controller on the scene observing the target.

 

[GnyHwy]

No doubt it was very chaotic times, which is why I can see so many reasons for this happening.  If this was happening within the first throws of the operation, I can just imagine the amount of "units" and separate entities involved. i.e. A B-52 dedicated to the CIA will not be controlled by a Marine,  or this target is a SOF target, there is no need to inform the regulars. :sarcasm:

With the amount of entities involved at that point of the war, having a coherent HQ that could control assets,  pass information, and set priorities would have been next to impossible.

This eludes to my mention of the need for 4 AD/GSR above.  Mixing tactical, operational, and strategic targets in a small battlespace has obvious dangers, and is something that needs to be controlled or at least monitored.  A Div/Joint asset like 4 AD/GSR would hypothetically do just that for us.

 

[Old Sweat]

If you can, get a copy of the book. The only formation in theatre with its complete brigade headquarters staff was the 3rd Brigade, 101st AB Division. The next higher headquarters, that of 10th Mountain Division, only had a skeleton staff with major elements not deployed. There were a number of reasons for this, including lack of air lift and conscious decisions to go light, made primarily be people who weren't deploying and were very high on the food chain. By the time Anaconda took place, however, troops had been on the ground for a minimum of three or four months and one would have hoped that some order had been brought to the command and control structure.

Having said all that, I agree completely with the requirement for the cell you described.

 

[G11]

Not at all - clearly we need ASCCs and UAVs - just not sure why we need them to be in a stand-alone and uniquely misnomered structure.  Do we need the CO / RSM, orderly room etc that comes with 4 AD?

I would argue that we do need 4 AD in a stand alone structure. I have served in a STA Bty in a CS regiment and can attest that the concept of an embedded STA bty in a CS regiment is difficult to implement.

STA and AD can be defined as a ''System of Systems''. To throw an example of this out there, the UAV is more effective when integrated with an LCMR detection as well as cross referenced by the detected impact from the HALO system and heck even a visual from the FOO! The problem is that currently the CS regiments own half of the STA equipment (LCMRS, HALO, STACC) with 4 AD owning the other half (UAVS, ASCC). In my opinion the army would be better off pushing all STA equipment to 4AD and integrating it into their btys which are already assigned to support specific brigades.


Also I believe that 4 AD needs to maintain a knowledge pool (officer and NCM) of AD shooter platforms. We are approaching a point where very few of the Lt/Capt level have commanded a shooter troop or even conducted training on shooter tactics and operations. If the army decides to re-equip with AD shooters in the future how will we be able to train the personell without having to contract out at first?

Just my two cents. I am a bit old school in my thinking but would love to continue the AD/STA discussion in another thread if anyone is up for it.

 

[Old Sweat]

We could take the STA discussion forward, albeit with the caveat that I have been retired for nearly 20 years. In my career I have seen both organizational structures. The Canadian based field regiments used to include a Locating Battery, which I will call STA in further discussions. The battery had one each of survey, radar, sound ranging and meteorological troops. Circa 1964 or 1965 a divisional locating was stood up. It centralized the sound ranging and radar troops along with a divisional artillery survey troop. It also added a troop of Canadair drones a couple of years later. As this was the era of force cuts, the battery soon went the way of the Great Auk and the Dodo Bird, with the drone troop surviving for a bit as Canadair had sold the system to the Brits and the Germans.

The regiment in Germany was in a different situation as the Canadian brigade was part of 1 British Corps and was supported by the Corps Locating Regiment. In about 1968 at the same time 1 RCHA converted to M109s it was given a locating troop of a survey section (it had had a survey section previously) and a radar section of two counter-mortar radars mounted on M113s. The troop commander filled the appointment of the Brigade Artillery Intelligence Officer (BAIO) who concentrated on counter-mortar tasks. With the move of 4 Brigade south to Lahr STA disappeared from the order of battle

In 1974 I was posted to the school as CIG and found the RCA was trying to resurrect STA, and at least keep it on life support. Except for the STA IG and a couple of AIGs I was the only other IG who had any STA training and teamed with STA Wing to demonstrate sound ranging to the Comd CTC.

Could you explain the division of duties of various levels of command - battle group, brigade and division - re counter mortar versus counter rocket and counter gun and how you see it operating in various scenarios?

 

[Infanteer]

In my opinion the army would be better off pushing all STA equipment to 4AD and integrating it into their btys which are already assigned to support specific brigades.

Which makes sense from a pure capability management point of view.  Other things also likely fit in this bracket (tanks, EOD, etc), but if everything is consolidated in Gagetown, costs increase exponentially for 1 CMBG to utilize the capability (and likewise if things up in Edmonton).