Returning to a Division Centric Army

[Ron Humphrey]

Something along the lines of determining exactly how and if PGM and associated delivery mechanisms may or may not change the calculus when one talks about field artillery?

Just a guess, very interesting article though

[SethB]

I had the chance to attend a Fires conference in which General Ridge posed the PGM question as "How much precision can we afford."

In that vein, GMLRS makes a lot of sense because one guided rocket has the same planning value as six standard rockets, as well as twice the (UNCLAS) range. When accuracy for the standard round is 10 mils a 1M CEP is a tremendous improvement.

There was the implication that we could save money on PGMs and apply that towards more gunnery instruction. When you are using AFATDS the degree of accuracy possible is significantly higher than with standard techniques. When you are using a system like the M777A2 that can receive Fire Commands to the nearest tenth mil your accuracy increases as well.

You still have to account for the five Requirements for Accurate and Predicted Fire, four of which fall squarely on the artillery unit. An Artillerist on another forum that I frequent mentioned that when he was shooting in OIF he shot "cold stick" which means he made no attempt to quantify some non-standard conditions. Specifically, he stated that he shot without accounting for the differences in propellant lot. When you have dozens of different lots of propellant on hand it may be difficult to use the proper one (on the sun section) and quantify the effect on MVV (on the FDC).

With a system like PGK, the round would automatically compensate for that error and impact where the guidance system directed.

Excalibur is a different deal. It offers the ability to hit and kill a single building, or even a room in a building, with an increase in range over standard 155MM rounds, a near vertical angle of fall, and a small warhead that limits collateral damage. It also requires certain charges and the Fire Commands must be digital. Thus it has some limitations. It is also the most expensive FA PGM.

As for what we can afford, we have JDAMs in service or in development that can do all these things, but once you factor in flight time they may not be any cheaper.

I would like to ask those more senior to me if it would ultimately be cheaper to use aircraft to generate targeting information and then fire the mission from a SPLL or HIMARS.

But then, I do have a professional bias.

[Ken White]

Chiarelli was in a Division in Desert Storm. He saw what Divisions did in Iraq in 2003. He commanded a Division there. Divisions work great in the Desert -- we found that out in North Africa in WW II. He saw that...

He's never fought anywhere else and is Armor, the Combat Arm of Derision; they believe in MASSS. However, What we found in virtually all other types of terrain WWI and in the Pacific, in Italy, in Northwestern Europe during WW II, in Korea, In Viet Nam, in Afghanistan -- and even in Mexico and the Civil War -- was the Divs aren't much good anywhere else, they're too big and unwieldy (I'd say totally unnecessary and even an impediment in the form of underemployed and overindustrious Div Cdr and Staff except for the fact we haven't adjusted that admin / log effort to cope with the absence of the Div); so you break up into Regimental Combat Teams, Brigades or Combat Commands which do work and work well. The Div supports them and the Div Cdr gets to visit and ask odd questions.

Their (RCTs, Bdes, etc) biggest downside is they do not call for enough General Officers...

Msg
Fm: Old DAC
to: Hacksaw

Pendulums swing. Fourteenth iteration

P.S.

Design an organization that EVERYONE says is one maneuver Bn light of a full load, that decimates the Field Artillery branch much to their chagrin and has acknowledged inadequate sustainment capability built in; then determine that it doesn't work as well as is we would like. Masterful...