Suppressive Fire

[JMA]

I've never been comfortable with these. I find GRIT, "Group, Range, Indication," useful, but not T= type of fire. If you see the enemy, in the are indicated, fire in what ever way you can to kill him. Rate is irrelevant. When you can't see him any more, stop firing.
So:- {Watch and Shoot}
is basically all you need.

I point I suggest is for the commander to decide what is needed (in terms of fire power) and issue a specific fire control order accordingly... to prevent the troopies just doing their own thing.

The only other fire control order I want is for someone to actively suppress an identified enemy position. So "Charlie Team, 200, left corner of house, be prepared to suppress that trench. Await my command."

That is a different type of fire control order - being DELAYED, have no problem with that.

Some of us have issues with the manual!

And yes with some good reason.

I would however suggest that the manual is designed as a training aid so that when in a time of mobilisation your canon fodder can at least be given stock standard good basic training.

I would suggest that the manual never be allowed to become negotiable among the current operational units where a handful of 20-30 year olds with a few tours and a handful of contacts suddenly know it all - and want to rewrite the script.

In my time the closest I came to giving a formal (as per manual) fire control order was to the CAS pilots. What I and most others did often (probably due to range of contacts) to indicate a target or area where we wanted fire to be concentrated was the use of "watch my tracer" and "watch my strike". (Were these of Brit origin?)

So at the right level and in the right place, yes, certainly the manual needs to be reviewed and revised and updated.

Now back to the fire control issue. I remember that the aim of the whole exercise is to win the fire fight. That is what the commander must achieve. He has some leeway in how to achieve this. But allowed a free for all firing frenzy is not one of them.