WAPO Op-ed on airpower

[Pete]

The purpose of fire support coordination measures and fire support officers is to prevent friendly fire incidents from happening when artillery engages targets in an adjacent unit's area of operations. I believe the coordination measures came into being during the First World War and are based on the assumption of a linear battlefield in which friendly forces are usually on one's flanks. During the Meuse-Argonne offensive in 1918 Captain Harry Truman of the 35th Infantry Division was threatened with relief by his regimental commander for ordering his battery of 75s to fire into the 28th Division's sector when he saw a German battery setting up there only a few hundred yards from his position.