Informing the Army’s Future Structure

[markppcli]

Heck even discussing issues a static fixed designator can have is getting into FOYO, and beyond, let alone when you deal with other aspects.

Well yes, but you can google 3-09.3 and find all of that pretty easily. There’s actually an open source copy on the join chiefs of staff website.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Hard no, you do not terminally guided missiles with ground / off set lasers. I’m probably approaching stuff that’s not controlled information but shouldn’t be openly discussed though.

It's OK, even the ARes are good because we were forced to take the (useless to us) CTAT test

 

[KevinB]

Well yes, but you can google 3-09.3 and find all of that pretty easily. There’s actually an open source copy on the join chiefs of staff website.

Interesting, I wasn't aware that was available.
It has a lot of information that elsewhere is not OS...

Still it is a fairly vanilla overview - and doesn't dig into technical aspects.

 

[markppcli]

Interesting, I wasn't aware that was available.
It has a lot of information that elsewhere is not OS...

Still it is a fairly vanilla overview - and doesn't dig into technical aspects.

It’s structured so that the FSCM section will put people to sleep before they get to anything useful.

https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_09.pdf

Oh the JFIRE is on there too, that’s not great

https://info.publicintelligence.net/MTTP-JFIRE.pdf

 

[Kirkhill]

I struggle with doctrinal armies confronting non-doctrinal armies in the field.

 

[KevinB]

I struggle with doctrinal armies confronting non-doctrinal armies in the field.

Doctrinal Armies generally don’t struggle against non Doctrinal Armies, as we have a plan, and ways to implement it.

Flying by the seat of one’s pants can sounds fine - but then no one knows what to do, or what others are going to go.

 

[Kirkhill]

Doctrinal Armies generally don’t struggle against non Doctrinal Armies, as we have a plan, and ways to implement it.

Flying by the seat of one’s pants can sounds fine - but then no one knows what to do, or what others are going to go.

Someplace between dictatorship and anarchy lies a successful flexible structure.

 

[KevinB]

Someplace between dictatorship and anarchy lies a successful flexible structure.

Your mistaking doctrine for inflexibility - which when properly crafted it isn't.

 

[markppcli]

Doctrine is a play book. It gives everyone on the field a task, at various stages. It’s also allows for audibles and shifting to a new play for a new situation.

I’d be curious to know what a “non doctrinal” army is. If you have even the loosest of structure you have doctrine. The taliban firing rockets at KAF followed a doctrine.

 

[Good2Golf]

Heck even discussing issues a static fixed designator can have is getting into FOYO, and beyond, let alone when you deal with other aspects.

Pardon me, did you say yuse?

 

[daftandbarmy]

Your mistaking doctrine for inflexibility - which when properly crafted it isn't.

I always enjoyed watching some use doctrine like a Union's collective agreement, as in: "if the bosses don't ensure we have a 3:1 advantage we won't attack."

 

[Kirkhill]

My problem continues to be that doctrine tends to ossify ancient assumptions. When I refer to a non-doctrinal army I am thinking in terms of an army that doesn't work from the same assumptions, and better yet, doesn't telegraph their doctrine by publishing it.

 

[Kirkhill]

US Army back to Island Hopping in the Pacific with

5,000 U.S, Indonesian, Thai, British, and New Zealander troops spread out on islands from Hawaii to Palau

“As a U.S. Army, we have not seen a conflict like this since the World War II era,” said Soliday, an intelligence officer. And there is an “added layer of complexity to the problem set that involves moving assets from different islands, crossing wet gaps. And the aviation task force really provides the support to enable those operations. And the different types of terrain that can vary on islands can go from steep gulches to flat, desolate areas. So operating in an austere environment that these islands provide really, really truly is the best way to train the light fighter, as well as you know, a combat aviation brigade.”

How US Army Pacific is preparing for war with China

A sprawling, multi-island exercise hones troops’ ability to fight in the jungle, cross “wet gaps,” and operate with multiple partner nations.

www.defenseone.com

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

My problem continues to be that doctrine tends to ossify ancient assumptions. When I refer to a non-doctrinal army I am thinking in terms of an army that doesn't work from the same assumptions, and better yet, doesn't telegraph their doctrine by publishing it.

So a non-doctrinal army has doctrine that it doesn't publish? This is some Schrödinger's Army that simultaneously has and does not have doctrine?

 

[Kirkhill]

Meanwhile the USMC and the USN are still playing with their catamarans and robots to cross the wet gaps.

Navy Expanding Littoral Combat Ship Missions as Both Classes Shrink - USNI News

The challenge to the Navy’s surface fleet came in from the U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters: deploy six littoral combat ships west of the International Dateline by 2025. Littoral Combat Ship Squadron 1 answered the call from the PACFLEET CO Adm. Sam Paparo. It’s the San Diego, Calif.,-based...

news.usni.org

Navy Working on Better Maintainability, Self-Sufficiency for LCS and Rest of Surface Fleet - USNI News

Navy officials in Washington and on the waterfront are trying to help the Littoral Combat Ships grow more reliable and maintainable, amid a surface navy-wide effort to focus on crew-level maintenance as a means of improving operational availability. The LCS program has had eight major...

news.usni.org

Austal USA Awarded Contract for Maintenance And Modernization Of All San Diego-Based LCS - Naval News

The United States Navy awarded Austal USA a sustainment execution contract (SEC) Aug. 4 for repair, maintenance and modernization of all Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) homeported in San Diego.

www.navalnews.com

Austal USA delivers EPF-13; the US Navy's largest surface vessel with autonomous capability

COMPANY ANNOUNCEMENT 20 FEBRUARY 2023

www.austal.com

As it operates across the Pacific, the Independence variants are playing with innovation, most recently down under with the Navy’s ghost fleet and partners in Australia. In late October, USS Oakland (LCS-24) joined in a bilateral exercise Autonomous Warrior with the Royal Australian Navy in Sydney to test unmanned systems. Oakland operated as a mothership for the Unmanned Surface Division 1 vessels Ranger, Mariner, Seahawk and Sea Hunter.

Austal Littoral Combat Ships acting as mother ships to autonomous ISR ships like Seahawk and Sea Hunter while backed by autonomous Offshore Supply Vessels like Ranger and Mariner and Austal's EPFs which can operate in both manned and autonomous modes. And the LCSs, the EPFs and the OSVs can all mount podded missiles ranging from SeaRams, through NSMs to SM6s and Tomahawks.

The key to the enterprise, as many have mentioned before, is maintenance.

Maintenance support key

LeClair credits that turnaround to the focus on specific reliability and sustainability improvements, including more robust training and the shift of most ship maintenance to LCS crews and sailors rather than contractors.“But we have a lot more work to do. We’re not there yet,” he added.

In August 2022, the Maintenance Execution Teams under each LCSRON transferred to NAVSEA to create formal METs to do preventative maintenance. For LCSRON1, teams at the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center’s Expeditionary Maintenance Department in San Diego are comprised of sailors experienced in the ship and its systems and can support intermediate maintenance at overseas bases and assist LCS crews with preventative work.“

It is really paying off. We are seeing a higher degree of preventative maintenance packages done on time… or at higher levels,” LeClair said.“We’re continuing to invest in that,” he added. “Right now, the big focus is on preventative.”

Crawford credits that shift in how to tackle ship repairs and maintenance problems while underway with expanding and extending what LCS can do in supporting surface fleet operations.“The Maintenance Execution Teams have been a game-changer for us,” he said. “We can’t deploy ships like we did for Charleston for 26 months without the enabling capabilities that the expeditionary maintenance execution teams provide.”

Crawford well knows the issues that can crop up while underway and away from port. He took command of Surface Division 11 in 2020. At the time, contractors did 95 percent of the maintenance, while LCS ship crews did 5 percent. “We’ve done a paradigm shift,” he said. METs today do “about 61.5 percent of the maintenance of our ships,” he said, and “in the next year to come, our goal is to get them to where the sailors are executing 95 percent of the maintenance, and the contractors are going to execute five percent.” Haney added that among LCSRON2 ships, “75 percent of the maintenance on today’s ship is done by the ship’s force.

”The paradigm shift, Crawford said, “is all about building the self-sufficiency into the capability capacity of the sailors aboard the ship and then leveraging the reach-back capabilities with the METs, that can go out there and do expeditionary PMAS, preventative maintenance availabilities” to support LCS – and not just in Singapore and Japan, where the Navy has maintenance and logistics hubs. Also important, he said, is having maintenance capability in partner nations and islands, like Australia, Guam, Brunei, the Philippines, “and expanding that capability, that capacity outside of our normal operating bases in the western Pacific.”

“We still do a lot of operations out of Singapore. Nothing’s changed,” he said. “We are adding capacity by working in other ports in the western Pacific… maybe allow ships to operate as a remote operating base or station that will allow us to do resupply and maintenance availabilities there.”That includes perhaps having multiple repair and maintenance places for LCS in those locations in the western Pacific, “so that we’re not only going to Singapore, or only going to Japan or only going to Guam,” he said.

I wonder how much of that maintenance support is coming from Austal partners servicing Austal built ferries in the region.

In the Marine Corps’ annual Force Design 2030 update released in May 2022, it was announced that Military Sealift Command expeditionary sea base (ESB) and expeditionary fast transport (EPF) vessels will be used as interim solutions until the LAW is delivered.

The EPF/Autonomous Ferry cat may end up being the USMCs Light Amphibious Warship.

The EPF Should Be the Permanent Light Amphibious Warship

A light amphibious warship derived from the expeditionary fast transport design could deliver anything in the Marine Corps inventory, at speed and shore-to-shore.

www.usni.org

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[Kirkhill]

So a non-doctrinal army has doctrine that it doesn't publish? This is some Schrödinger's Army that simultaneously has and does not have doctrine?

Sometimes one has to think outside the box.

 

[markppcli]

So a non-doctrinal army has doctrine that it doesn't publish? This is some Schrödinger's Army that simultaneously has and does not have doctrine?

Wait in the doctrine the cat or the box ?

 

[Kirkhill]

In 1914, what was the doctrinal requirement for the following?
The Tank, The Mills Bomb, The Gas Mask, The Brodie Helmet, The Lewis Gun, The Stokes Mortar, The Combined Arms Platoon.

In 1939,
The LRDG, The SAS, The Commandos, The Paras, The Hobart Funnies, Grand Slam and Dambuster Bombs, Beam Radio Navigation, HFDF and Sonar .... and many, many more.

Which came first? The technological chicken or the doctrinal egg?

It seems to me that doctrine, if it is to have any value, has to be a living document and one that can change rapidly. My sense is that during wartime doctrine morphs as fast as lessons are learned and passed organically by word of mouth before they become institutionalized. The institution catches up after the war and formalizes the changes into a new doctrine which lasts until the next war.

 

[FJAG]

Sometimes one has to think outside the box.

Whenever the subject of Canada and doctrine comes up I truck out this old Article by Ian Hope from the 2001 Army Doctrine and Training Bulletin at page 16.

Misunderstanding Mars and Minerva by Ian Hope

Remember this was at the time of transition of a Decade of Darkness affected army, pre-Afghanistan, and struggling with the first throes of transformation under a fledgling Advancing with Purpose. Notwithstanding all that I do not think that the principles or circumstances have changed all that much. What Ian makes clear is that "doctrine" is much, much more than a field manual on how to do a right flanking or what is the right piece of equipment at the moment. It's a fundamental underlying foundation for the government and defence institution as a whole, building on a number of components.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

In 1914, what was the doctrinal requirement for the following?
The Tank, The Mills Bomb, The Gas Mask, The Brodie Helmet, The Lewis Gun, The Stokes Mortar, The Combined Arms Platoon.

In 1939,
The LRDG, The SAS, The Commandos, The Paras, The Hobart Funnies, Grand Slam and Dambuster Bombs, Beam Radio Navigation, HFDF and Sonar .... and many, many more.

Which came first? The technological chicken or the doctrinal egg?

It seems to me that doctrine, if it is to have any value, has to be a living document and one that can change rapidly. My sense is that during wartime doctrine morphs as fast as lessons are learned and passed organically by word of mouth before they become institutionalized. The institution catches up after the war and formalizes the changes into a new doctrine which lasts until the next war.

It's both.

Doctrine is the sum of all lessons learned, documented, codified, and disseminated to others over a militaries operational experience.

Before that is the LL process, informal or otherwise. Where we fall down as an organization is turning Knowledge (personal experience, personal education, personal training, drills, etc.) into Information (PAMs, SOPs, TTPs, PARs(not the PaCE variety)).

Ofcourse technology is going to change faster than doctrine. It's meant to. What is the missing link is the documentation of the change from the individual working with the change and the people charged with revising the doctrine.

If there is a lack of information passed to those writing the doctrine, they rely o their own knowledge and experience to write it.

Depending on how far removed that writer is to the new technical leap, you're left with conducting a frontal on a MG42, because doctrine.