- Reaction score
- 4
- Points
- 330
I came across this article that others might find interesting. Apparently, the US Field Artillery has lost most of its ability to actually do indirect fire. The main culprit seems to be the pilfering of gunners to fill other duties resulting in a generation of officers and even NCOs with limited to no experience working within their MOC.
This article is a paper written by a Colonel as part of his time at the US Army War College in 2010. All in all some very depressing points.
While I do not think that many of these points apply to Canadian gunners, it is still an interesting read and a fascinating insight into the inner workings of the artillery in the army of our greatest ally.
Key points from the article with more at link: http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA518063
This article is a paper written by a Colonel as part of his time at the US Army War College in 2010. All in all some very depressing points.
While I do not think that many of these points apply to Canadian gunners, it is still an interesting read and a fascinating insight into the inner workings of the artillery in the army of our greatest ally.
Key points from the article with more at link: http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA518063
The erosion of core competencies cannot be overstated. FA, or fires battalions, have in recent years had significant issues performing the basic tasks required to deliver fires in support of their maneuver commanders....In the artillery community,senior fire support trainers at the Combined Training Centers (CTCs) monitored the decline of lethal fire support skills, both on the gun line and amongst fire support teams. In an unpublished monograph written by the senior fire support trainers at the National Training Center (NTC) and the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) approximately 90% of enlisted and commissioned fire support personnel are tasked by the maneuver unit commanders at the echelon they are now assigned to perform missions outside their fire support planning and execution duties, to great or total exclusion of their Military Occupation Skills (MOS) duties.
...What the Wolf (fire support observer controller (OC)) team found was that the soldiers on the guns, as well as the officers in leadership positions, were actually unaware or untrained on the basic skills required to conduct delivery of fires. The majority of units observed at the NTC had significant problems in technical gunnery and collective crew tasks. Units were not only unable to perform simple firing tasks, such as howitzer calibration prior to a rotation, it was even not uncommon for batteries to fire rounds out of the safety box during on-site training prior to the start of the rotation.