TA.4 Command and Control (cont)
* Operation Orders in sufficient detail for mission accomplishment: Company/teams do not produce operation orders (OPORDS) in sufficient detail to allow them to accomplish their mission.
PROBLEMS:
1. Situation Template (SITEMP) refinement, terrain analysis, and threat analysis are not conducted in sufficient detail to portray how the enemy will fight and shape the battlefield.
2. Commanders are weak in articulating how they envision the battle will flow.
3. Paragraph II: Poor understanding of task force/brigade scheme of maneuver.
4. Paragraph III: Often scheme of movement and not a scheme of fire and maneuver to KILL the enemy.
5. Task forces give unclear task and purposes to company/teams which result in confusion on how the company/team fits into the task force's scheme of maneuver.
6. Paragraph IV: Not synchronized with the scheme of maneuver for the company/team.
7. Paragraph V: No "JUMP" plan or signals discussed.
Techniques:
1.
Commanders must read and understand the OPORD example as outlined in FM 71-1,
Appendix A.
2.
Commanders must practice writing and issuing orders.
3.
Incorporate OPORD writing and issuing training in all facets of garrison operations.
* Use of graphic control measures for organization of the battlefield: The organization of the battlefield, or battlefield geometry, often lacks sufficient detail to organize the combined effects of a brigade formation.
PROBLEMS:
1. Graphic control measures selected are not facilitating the control necessary for tactical execution.
2. Many leaders and staff planners are not fluent in the use of graphic control measures to enhance control.
3. There is an overriding desire to allow subordinate units flexibility in execution.
4. The lack of graphic control measures does not allow subordinate units to fight in relation to one another and they rarely achieve mass.
5. When control measures are used, many units are not abiding by the doctrinal definition or intent of the graphic and choose to ignore them.
6. The framework of the battlefield is not understood or enforced.
7. Use of check points, contact points, coordinating points, boundaries are often inappropriate because of a lack of understanding.
8. Graphic control measures, once applied to the operations overlay, are specified tactical tasks. The units do not understand or follow them.
9. Currently, commanders at all levels are allowed to invent or reinvent their own terms and graphics that are often inconsistent with doctrine. The ultimate goal is the flexibility of the combat formation, not individual commanders.
Technique: Use FM-101-5-1 as the prescriptive doctrinal manual for ensuring clarity of our tactical orders through a common language and a common set of operational graphics.
* Company/Team Rehearsals: Combined arms breaching operations: Task forces and company/teams do not place emphasis on conducting company/team combined arms breach rehearsals.
RESULT: An uncoordinated breach effort at the objective.
Techniques:
1.
Review Appendix D, Breaching Rehearsals, to FM 90-13-1, Combined Arms Breaching
Operations, for information on conducting a successful rehearsal.
2.
Review CALL Newsletter 91-1, Rehearsals.
* Task Force rehearsals: assaults and actions on the objective:
PROBLEMS:
1.
Battalion/task forces rarely rehearse assaults and actions on the objective.
2.
SOPs usually fail to properly address the actions necessary and/or the units
fail to follow their SOPs for these operations.
RESULTS:
1.
Units become extremely disorganized on the objective.
2.
The infantry is not prepared to dismount and is unaware of the plan.
3.
Tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles (BFVs) are not prepared to provide support.
Techniques:
1. FM 71-2, Tank and Mechanized Infantry Battalion/Task Force, and FM 71-1, Tank and Mechanized Infantry Company/team, provide excellent checklists for task force and company/team planning, as well as actions to be rehearsed.
2. Units should integrate platoon and squad battle drills into internal battle drill books. These should be understood at every level and rehearsed extensively at Home Station.
3. Units need to rehearse all critical events in a battle including actions on the objective, not just actions on contact and breaching.
4. CALL Newsletter 91-1, Rehearsals, addresses the rehearsal sequence, types of rehearsals, and rehearsal techniques.
* Fire unit assignments: Fire unit assignments are incorrectly being made due to inaccurate information at the battalion Fire Direction Center (FDC).
PROBLEMS:
1. Family of Scatterable Mines (FASCAM) and smoke missions are being assigned to units with non-operational gun display units (GDUs) or tube strengths not equal to the number of required aim points.
2. Deep missions such as counter fire required rocket assisted projectile (RAP) and "red bag" ammunition to successfully accomplish the assigned mission.
3. Battalion FDCs are continually surprised by their subordinate FDCs during the execution phase of battles.
- Subordinate FDCs fail to identify and resolve intervening crest issues, then must prepare for an anticipated high angle mission.
- Subordinate FDCs fail to update all means of determining firing data, then are forced to delay firing when they receive missions for which they have no graphical firing tables (GFTs) (i.e., RAP).
4. FDCs and the battery chain of command fail to rehearse with their gunline.
RESULT: Not until the unit is required to conduct the mission is it discovered that ammunition distribution has not been properly completed for the fire unit assignments made. This results in poor responsiveness and decreased effects.
Procedure: In the absence of field artillery doctrine that addresses the Field Artillery technical rehearsal, extensive Home Station training must be conducted following unit-developed SOPs on ammo distribution, fire unit assignments, and information flow to the FDC.
NOTE: Doctrine needs to be written which tells the units the components of a successful technical rehearsal and, most importantly, development of an end state.
* Fire support rehearsals: Fire Support rehearsals have generally not significantly contributed to a better understanding or synchronization of the fire support plan.
PROBLEMS:
1. Rehearsals usually consist of a target list scrub and a brigade recital or briefing of the fire support plan, and do not address specific observer responsibilities with the executor announcing his trigger, his engagement criteria, his observation post location and his call for fire.
2. The artillery Fire Direction Center (FDC) does not identify the specific units and volumes of fire that will fire.
3. By merely briefing but not rehearsing, the brigade Fire Support Element (FSE) has not ensured each player can execute his part of the fire support plan unprompted and fully understands the desired end state of each event.
Techniques:
1. Revise unit fire rehearsal SOPs to require all primary and alternate executors to participate.
2. After a target list verification and scheme of fires review (if needed), have the S-2 address the enemy actions that will trigger FS events, followed by each executor making the appropriate radio calls to complete the event.
3. The Fire Support Officer (FSO) can make on-the-spot corrections, and also build in flexibility by adding "curves", such as the enemy formation goes north instead of south, or is 500 meters off the planned target to practice branches or hasty adjustments to the plan.
4. Each subordinate element must rehearse independently prior to the brigade fire support rehearsal.
5. Refer to CALL Newsletter 91-1, Rehearsals, for discussions on rehearsal sequence, types of rehearsals, and rehearsal techniques.
* Battery commander level of detail in planning process: Battery commanders and liaison officers (LNOs) are not getting to a sufficient level of detail in the planning process for subordinate units to successfully accomplish their mission.
PROBLEMS:
1. Air Defense (AD) commanders and LNOs rarely develop detailed plans based on friendly scheme of maneuver and the S-2's Situation Template (SITEMP) of where the enemy could hurt the brigade combat team (BCT).
2. AD commanders and LNOs usually develop a task organization with discussion on where all the assets should be during the fight, but rarely discuss the triggers for movement.
RESULT: The air defense assets are usually out of position at the critical point in the fight.
Technique: Air Defense battalion commanders and S-3s need to ensure training programs in the planning process are conducted for the battery commanders as well as the platoon leaders.
* Defining automask criteria during planning process: Conditions under which units automatically don protective masks is reactive rather than proactive.
PROBLEM: Automask criteria is often defined by reactive events such as the sounding of the M8 alarm or receiving artillery vicinity template chemical targets.
Techniques:
1. If the task force knows the enemy disposition on the battlefield prior to Phase II fires, the task force can be proactive and automask prior to Phase II fires and begin chemical monitoring.
2. Conduct a thorough threat assessment during IPB to determine the enemy disposition prior to expected delivery of chemical munitions. Define automask criteria accordingly, for example the FSE crosses PL ALPHA or the 26 N/S grid line.
TA.4
Command and Control BOS Narrative, Part 4
TA.4,
Part 6
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