TARGETING - A MANEUVER CONCEPT
by LTC Paul H. Herbert, United States Army War College
I was privileged to serve our Army as an infantry battalion task force senior observer/controller (O/C) at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC), Ft. Polk, LA, for a year between my command tour and attendance at the U.S. Army War College. I learned a lot in that assignment. Something that caught my attention there, and that I think has great potential for our Army as we approach the 21st Century, is the concept of targeting. I intend to lay out in this paper what targeting is; why it is an important concept; why the units observed did not use it very well; what we might do to correct that; and the implications I think all of that has for our future.
I was struck by the relevance of targeting most dramatically as I prepared for the after-action review (AAR) of an infantry battalion task force that was changing mission from the low intensity phase of a rotation to the conventional defense. The task force had attached to it a platoon of M1A2 Abrams tanks. But for the initiative of a battle captain, the platoon would have performed no tactical tasks to date except command post security. At a moment of crisis, however, when an infantry unit was pinned down by infantry and mortars of the guerrilla opposing forces (OPFOR), the battle captain dispatched the tank platoon to the scene. The platoon destroyed the opposing force while suffering only two of their own soldiers wounded in action. This compared to the task force's casualty exchange ratio up to that point of about seven friendlies for every OPFOR.
While a tank platoon is certainly not the approved solution for every challenge on the low intensity battlefield, it proved to be a very effective "finish" force, once the task force "found" and "fixed" the enemy in accordance with current search and attack doctrine. How much better for the task force had the platoon been similarly employed in more of the task force's contacts. That, of course, would have required some anticipation of battlefield events and some contingency orders to the platoon, the command post and the rest of the task force. The readying of combat power to attack selected enemy elements in anticipation of likely battlefield events is exactly what targeting seeks to do. I made the union of these ideas, search and attack maneuver doctrine and targeting fire support doctrine a central point in my AAR.
I think this is a powerful notion: simply put, targeting must become an additional maneuver concept, not just in our published doctrine, but in the minds of all of our combined arms leaders. Targeting provides a framework for the application of combat power generally, and not just efficient use of indirect fire. Just as important, targeting is an essential concept for employing thoroughly integrated combined arms forces on a Force XXI battlefield. Targeting is one means by which we can prepare officers intellectually for the future while properly employing today's forces.
Let's start with a review of targeting doctrine. "Targeting is the process of identifying enemy targets for possible engagement and determining the appropriate attack system to be used to capture, destroy, degrade or neutralize the target in question."1It is a decision cycle described in doctrine by the shorthand terms "decide, detect, deliver." These mean that, first, one must decide what parts of an enemy force are to be attacked, to what effect, and generally where, when and by what means. Next, these targets must be detected so that they can be engaged. Finally, the friendly force must deliver the combat power that achieves the effects desired on the target.2This cycle is repeated continuously until the enemy is defeated. The rest of targeting doctrine is a catechism of procedures and acronyms designed to apply and manage targeting in a practical way. Most important are the notions of "high value targets, (HVTs)" or those whose attack by us will most hurt the enemy, and "high payoff targets, (HPOTs)" or those that will most contribute to the immediate success of our mission. They can be, but are not always, the same.
Targeting is an important procedural link between our concept for defeating the enemy, on the one hand, and our actual synchronization of combat power, on the other. It allows us to use fires and other assets proactively, through anticipation, rather than reactively as targets of opportunity appear and generate calls for fire. The products of a good targeting session by a tactical staff should be an order or series of orders that tell appropriate components of the task force what to look for, where and when (e.g., a reconnaissance and surveillance plan) and that also cue elements of combat power to be ready to attack certain things at certain times and places. Done at regular and integrated intervals at different echelons as our continuous estimate of the situation proceeds, these orders are iterative in nature and need not be wholesale revisions to an existing plan. Theoretically, targeting so applied greatly reduces the friction that often prevents us from engaging the enemy with the right combination of combat power at the right time and place. It gives us both agility and the initiative.
Unfortunately, targeting is not done well at the JRTC, even when it is narrowly applied to the synchronization of indirect fires with maneuver. The most dramatic evidence for this is that we rarely employ anywhere near the full capacity of our indirect fire systems, even when battlefield circumstances clearly call for that. Also, the percentages of fire missions called that actually have effect are consistently very low.3A major cause is an inability to conduct targeting. I have personally observed dozens of battalion and brigade tactical operations centers (TOCs) struggling with their own particular brand of planning, orders and targeting meetings. Rarely have I seen applied that which doctrine requires. To be sure, there are many other points in the power train where friction frequently overcomes positive momentum, but when the planning and targeting are done poorly from the start, that is what one must fix first.
There are three reasons why targeting is done poorly. First, the doctrine has been compartmentalized in the field artillery, whose officers become apostles to their sometimes skeptical maneuver bosses. Second, and related to the first, the maneuver branch officers do not adequately perform their roles. This is especially true of the maneuver commanders whose concept of how to defeat the enemy is the indispensable foundation of successful targeting. Third, our battle staffs are unskilled at synchronizing the combined arms team (no mean task in today's highly sophisticated Army!) and so they add considerable friction to the always time-sensitive task of producing clear, timely plans and orders.
Let me illustrate each of these points. Although targeting is well described in the fire support manuals, it is not contained in the maneuver doctrine by which infantrymen (and tankers) are trained. Targeting may well be implicit in our capstone doctrine, which declares maneuver and firepower to be "inseparable and complementary dynamics of combat power" whose synchronization is "critical to the successful prosecution of combat operations." But targeting per se is not discussed as a dimension of fire support or maneuver or synchronization.4Likewise, FM 7-30, The Infantry Brigade, and FM 7-20, The Infantry Battalion, make no mention of a targeting process. Nor do the respective mission training plans (MTPs) for those headquarters specify a targeting task to be performed. Just as important, our doctrine for the planning process, formally articulated in FM 101-5 and informally updated through Student Text 100-9 published by the Command and General Staff College, does not show how targeting fits into the sequence of producing an order or controlling a combat operation.
I have seen this doctrinal contradiction play itself out in dozens of TOCs on many simulated battlefields. Most maneuver staffs have adapted some form of internal planning procedure based on ST 100-9. Rarely do they show how the targeting process fits into the planning or controlling functions of the staff and TOC, despite the disclaimer in FM 6-20-10 that "targeting is an integral part of the planning process."5A curious phenomenon results as two competing ideas struggle, sometimes politely and sometimes not, for the time and attention of the battle staff. The first is some form of the military decisionmaking process (MDMP), driven by the commander, executive officer or S3; and the other is the targeting meeting, driven by the fire support officer. Frequently, targeting is not included as an inherent part of either wargaming or building a synchronization matrix. Instead, it is relegated to a separate demand on the time of the staff, after the core "maneuver" work has been done. It usually involves the FSO and "representatives" of some of the other staff sections. That neither event produces the synchronization called for in our doctrine should not surprise us.
Even were these procedural problems resolved (and they have been to a degree in some TOCs), effective targeting would still suffer from the incomplete guidance that most commanders give to their staffs. Here the problem is not one of doctrine but of training and leader development. Maneuver commanders are unskilled in the art of envisioning the battle and giving good guidance to their staffs, despite the fact that they have a clear doctrinal responsibility to do so. "Synchronization...takes place first in the minds of commanders and then in the actual planning and coordination of movements, fires and supporting activities," declares our capstone doctrine. FM 7-30, FM 7-20 and the targeting manual concur. The latter asserts, "The maneuver commander is responsible for the targeting effort."6The maneuver commander's concept of the operation, based firmly on a vision of the enemy and how to defeat him, is the indispensable, but often missing, foundation of effective targeting.
The maneuver commander develops his mental image of the synchronized fight through his mission analysis, intent, command estimate and concept.7His mission analysis results in a clear statement of the task his organization is to accomplish and its purpose. His intent expresses concisely his own vision of the end state on his battlefield when his operation is successfully concluded. His command estimate causes him to consider the immediately relevant factors of mission, enemy, terrain, weather, troops and time available (METT-T) and the broad options open to him. These should suggest to him at least conceptually how his organization should fight, a nearly intuitive act of professional judgment of the highest order, the product of experience and training.
The best commanders can convert their image or concept to a clear overview for their staffs of the unfolding fight in time and space, as well as a few, pithy specifics for each staff officer to give special attention. With this guidance, a good staff can develop, compare and recommend courses of action efficiently. That is because they are working within the realistic bounds of the commander's guidance, and not freewheeling through all possible alternative solutions to the tactical problem at hand. As important, they share in the commander's concept as it develops and thus can more readily synchronize their particular functions.
Implicit in the commander's role just described is its foundation on intelligence. For the commander, this again is a highly subjective and personalized act of judgment. Good commanders throughout history have not only studied their enemies carefully, but thought about their enemy with an intensity that can border on psychic communication. Our doctrine supports them with the notion of intelligence preparation of the battlefield, or IPB. IPB uses a highly rationalized process to present the commander and his staff with a tool for "seeing" the enemy in time and space, as conditioned by the enemy's doctrine and the local situation. IPB is nevertheless no more than a cue and a prop for the commander's personal judgment.
All of the foregoing rests explicitly on our doctrine. The problem is that it does not happen as described very often. Typical commanders consign mission analysis to their staffs; issue a lengthy "intent" statement that contains elements of end state, concept of operations and tactical guidance often so specific as to include rules of engagement; address METT-T factors as they occur to them, rather than systematically; and articulate a concept only in terms that are too abstract to be very useful.8This does little to set the conditions for their staffs' (and organizations'!) success.
The ill effects of poor guidance are compounded by inexperienced staffs. Today's tactical battle staff is composed of well-meaning and talented young officers. However, they are, by definition, less experienced than the commander. They are, therefore, unlikely to convert his incomplete or vague guidance into a coherent plan. (However, they will try heroically rather than ask for better guidance!) With some exceptions, they do not appear to have been well trained for their positions, and often are a rank junior to that authorized. Rarely have they drilled the MDMP and orders process sufficiently to do it well and quickly. At the JRTC, they are confronted with a host of new players (liaison officers from supporting Air Force, Marine Corps, special operations, armor, civil affairs, and psychological operations elements, to name a few). And, their staff actions must be performed amidst the fog and friction of harsh environmental conditions, an on-going battle, key staff absences due to casualties, and quite genuine fatigue.
The consequences of compartmentalized doctrine, weak commander's guidance and inexperienced staffs under stress are poor targeting, unsynchronized application of combat power, operations that lack agility and tactical outcomes that require too much in casualties for too little in mission accomplishment. Targeting efforts are disadvantaged from the start because the responsible maneuver commanders seem unable to provide the necessary guidance.
The good news is that the solutions to these problems are within our means. Our doctrine and our leadership are good enough that marginal adjustments should bear major improvements. The biggest challenge will be to adapt the cultures of the maneuver arms, especially the infantry, to new possibilities while retaining their indispensable core values and competencies.
We can solve these problems by adopting targeting as a core maneuver concept and adjusting relevant doctrine accordingly. We must then train and develop officers, and especially future maneuver commanders, in the arts of battlefield vision, command guidance and targeting while improving our training and management of battle staffs.
Adopting targeting as a core maneuver concept is the critical first step. As long as targeting remains narrowly conceived as a derivative of fire support, it will not realize its full potential. Somewhat paradoxically, the doctrinal origins of targeting as a fire support function point the way toward targeting as a maneuver concept. The doctrinal basis for the fire support function is the notion that much of the combat power available to maneuver commanders comes "not from within their chain of command but from external resources."9As technology enhances our ability to detect hostile elements and communicate, and, as we confront the increasing likelihood of contingency operations as part of a joint force, this is more and more the case. The line maneuver units of a battalion or brigade task force account for a smaller proportion of the total combat power available to the task force commander. Often the bulk of his available combat power resides in other-than-ground-maneuver forces. These do not execute the forms of maneuver or types of offensive operations. A different concept of employment is required, and that concept is targeting. With certain adjustments, targeting is equally applicable to all of the combat and combat support joint assets available to the commander, including his own subordinate maneuver forces.
A clear illustration of this fact is the infantry battalion task force on the low-intensity battlefield cited at the beginning of this essay. The problem here is to operate on a 360-degree (some would say "spherical," incorporating airspace) battlefield to find and destroy an elusive enemy who presents only fleeting targets; to employ lethal means selectively and precisely against those targets to minimize collateral damage; and to support one's operation with a host of nonlethal means such as civil affairs and psychological operations. The appropriate maneuver doctrine is called "search and attack." It is characterized by the terms "find, fix and finish," in which infantry forces may perform reconnaissance to find the enemy; conduct ambushes to fix him in position; and/or employ artillery, mortars, close-air support or direct assault to finish him.10
The congruity between this maneuver doctrine and the fire support doctrine of "decide, detect, deliver" is important because the underlying logic of each is identical. In both cases, we are attempting to decide what enemy assets are most important and most vulnerable; find them; and attack them quickly with the most appropriate asset. Search and attack is targeting applied to maneuver forces. It accepts the notion of the infantry battalion task force as an extended target acquisition and engagement system in which infantry can play a variety of roles. The maneuver commander who grasps this concept and makes his targeting meeting the centerpiece activity for his battlestaff every day, and includes every available element of combat power among the assets to be harnessed by targeting, has taken a significant step toward effectiveness on the low intensity battlefield.
That commander should be no less inclined to think in these terms on the mid-intensity battlefield. The critical difference is that a more potent conventional enemy will likely cause a commander to mass his ground maneuver forces to seize or hold ground, shape the battlefield, protect key assets and deliver massed direct fires in decisive close combat. The enemy must still be broadly considered in time and space. His key vulnerabilities must be detected and attacked throughout the battlefield with the most appropriate systems so that we have the relative advantage at the decisive place and time. The logic, and indeed the procedures, of targeting are just as applicable. The concept of targeting as currently articulated in our fire support doctrine should be broadened as a key link between all enemy vulnerabilities and all elements of combat power at our disposal.
Making this broadened concept a reality requires adaptation of our doctrine. Each piece critical to good targeting is well articulated now, but in separate manuals with separate proponents. The congruity of FM 7-20 on search and attack and FM 6-20-10 on targeting has already been highlighted. No fundamental change to IPB doctrine as laid out in FM 34-80 and FM 34-130 need be made. The commander's role is well articulated in FM 100-5, page 6-6. What is missing is a central concept of targeting that links these pieces together. Targeting must be written into FM 100-5 as a maneuver concept. Then, the appropriate portions of the various manuals can be updated to reflect consistency across the force, and especially between the 7-, 17-, and 71- series of manuals that describe the roles of maneuver headquarters. The other key piece is our staff planning doctrine in FM 101-5. This must describe targeting as both a planning and control function; show clearly the relationships of intelligence, maneuver, and other combat functions in the targeting process; and place targeting functions clearly in the MDMP.
The Army is a doctrinal organization. Getting the doctrine right is the first step toward developing the officer leaders and training the staffs that can apply targeting readily. Other measures need to be taken as well. All of them are subtle shifts of emphasis rather than major substantive changes, but they are important.
First, maneuver leaders and commanders must be trained in the combined arms business from Day 1 of their branch-specific training. This is not to say that the maneuver branches have not been doing just that for years, but, to judge from what I have seen in the box, the tone must be different. Maneuver leaders tend to think of their organizations as the central framework on the battlefield around which all of the other supporting arms and services are grouped. They tend not to think of their organizations as the key integrating mechanisms for all of the combat power available to the force.11Maneuver headquarters at the tactical level focus and apply the combat power provided in many forms by their superiors at the operational level. They fight the battle. That perspective and skill are critical and must be instilled and developed in infantry and armor officers. It means talking to lieutenants not in terms of "Did you think about employing mortars in this situation?" as if that were an additional option, but "Show me how you'll apply your available combat power to achieve this mission," and listening for whether he has synchronized mortar fire, direct fire and maneuver in his mind and in his plan.
Next, we must train our officers to think through combat in time and space against an enemy who is fighting back. Combat is a highly dynamic experience and often unfolds according to the terrible realities of decision speeds and time/distance factors. Lieutenants learn that they should plan indirect fires on the flanks of their ambush positions. More important, they should be able to analyze why. Teaching them to envision the likely approach of an enemy reaction force as a means for deciding exactly where such fires should be placed, and when and how they will be triggered during the ambush, is the key. It lays the intellectual foundation for envisioning more complicated battles at higher echelons later on. Without such a foundation, the notions of IPB, intent, concept, courses of action, wargaming and, indeed, targeting, are meaningless.
All of the training techniques for this development exist. It is not a matter of new techniques, but how we use the ones at hand. The tactical exercise without troops; the map exercise; the situational training exercise; the simulation-assisted command post exercise; the historical case study and staff ride; the after-action review. All can and must be harnessed to the task of developing shared visions of battlefield dynamics that teach our officers to think, critically, in time, space and opposed combined arms forces. Emerging information technology promises to expand the potential of these techniques dramatically as virtual simulation lets us examine battle in three dimensional space and real time. The techniques that do not rely on actual troop formations in the field will take on increased importance as the opportunities for field service diminish. We must nurture our future commanders as they serve the Army in assignments well removed from troops as well as during their troop assignments. In coaching young officers to talk their battles and training exercises back to us, we are developing in them the art of giving guidance to their future staffs.
The critical factor in this development is not the technique, however, but the trainer, coach and mentor. He must be able to envision the fight; he must understand synchronization; and he must teach our officers to think. Post-mortem style critiques are not sufficient; analysis is key. Our goal is to develop a future artist, and not a future art critic.
All of this is important for the future Army. The general historical trend in military technology seems to indicate that we are moving away from industrial age armies based on line-of-sight gunpowder weapons to information age armies based on remote attack, precision-guided weapons. Improvements in information sharing; target acquisition; range, lethality and mobility of weapons and platforms; and data processing all suggest this trend. The future Army may well consist of multiple task forces dispersed throughout the battlespace, each on its own 360-degree battlefield, harnessed together by high technology information links and internetted situation data, target acquisition and engagement systems. The vision is not unlike the 360-degree low intensity battlefield described earlier. Targeting will apply.
The Army and its maneuver branches must come to grips with the cultural changes this implies. From the earliest days of organized warfare, the maneuver arms of cavalry, armor and infantry have identified themselves as bodies of men with weapons as opposed to bodies of weapons with crews. The warrior ethic of the maneuver arms is very powerful and distinctly different from what is found in military organizations whose central focus is a system or platform, such as a warship. The culture derives from the technology that requires one to mass large numbers of armed men in very close proximity to the enemy to bring combat power to bear. It is apparent in countless slogans and symbols: close with and destroy; combat arm of decision; Queen of Battle; follow me. The culture includes a doctrine. That is the doctrine of maneuver, by which officers learn to envision the battlefield in terms of maneuver forms required to position men and weapons: area or mobile defense; frontal attack, envelopment, turning movement; movement to contact, hasty or deliberate attack, exploitation, pursuit.
While indispensable in the past and for the foreseeable future, these forms are incomplete. As technology gives us more and more combat power that is not dependent on such forms, we must adapt our doctrine and our culture to account for it. Otherwise, our culture will become a barrier to greater combat power. Deep battle and battlespace are exemplary concepts in the right direction. So is targeting. No matter that it is more akin to what a Navy or an Air Force does and therefore hard for a close-with-and-destroy organization to adapt. It carries the potential to transform our branches from command and control headquarters of strictly maneuver formations to tactical integrating centers for the entire panoply of joint combat power (our TOCs acting like land-force AWACs is a good analogy). So organized, we can win with fewer Americans having to decide the issue at the point of a bayonet, a value that even the hardiest among us can support.
None of the foregoing should be misinterpreted as a call to dilute the core values and competencies of our maneuver arms. Infantry and armor combat power are today the indispensable building blocks of any fighting organization. They will be relevant, if not independently decisive, well into the future. Their capacity to seize and hold ground, and thereby control the populations and resources of landmasses, is the unique military capacity from which political results derive. Even if future high-technology infantrymen are recast as target acquisition sensors for smart and brilliant weapons, they will remain vulnerable to low-technology attack by weapons ranging from daggers to bullets and shrapnel. They must move in groups (squads and platoons will do nicely) to repel low tech attack and to assault to seize ground and ensure the destruction of the enemy. They absolutely must retain the culture, training and discipline that allows them to close with and destroy.
That culture, in turn, must evolve to include every means of bringing power to bear against the enemy. Adapting targeting as a maneuver concept, integrating it into our doctrine, and developing our officers accordingly is positive growth. It is the sort of intellectual change relevant to our present that prepares us for physical change to come. It is an example of the power of ideas inherent in our combat training centers.
NOTES
1. U.S. Department of the Army, Field Manual 6-20-10, Tactics, Techniques and
Procedures for Targeting, 1992, p. 1-1. Hereafter cited as FM 6-20-10. Back
2. The final draft of the new FM 6-20-10 adds "assess." Back
3. These are my own observations of many simulated battles at the JRTC. The percentages go
down further when close air support, naval gunfire and attack helicopter missions are
factored in. Back
4. U.S. Department of the Army, Field Manual 100-5, Operations, 1993, pp. 2-10, 2-13.
Hereafter cited as FM 100-5. Back
5. FM 6-20-10, p. 1-1. Back
6. Ibid., p. 1-4. Back
7. FM 100-5, pp. 24; 6-6. Back
8. In my several rotations at the JRTC, I did not observe any commander personally writing out
either his intent statement or his unit's concept of operations. These tasks were left to staff
officers, although usually approved by the commander. In the majority of cases, the staff
officers started with a blank sheet of paper rather than useful commander's guidance. Back
9. FM 100-5, p. 2-13. Back
10. U.S. Department of the Army, Field Manual 7-20, The Infantry Battalion, pp. 3-18 to 3-23.
Back
11. All of my experience as an infantry officer undergirds this judgment. I am especially
compelled by what I saw of rotational units at the JRTC, but also by my own experience
developing officers as a light infantry battalion commander and as the leader of an 80-man
O/C task force at the JRTC. Teaching officers how to "see the battlefield," to think in time as
well as space, and to visualize a combined arms fight against an active opponent were my biggest
developmental challenges. When officers can so visualize combat, they are easily converted to
disciples of high training standards because they understand the battlefield relationships of
all the pieces of their organization. Back
Table
of Contenets
The
Battle Before: A Rehearsal
Enhancing
Battle Command with the Tools of the 21st Century
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