ADP-3-19 FIRES Warfighting Function Download
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Execute Fires Across the Domains 31 July 2019 ADP 3-19 2-7 Navigation warfare is deliberate defensive and offensive action to assure and prevent positioning, navigation, and timing information through coordinated employment of space, cyberspace, and electronic warfare operations (JP 3-14). Naviagation warfare (NAVWAR) is necessarily a collaborative effort used to ensure unimpeded access to PNT signals while denying the same to the enemy. It also includes support activities such as surveillance, reconnaissance, and electromagnetic spectrum management to ensure the availability and integrity of PNT information. NAVWAR may be effectively executed in a localized area or across a theater of operations, for short or long durations, with impacts to all domains and mission areas. NAVWAR should be a consideration in all joint planning efforts. The ability to understand, visualize, and describe the local PNT environment is characterization. Characterization includes accurate and timely assessments of the OE, including terrestrial, aerial, and space environments, and the potential impact of these conditions in order to plan and conduct unified land operations. The Army must characterize the environment to assess the likelihood of NAVWAR impacting the mission. Characterization requires a persistent and integrated network of surveillance and reconnaissance systems and information processing to fuse the data into a cohesive picture. It includes the capability to determine the effects of the environment on sensors, weapons, and munitions to deliver fires. For more on offensive space control, refer to FM 3-14. SPECIAL OPERATIONS 2-29. Special operations forces execute a diverse set of missions across warfighting functions to produce scalable lethal and nonlethal effects, either in support of a combatant commander’s campaign plan or as part of a joint, Army, or other Service effort. Army special operations forces contribute to the fires warfighting function by providing unique contributions for understanding the OE, nominating and developing targets and recommending effects, and providing specific lethal and nonlethal capabilities such as psychological operations, civil affairs, or surgical strike capabilities to the supported commander. 2-30. A special operations task force may establish a joint fires element. A joint fires element is an optional staff element that provides recommendations to the operations directorate to accomplish fires planning and synchronization (JP 3-60). When the joint fires element is established, it becomes the fires coordination link between commands. The joint fires element is responsible for planning joint fires and executing the targeting process within the special operations task force. It is part of the current operations division and consists of organic intelligence, sustainment, plans, communications, aviation, Special Forces, civil affairs, Ranger, and psychological operations personnel; conventional force liaisons; representatives of attached units; and augmentees from the Services, multinational partner units, and government agencies that can achieve lethal and nonlethal effects, integrate into the targeting process, and advise on their organizations’ capabilities. 2-31. Establishing liaisons between special operations and conventional force fires elements helps mitigate the tempo of armed conflict and the subsequent rapid information flow. Liaisons efficiently prioritize and pass critical information from one element to another vice relying on an element’s capability to sift through vast quantities of data to retrieve the right information at the right time. Liaisons are a solution to mitigate interoperability challenges and to fulfill the need to inform elements of opportunities that may be fleeting. 2-32. Whether special operations are being conducted in support of large-scale combat operations or in support of the commander’s campaign plan below the level of armed conflict, special operations forces consider political, military, economic, informational, and psychological effects on the enemy’s capabilities, morale, and popular support base; on relevant populations; and on other relevant actors. Special operations units share the results of these considerations through the targeting process and through information and intelligence processes and systems in order to support shared understanding across the force. The knowledge produced by sharing considerations and analyses facilitates a comprehensive approach, identification of potential restricted targets, and the selection of the best capability to achieve the desired effects. 2-33. For more on Special Operations, see JP 3-05, ADP 3-05 and FM 3-05.