FM-3-09 Fire Support and Field Artillery Operations Download
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30 April 2020 FM 3-09 1-1 Chapter 1 Foundations of Fire Support and the Role of the Field Artillery Fire support is a rapid and continuous integration of surface to surface indirect fires, target acquisition, armed aircraft, and other lethal and nonlethal attack/delivery systems that converge against targets across all domains in support of the maneuver commander’s concept of operations. The functions, characteristics, and principles of supporting maneuver with fire and giving depth to operations across all domains--land, sea, air, space and cyberspace--have origins which are deeply rooted in the universal military experience. They are constant, and in conjunction with the role and core competencies of the field artillery (FA), will apply to future multi-domain operations just as they apply to the present. Rapidly emerging technology and future missions and capabilities will change the methods of employing FS as well as the degree by which FS is balanced with maneuver. However, the basic premise for why we provide fire support will remain unchanged. 1-1. Fire support (FS) is inherently joint, conducted in all domains, and simultaneously executed at all echelons of command. Lethal FS attack and delivery systems consist of indirect fire weapons and armed aircraft to include FA, mortars, naval surface fire support, and air-delivered munitions from fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft. Field artillery is equipment, supplies, ammunition, and personnel involved in the use of cannon, rocket, or surface-to-surface missile launchers. Nonlethal capabilities include cyberspace electromagnetic activities (CEMA), information related activities, space, and munitions such as illumination and smoke. Fires are the use of weapons systems to create a specific lethal or nonlethal effect on a target (JP 3-0). A nonlethal weapon is a weapon, device, or munition that is explicitly designed and primarily employed to incapacitate personnel or materiel immediately, while minimizing fatalities, permanent injury to personnel, and undesired damage to property in the target area or environment (JP 3-09). 1-2. The commander employs these capabilities to support the scheme of maneuver, to mass firepower, and to destroy, neutralize, and suppress enemy forces. Enemy a party identified as hostile against which the use of force is authorized (ADP 3-0). FS is a critical component of the fires warfighting function tasks of integrate and execute that allow the commander to converge effects across all domains to achieve positions of relative advantage in the context of large-scale ground combat operations (see ADP 3-19). Large-scale ground combat operations are sustained combat operations involving multiple corps and divisions (ADP 3-0). In large-scale ground combat operations, FS could be the principal means of destroying enemy forces. In this event, the scheme of maneuver would be designed specifically to capitalize on the effects of FS. The commander will utilize organic and joint attack/delivery assets and capabilities to provide joint FS. Joint fire support is joint fires that assist air, land, maritime, and special operations forces to move, maneuver, and control territory, populations, airspace, and key waters (JP 3-0). FIRE SUPPORT AND THE THREAT 1-3. Strategic competitors and adversaries have studied our military operations closely over the last thirty years. They know the American way of war well and that we excel by emphasizing joint and combined operations; technological dominance; global power projection; strategic, operational, and tactical maneuver; joint fires; sustainment at scale; and mission command initiative. Strategic competitors like Russia and China are synthesizing emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, hypersonics, machine learning, nanotechnology, and robotics with their analysis of military doctrine and operations. They are deploying these capabilities in order to fight the United States through multiple layers of stand-off in all domains -