FM-3-09 Fire Support and Field Artillery Operations Download
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Development of Fire Support and Field Artillery Tasks 30 April 2020 FM 3-09 A-11 Table A-8. Essential Field Artillery Task Example Essential Field Artillery Task Task: must include the desired___________ (effect) on the enemy formation. (Degrade, disrupt, delay, destroy, neutralize, suppress, and obscure)(formation size – platoon, company, battalion, or number of systems) *** Special munitions (precision, smoke) (derived from the method of essential fire support task) Purpose: Task and purpose from essential fire support task. (Task can be written verbatim or summarized) Method: Tell the story. Priority: Field artillery priority of fire and field artillery priority of survey. (Survey can be technical, manual, or it can include other units and delivery assets.) Allocation: Command post (support relationship), battery (support relationship), weapons locating radar, survey, field artillery task. *Movement: routes, triggers, order of march, release points, start points, check points. In-place ready to observe, in- place ready to fire, time of movement (no earlier than, not later than) position area for artillery, azimuth of fire. *Targets: Special munitions, priority and alternate shooters, attitudes and width, type of ammunition, target number and location, triggers, final protective fires, priority targets. Other: radar zones, survey control points. Restrictions: Fire support coordination measures, survivability movement criteria, ammunition constraints. Other considerations, such as target dwell times, special munition approval authority. Effects: Quantification of field artillery task (number of enemy systems destroyed), and positioning of field artillery units at the end of phase. A-21. An EFAT is defined as a task that the FA must accomplish in order to achieve an EFST in the supported commander's OPORD. Those EFSTs that do not have "FA" as the method, then, are not EFATs. A fully developed EFAT has a task, purpose, method and effects. The task describes the effects of the fires against a specific enemy formation in terms of degrade, disrupt, delay, destroy, neutralize, and suppress it can also include obscure or fire SEAD. The purpose must clearly tie the EFAT to the EFST it supports. It is a statement of the EFST task and purpose. The method is a concise statement of how the FA task will be accomplished. Tell the "story" of what must be done to complete the EFAT. This entails describing priorities of fire and survey; position areas and routes to them; azimuths of fire; target numbers, priority targets and FPFs; radar zones; triggers for movement and survivability move criteria; FSCMs. These are referred to as Priorities, Allocations and Restrictions. The effect is a description of what success will look like: As much as possible, quantify the effect as an observable result. Describe the location of the firing elements to include will the firing unit move after executing the task. A-22. After being assigned the fire support task, the commander would give the staff planning guidance to include planning guidance for fires: "FSCOORD use fires to delay from 2100Z18Augxx until 0500Z19Augxx the enemy movement along route RED to prevent enemy forces from interfering with the wet gap crossing". The FSCOORD and FSE planners using the OPORD then develop tasks to subordinate FA units. See table A-7 on page A-9, for an example of a FA task. A-23. The commander determines the desired effect for each target. Effects can be created by selection of the appropriate weapon system, number and type of munitions fired and the method used to engage a target. Commanders analyze mission variables to create effects using a range of capabilities to destroy, disrupt, neutralize, interdict, and suppress enemy forces. A-24. In planning for FA tasks, the FSCOORD considers the elements of the task - the task description itself, its purpose, and the desired effect. Task describes the objectives that fires must achieve against a specific enemy capability. The task has three parts: targeting objective, enemy formation and function. Disrupt, delay, and destroy are all examples of objectives. Formation is the size of the threat, and function is the capability of this threat to achieve its task and purpose.