FM-3-09 Fire Support and Field Artillery Operations Download
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30 April 2020 FM 3-09 4-1 Chapter 4 Field Artillery Operations This chapter provides a brief overview of the FA and its role and employment in large- scale ground combat operations. Section I describes the role of the FA. Section II covers FA organizations at echelons above brigade Section III covers FA capabilities in depth, Section IV covers FA organization for combat, Section V discusses key considerations for combat and Section VI covers fire direction. The Guns, Thank God, The Guns. . . – Rudyard KiplingChapter Intro SECTION I – THE ROLE OF THE FIELD ARTILLERY 4-1. The role of the FA is to suppress, neutralize, or destroy the enemy by cannon, rocket, and missile fire and to integrate and synchronize all FS assets into operations. 4-2. The FA, as an integral part of the FS system, is responsible for participating in the planning, preparation, and execution of lethal and nonlethal FA fires delivered by FA cannons, rockets, and missiles at the strategic, operational and tactical levels. This often includes simultaneous FA fires in support of decisive, shaping, and sustaining operations, including counterfires. Deep fires, beyond the boundaries of tactical operations under joint force control, may involve the delivery of operational-level fires directly supporting the JFCs campaign plan. Such fires may have potential strategic effects. 4-3. Field artillery contributes to unified land operations by massing fires in space and time on single or multiple targets with precision, near-precision, and area fire capabilities. The synchronized use of massed or selectively applied FA fires in support of simultaneous decisive, shaping, and sustaining operations is intended to weaken the enemy at all echelons and deny them the opportunity to hide or rest. FA can rapidly shift fires throughout the AO in support of the scheme of maneuver, and to counter unforeseen enemy reaction to achieve the maneuver commander's desired effects. FA cannons are classified according to caliber as millimeter (mm): Light - 120-mm and less. Medium - 121 to 160-mm. Heavy - 161 to 210-mm. Very heavy - greater than 210-mm. Rockets - 298-mm. Missiles - 607-mm. 4-4. FA is the maneuver commander's principal means for providing continuous and responsive indirect fires in support of large-scale ground combat operations. It can achieve surprise with the instantaneous delivery of high volumes of fire without warning. As such, it is the most potent and responsive, 24-hour, all weather combat multiplier available to maneuver commanders. 4-5. Organic, assigned, attached, or placed under the operational control (OPCON) FA delivery assets include cannon, rocket, missile and hypersonic systems that range from tactical to strategic areas. FA provides continuously available fires under all weather conditions and in all types of terrain. FA can shift and mass fires rapidly without having to displace. 4-6. FA limitations include a firing signature that makes firing units vulnerable to detection by enemy target acquisition assets, limited self-defense capability against ground and air attacks, and limited ability to engage moving targets.