Artillery White Paper

[artillery_officer]

Several USA colonels comment on the potential effects of current trends within the USA Field Artillery community. This White Paper (titled "The Impending Crisis in Field Artillery's ability to provide Fire Support to Maneuver Commanders") had significant impact when it first came out; it still stands as a good read for those interested in the destiny of our community. Artillery White Paper.pdf

[mdg]

The army made a conscious decision to disaggregate their Division Artillery organizations in favor of brigading. In short, what this has resulted in is a brigade centric "unit of action" model in which a maneuver brigade (armor or infantry) is task organized to include an artillery battalion, engineers, etc. The Division Artillery organizations, essentially the same as our Artillery Regimental Headquarters structure, was eliminated. This had several negative results- such as the reduction of O-6 level commands for artillery officers and an evisceration of middle management. The battalions have no direct higher artillery headquarters, but instead must tie into a Field Artillery Brigade, of which there are far fewer than there were division artilleries. I think the army is revisiting it, but I am not sure.
As an active duty artilleryman sitting in Afghanistan, I find it interesting that we are not more fully invested in the fight as a community. It is a dynamic environment with a lot of challenging problems to solve in the realm of fire support, but the paucity of cannon assets (and, arguably, the wrong ones, as the Brit 105s seem to be more flexible and employable, but that is a horse of a different color) limits the ability of Marine Artillery to always be at the point of friction.
Oddly, as the footprint of the Marine Corps nearly doubles, the amount of artillery in support of the MAGTF remains pretty much the same.