READY FOR TODAY – EVOLVING FOR TOMORROW
with all joint and coalition fires available. Deep fires is the collective and coordinated use of indirect fire, armed aircraft, and other lethal and non-lethal means in support of the commander’ s battle plan that give us the competitive edge to dominate the air, land and sea.’
Setting the Parameters
This short and unclassified look at delivering Corps Deep Fires will be limited to the involvement of Aviation( Avn) and Surface to Surface( S2S) fires available within Corps Troops. It is beyond the scope of the article to discuss Air, Electronic Warfare( EW) or Information Operations( IO), except in passing comment where their involvement is intrinsically linked to the delivery of Avn and S2S fires. The article will firstly define, in simple terms, a number of key assumptions the author has devised to frame the context in which the article is set. It will then discuss the planning and targeting process used to assist decision-making before concentrating on the delivery of Deep Fires( including the role of Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance( ISR) and the rules that govern fires) before briefly looking forward to what’ s next.
Assumptions
a. Corps Deep Battlespace( fig 1): An area reaching forward of the Corps left and right boundary; starting no further forward than the planning range of AS90 approximately 15 km beyond the Forward Line of Own Troops( FLOT) and indicated by the Corps Co-ordinated Fire Line( CFL) – and ending no further forward than 280 km beyond the FLOT; indicated by the Fire Support Co-ordination Line( FSCL).
b. Integrated: Combining Air, Avn, S2S fires, ISR and other resources( Lethal and Non-Lethal) to achieve concentrated, massed fires throughout the Corps Battlespace is essential.
c. High Tempo: Conducting fires in a NATO Article 5, high intensity warfighting scenario, against a peer or peer plus enemy should be the planning assumption.
d. Multinational: Using a combination of fires assets from the 29 members of NATO additional partnering nations taking part in an operation is inevitable.
Figure 2
The Corps Targeting Cycle( Decide, Detect, Deliver, and Assess( D3A))
The key to effective deep fires is accurate, timely intelligence that can be translated into targeting data for execution by the full range of fires assets available to the Commander and having a robust, multinational, interoperable, Command Control Communication Computers and Information( C4I) structure to support it.
Within HQ ARRC’ s Joint Fires and Influence Branch( JFIB) the Joint Fires team( consisting of ACOS Joint Fires, Joint Fires Current Operations( JF Ops), Joint Fires Plans( JF Plans) and Joint Fires Targets( JF Tgts)) are responsible for the nominating, planning, refining and the execution of integrated and synchronised deep strikes on legitimate enemy High Priority Targets 1( HPT). These sub teams however, do not work in isolation. They are intrinsically linked, effectively working as one entity to deliver Deep Fires on time and on target.
JF Tgts works closely with G2 and other branch leads to analyse the enemy’ s Centre of Gravity( COG), tactics and laydown and in conjunction with the results of the Intelligence Preparation of the Environment, to plan targets out to 96 hrs using the D3A cycle( fig 2). JF Plans work with G5 and G35 to inform Corps planning and the refinement of resulting Courses of Action( COA). They synchronise fires and fires resources with the manoeuvre plan at every stage.
1 HPT: Targets, the loss of which would significantly contribute to the success of the commander’ s mission.
ALLIED RAPID REACTION CORPS 39