Deconflicting army aircraft and indirect fires: brigade-level [A.sup.2][C.sup.2]

FA Journal, March-June, 2004 by Daniel A. Pinnell, Victor S. Hamilton, Michael T. Oeschger

Day Six of the fight. It has been a nasty one with horrible weather, rough terrain and lots of casualties. The guerrillas are hugging us close and wreaking havoc on our lines of communication.

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The most damaging loss to the brigade combat team (BCT) has been the destruction of the platoon of UH-60s and two Kiowas--40 crew and passengers dead or wounded and $20 million-plus in equipment destroyed during the last 72 hours. The worst part of it is, we shot them down accidentally with our own indirect fires.

Sound like a freak occurrence? Not at Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC), Fort Polk, Louisiana, rotations. The typical aviation fratricide at the JRTC takes one of two forms: over-flight of a unit (FA, mortar) while it is firing and flying through the sheaf of an indirect mission as it is being delivered on a target.

A typical over-flight incident involves assault and utility aircraft conducting resupply missions inside the airhead forward operating base (FOB). These aircraft operate without formal constraints (routes/corridors), even though they fly to and from the same four locations all week; they are lulled into a sense of security because the firing units are quiet most of the time. When the artillery does fire, their tactical operations centers (TOCs) validate that they are clear of the impact point, but the TOCs never think to check the origin points. Eventually, the pilots' luck runs out.

In a typical terminal effects incident, a ground company commander or fire support officer (FSO) clears a fire mission for ground elements and forgets the Kiowa Warrior orbiting overhead or does not clear the Kiowa Warrior to a realistic minimum distance from the indirect fire sheaf. The high volume of fire delivered in small areas at the JRTC coupled with the use of variable time (VT) as the preferred fuze lead to a high probability that a helicopter inside the sheaf footprint will be damaged or lost.

The cause of these incidents is that 90 percent of the BCTs don't plan for Army airspace command and control ([A.sup.2][C.sup.2]) inside their areas of responsibility (AORs)--they just take the plan division gives them. They don't plan standard-use Army aviation flight routes (SAAFRs) or air-corridors to deconflict air and ground operations in intensiveuse areas for aircraft conducting repetitive resupply missions or transiting to and from combat operations in their AORs. They don't plan restricted operating zones (ROZs), restricted operating areas (ROAs) or informal equivalents to keep aircraft outside the surface danger area around firing units. Finally, they don't establish fire support coordinating measures (FSCMs), airspace control measures (ACMs) or clearance-of-fires tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) for the Kiowa Warriors in support of the close fight in their AORs.

The average brigade S3 air literally takes the division [A.sup.2][C.sup.2] annex and publishes it as his own with no additions or refinements for the requirements of his AOR. Most FSOs don't know the dangers presented by the lack of an [A.sup.2][C.sup.2] plan or the doctrinal measures to correct them.

The average pilot is flying with a map that has outdated (or no) maneuver graphics, has no FSCMs or firing-unit locations posted on it and no ACMs. The pilot believes that, essentially, there are no constraints on his actions and no threat to his activities from friendly operations. He has received only a minimal situational awareness briefing before taking off and has no idea of the likely friendly maneuver or fires operations (and thus high-threat areas) for that day. He also has no visibility of active firing units and target areas because he is not monitoring the fires net. He is unaware, unconstrained and unafraid.

The failure to create and enforce effective [A.sup.2][C.sup.2] plans at the brigade level has three basic causes. First, most brigade senior leaders and staffs don't understand [A.sup.2][C.sup.2] requirements and don't know they are responsible for planning and coordinating [A.sup.2][C.sup.2] at their and their subordinates' levels. Second, combat arms leaders are not taught [A.sup.2][C.sup.2] doctrine and techniques in our schoolhouses. Third, based on this lack of leader knowledge, units fail to integrate realistic [A.sup.2][C.sup.2] training and events into their home-station training. This, in turn, leads to a lack of awareness of the dangers and required [A.sup.2][C.sup.2] corrective techniques needed in combined arms operations in combat

A number of useful field manuals and joint publications are available to guide brigade and lower level staffs to create [A.sup.2][C.sup.2] plans--fire support elements (FSEs) should keep them handy and review them regularly. (See Figure 1.)

FM 3-52 Army Airspace Command and Control in a Combat Zone clearly states that the brigade staff performs [A.sup.2][C.sup.2] at the brigade level and below. It further states, "Since no formalized [A.sup.2][C.sup.2] element exists at brigade, the brigade staff extracts information from various sources to perform [A.sup.2][C.sup.2]. The brigade commander may form a brigade [A.sup.2][C.sup.2] element from the air defense artillery [ADA] liaison officer [LNO], the brigade FSO, the air liaison officer [ALO] and the Army aviation LNO (when he is not present, the S3 air performs his duties)."