Expanding Role of Marine Artillery WOs - marine artillery warrant officers

FA Journal, May, 2001 by Quint D. Avenetti

The USMC survey officer billet dates back to the early 1960s. The artillery needed technical experts who could dedicate themselves to understanding the complex art of surveying and sounding the atmosphere for meteorological information or coordinating sound and flash ranging teams. Therefore, the Marine artillery warrant officer (WO) billet was established.

But times have changed. Today's artillery warrant officers have better systems and more time to serve the Marine Corps in an expanded capacity, making the most of their considerable expertise.

This article gives a brief history of the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) 0803 Marine Warrant Officers' role in the Marine Corps, leading to the formulation of a plan to revise the 0803s' billets and professional development progression. It also outlines the plan to migrate the 0803 into the world of targeting and fires tactical systems, starting in late 2001 , while not forsaking the 0803's obligation to survey, Met and radar.

History of the Marine Artillery Warrant. The early warrant officer was expected to know how to maintain and fix the equipment, much like today's Army MOS 131A Targeting Technician counterpart does with the radar. Some of the equipment, such as the AN/ TPQ-4 countermortar radar and the GMD meteorological system, could consume a great deal of a warrant officer's time just to keep it running.

Vietnam saw survey crews cutting line-of-site with machetes to perform survey. Radar personnel were largely doing sound and flash ranging or extremely risky crater analysis under fire to acquire enemy indirect fire (rating an "automatic" Bronze Star). Meteorological crews sounded the atmosphere with pilot balloons and manual theodolites and then "cut" ballistic winds on a chart to extract zoned atmospheric information to apply to the gunnery solutions.

Some units were starting to see the early stages of solid-state equipment, which made their jobs somewhat easier but required a lot of man-hours to maintain or fix. This was the responsibility of the 0803 Survey/Met Officer.

Operations in Beirut introduced peace keeping into the Marines' warfighting book, and target acquisition continued to play an important role. Marine TA platoons rotated into Beirut in support of the Marine amphibious unit, or MAU (now called a Marine expeditionary unit, or MEU), conducting a peace keeping mission. The 0803 coordinated survey, Met and TA operations, although it was common to have a lieutenant as the TA platoon commander.

Beirut became the test bed for the AN/ TPQ-36 Firefinder radar; an Army team from Fort Sill was dispatched to Beirut to reinforce the Marine TA and, eventually, the counterfire effort. CWO3 Richard Ortiz, MOS 0803, was the officer-in-charge (OIC) of the team in Beirut. He and his soldiers were killed in the terrorist bombing of the MAU headquarters on 23 October 1983.

Technological advances delivered the AN/USQ-70 position and azimuth determining system (PADS), AN/TMQ-41 meteorological measuring set (MMS) and AN/TPQ-46A (Army AN/TPQ-36 Version 8) Firefinder radar. These systems were easier to maintain and operate. Digital communications tied them together, and advanced tactical data systems facilitated employing them. This technology allowed the 0803 to focus more on new methods of employing his gear and, consequently, improve operational efficiency.

In 1997, the 0803 community was challenged to identify its future. The reality is that the 0803's history in survey, Met and radar is coming to an end. The 0803 community has had to ask itself if Marine artillery warrant officers could not better serve the artillery in a different role. Thus, the development of a plan to expand the role of the 0803 in the Marine Corps began.

The 0803 Migration Plan. The 0803 community examined the role of the Army 131A. The Army artillery warrants had migrated into targeting billets while maintaining a base as radar technical experts. However, the Marine Corps was not prepared to leave meteorology "unattended."

The 0803 was introduced to the five elements of accurate, predicted fires to achieve first-round fire for effect--the five elements never to be taken for granted. It was important the 0803 community understood that "Artillery is who we are and fire support is what we do."

With personnel drawdowns and increasing demands on the 0802 Marine Artillery Officer, it seemed that once the officer learned his job as a Target Information Officer (TIO), he was transferred to a new billet in the process of grooming him to be an artillery commander. Thus, the Marine artillery warrant will progress to a TIO billet as a CWO3 in the new plan. (See Figure 1.)

The TIO is not only a targeting technician, but also a manager of tactical fire direction data via the advanced FA tactical data system (AFATDS) or initial fire support automated system (IFSAS). The newly trained 0803 will not be a communications officer, rather he will be the resident expert on the connectivity of artillery systems: information flow and tactical as well as technical considerations of employment.