U.S. Army’s Artillery Branch Preparing For Future Wars By Returning To Cold War-Era Tactics

March 26, 2014. David Pugliese - Defence Watch

 

The Stars and Stripes is reporting that the U.S. Army’s field artillery is preparing for future wars by returning to Cold War-era tactics supplemented by modern, mobile technology.

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Though counterinsurgency has been at the center of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the recent past might not be the best guide to new threats, participants at the Future Artillery conference in London, hosted by Defense iQ, said earlier this week.

Maj. Gen. Mark McDonald, commander of the Fires Center of Excellence at Ft. Sill, Okla., told Stars and Stripes on the margins of the conference that U.S. artillery has to regain the capability to fight in more traditional, force-on-force style conflicts.

His vision of artillery training re-emphasizes 20th-century-style tactics but with 21st-century equipment. Soldiers would focus less on training to fire guns manually, by doing calculations themselves, and would instead rely more on the digital tools.

“We’ve got most of the pieces in place to be able to train the digital system. What we have to do is get everybody really comfortable with it, train with it more often, so that’s their go-to system,” McDonald said.

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