July 15, 2022

A history of the 101st Airborne Division (AASLT) Aviation Brigade TACP

With the Aviation Brigade functioning as an independent maneuver brigade, the question of how the Aviation Brigade TACP would function in supporting not only the brigade itself, but also its several attack battalions, initially presented quite a challenge. Attempting to find an equitable solution to this dilemma, the Aviation Brigade went through basically three evolutionary stages in its operating concept.

July 1, 2022

NO MAN’S LAND, PEANUT BUTTER, AND ARMY AVIATION: THE CASE FOR A FOURTH BCT TYPE AND REORGANIZING THE US ARMY FOR A 200 MPH BATTLEFIELD

The U.S. Army currently has 12 active Combat Aviation Brigades (CABs), and like peanut butter on a sandwich, each of the Army’s ten active-duty divisions enjoys its own evenly spread CAB. The cost of equality in aviation support across the Army is paid by sacrificing our ability to conduct independent operational maneuver at air-mobile speeds. Current American operational formations cannot assure U.S. land force domain overmatch against peer competitors. To maintain land dominance the U.S. Army must create a fourth Brigade Combat Team (BCT) type, the Air-Mobile Brigade Combat Team (AMBCT), and further we must arrange AMBCTs into air-mobile divisions aligned under an air-mobile corps. Our minimum benchmark for operational maneuver must include at least two divisions, able to lift by air, with all assets moving at air-mobile speeds up to 200 mph. To state the problem simply, we have Armor divisions with enough armor, why don’t we have Air-Mobile divisions with enough helicopters?

June 15, 2022

Effective Airspace Management to Facilitate Fires – Establishing an Airspace Management Authority (AMA)

Article Originally Published in Air Land Sea Bulletin 2008-03, September 2008 It used to be enough to establish a coordinating altitude and communicate jointly only on those rare occasions when United States Army (USA) or United States Marine Corps (USMC) operations required venturing to higher altitudes. However, while the Air Force still maintains the preponderance of air assets, the airspace has become saturated with much more than USAF aircraft. Ground fires, Close Air Support (CAS) stacks, and a multitude of unmanned platforms occupying the same airspace will require a steady-state coordination mechanism for continuously servicing joint and coalition dynamic requests for airspace.

June 1, 2022

Fighting to Share: Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) TTP for Tactical Organizations

On March 6, 2020, the Office of the Under Secretary for Defense and Intelligence published Department of Defense Instruction (DODI) 5200.48, Controlled Unclassified Information. The publication of initial standards and implementation represented a culmination of executive branch efforts begun in November of 2010. According to Executive Order (EO) 13556, the President of the United States recognized that “executive departments and agencies employ ad hoc, agency-specific policies, procedures, and markings to safeguard and control… information that involves privacy, security, proprietary business interests, and law enforcement investigations.” EO 13556 represented the efforts of the Obama administration to standardize controls for unclassified information in the interests of both protection and transparency.

May 15, 2022

COORDINATION MEASURES

Many have heard of, and used, airspace coordinating measures (ACMs) and fire support coordination measures (FSCMs). Until a few years ago, as a graybeard combat airspace, air operations center (AOC) guy and former AOC formal training unit instructor (R2), and multi-tour air liaison officer (ALO) and former combat air operations center (CAOC) Chiefs of Combat Operations (p2 and Shaf), we thought ACMs restricted “things” from going through ACMs unless they were coordinated with a controlling agency. We thought ACMs protected aircraft orbiting in a restricted operating zone (ROZ) from other aircraft and fires (i.e., artillery, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GLMRS), Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) etc.). We were wrong!

May 1, 2022

Army Airspace Management During Large-Scale Combat Operations

The Air Defense Airspace Management/Brigade Aviation Element (ADAM/BAE) is a critical combat multiplier for Army brigade formations during large-scale combat operations (LSCO). Airspace is a finite resource which is under the purview of the joint commander, yet the number of airspace users utilized in the brigade area of operations continues to grow at an exponential rate. The ADAM/BAE remains uniquely situated to provide airspace management of the growing number of airspace users required for success against a peer competitor in LSCO.

April 25, 2022

Kill Box Update 2022

In the fall of 2008, members of the inaugural and second MTTP Kill Box joint working groups published an article called, “Kill Box Update,” in the Air Land Sea Bulletin. Large changes in MTTP Kill Box and the need to consolidate information and decisions generated from a joint staff joint fires area test motivated the authors to publish an update to the field. History repeats itself, and again, 13 years later, another kill box update is necessary to educate the joint force on the results of a joint test affecting the development of MTTP Kill Box.

April 14, 2022

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) – A Model for Joint Weapons Systems

Each of the services is currently involved in some aspect of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program. Some services are more heavily committed to the concept than others, and crossovers exist throughout the program. This multi-Service approach presents a tremendous opportunity for commonality, interoperability, and expansion of joint warfighting tactics, techniques, and procedures that must not be lost. If the services can cooperate in the purchase, staffing, and operation of UAVs, there may be hope for expanding this kind of cooperation into other future joint systems.

March 31, 2022

Maneuver, Modernization, and the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War

Eastern and Western perceptions of military affairs surface in the region of South Caucasus, a historic crossroad of multiple cultures and worrying parties and erupted into a full-scale war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the fall of 2020 over a region called Nagorno-Karabakh, the mountainous enclave between two countries for which both nations maintain their cultural, national, and strategic claims. Prolonged military build-ups, defense coalition initiatives and military modernization are the backdrops for what is now called the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.

March 22, 2022

“That Others May Live”: Partner Nation integrates with U.S. Rescue forces for joint training

AQABA, JORDAN — 1st Expeditionary Rescue Group Airmen recently conducted Exercise Agile Rescue alongside the Royal Jordanian Navy in Aqaba, Jordan, Feb. 27 – March 3. The search and rescue exercise developed and refined rescue agile employment processes, testing the ability of multinational rescue forces to work in unison with USAF Rescue forces to beddown, sustain, and execute maritime search and rescue.