Armored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment

by Tom Clancy

  The FAASV has a conveyer system that can pass ammunition and propellant charges between it and an M109A6 without requiring the crews to exit the vehicles. This makes a big difference should a Paladin battery come under enemy fire (though under safer conditions, crews usually prefer to move the ammunition and propellant charges between vehicles by hand). In addition to these capabilities, the FAASV can be used as a prime mover for virtually any of the towed howitzers in the Army inventory should it be necessary. It even has the muscle to tow a disabled Paladin!

  Each of the 824 Paladins that the Army plans to buy will have its own FAASV assigned to support it in the field. Older self-propelled guns will retain ammunition carriers such as the M548, which is based on the M113 chassis.

  So just what does all of this mean to the crews who will operate the Paladins and the commanders who will depend on it for responsive, accurate artillery fire? Well, consider the following example. One of the most popular uses for mobile artillery during Desert Storm was the armored artillery raid. These were hit-and-run raids into Iraq and Kuwait by self-propelled artillery to attack targets that required something more than a few bombs to destroy, but were beyond the range of the 16”/406mm guns of the battleships Wisconsin and Missouri. So valuable were these raids that they appeared on the daily air tasking order issued from the “black hole” headquarters in Riyadh which controlled all bombardment of Iraq and occupied Kuwait.

  So let us assume that we have a battalion of Paladins that has been assigned to move across the front lines to conduct such a raid on an enemy fuel depot some 30 miles/50 kilometers behind the front. Their job will be to rapidly move about 18 miles/30 kilometers into enemy territory, rapidly set up, and fire a dozen or so rounds from each vehicle. They then will have to quickly move to another position to repeat the procedure, and then run for home across their own lines.

  An artillery battalion never sets off on such an adventure without help and a lot of planning; and so this mission is laid out to the last detail. The battalion itself is composed of three artillery batteries, each of which is composed of eight M109A6 Paladins (organized into two platoons of four vehicles each), eight M992A1 FAASVs (four per platoon), and a pair of modified M577s called Platoon Control Vehicles (PCVs-one per platoon). The PCVs are designed to take fire missions from the TACFIRE system and rapidly distribute them among the M109A6s in the platoon. If necessary, however, Paladins can accept and process fire requests directly from a forward or aerial observer. According to the Army’s usual practice, the guns are escorted, in this case by an armored cavalry troop (nine M1A2s, thirteen M3 Bradley scout vehicles, an M981 FIST-V, and a pair of M125 106mm mortar carriers) and a few OH-58D Kiowa Warrior scout helicopters to guard the task force’s flanks. Not so large a force that it attracts a lot of enemy attention, but large enough to destroy the enemy supply base or blunt the nose of an enemy offensive probe.

  The artillery task force sets out after dark, with the scouts of the armored cavalry troop leading the way, and with the Paladins and PCVs behind them. Seeking a seam in the line where enemy coverage is thin, the force moves through as quickly as possible to minimize their exposure to enemy observation. Thanks to the IVIS system on the cavalry vehicles and the interface (a sort of digital “hook”) to the TACFIRE system, all of the maneuver orders are issued without any need to communicate via the voice radios, and thus attract enemy attention. Also, with every vehicle having a precision navigation system, there is no need for them to travel together. In fact, the task force could break into small platoon-sized groups and move separately to the first assembly area. Meanwhile, the FAASVs and a few of the tanks and scout vehicles lag behind to set up a resupply area, ready to move wherever the artillery task force needs them.

  As is normal in such operations, several small two-man teams of Army Rangers from the Special Forces Group at Fort Benning, Georgia, are placed ahead as scouts and forward observers. These teams observe any enemy movement in the target area, and they will provide corrections for the artillery strikes. The move to the first fire position is quick, taking less than an hour from the time of crossing the front line. As soon as Paladins are in their planned firing positions, each vehicle sends a data-link signal up the network to indicate it is ready to fire. What happens next will be fast. Very fast.

  In the task force commander’s vehicle, a message is tapped out on a data terminal (called a “Data Message Device” or DMD) calling for a fire mission on the fuel depot. Each platoon is assigned a different part of the facility. At the end of the message is a final piece of data, the “time on target” (TOT) for the artillery barrage. To maximize the effect of surprise, the commander tries to synchronize the firing of every gun, so that the first rounds all impact simultaneously. Once the fire mission is on the way over the network, and the TOT is being counted down, the breeches of the howitzers are opened, projectiles (conventional high explosive for this job) and powder bags are rammed in, the breeches closed, and the final checks made. The Paladin commanders and gunners punch in the target coordinates, and the MAPS system continues to update gun location and direction, calculating just where to point the gun in elevation and azimuth. The crews, breathing through their MCS masks, are already preparing the second shot when the fire-control system fires the first round. In less than a second (depending upon their positions relative to the target area), all twenty-four Paladins have fired their first round, and the crews are loading their second. Normally, the Army standard is for a crew to be able to load and fire one round per minute until the ammunition runs out. But there is also a rapid-fire drill, with the crew doing a frantic but precisely orchestrated dance inside the turret of the M109A6, firing around a dozen rounds in just over three minutes. This is what happens now. In a little over 180 seconds, some 288 high-explosive shells are exploding on the enemy fuel depot some 12 miles/20 kilometers away. Meanwhile, the team of Rangers, in a concealed overwatch position, are tapping out battle-damage assessments on a small telecommunications terminal, to inform the task force commander if the target has been destroyed, or if it has to be hit again. As the fuel dump goes up in flames, it is time to go home.

  “Shoot and scoot” is the name of the game here, and that is exactly what happens now. As soon as the last of the rounds have left the gun tubes, the Paladins, PCVs, and their cavalry escorts are running to the secondary fire position that has been laid out for them. Only about a ten-to-twelve minute dash from the primary position, the Paladins stop here and see if they need to fire more upon the depot, or to take action to insure their own escape. In this case, the decision is for a quick 12-round fire mission of FASCAM mines upon the probable enemy approaches to their escape route home and to the depot (to keep them from fighting the fires). This done, everyone heads by planned routes back to friendly lines. Along the way, if one of the OH-58Ds Kiowa Warrior scout helicopters sights anything pursuing the retreating Paladins, the Paladins themselves can be their own best help, with a quick fire mission of Copperheads. All the gunner/observer on the chopper need do is lay the laser designator on the targets, punch in a designator code, feed the request for fire mission onto the network and, within sixty seconds, a Copperhead will be arching over the battlefield for a direct hit on the intruder.

  Since there was no need for extra ammunition, the FAASVs with their escorts are now headed back for a rendezvous with the task force Paladins back behind friendly lines. Each M109A6 is given a grid coordinate to meet up with its assigned FAASV, and then the process of resupply and clean-up begins. For the gunners and loaders, this means getting out the cleaning rods and Break-Free cleaner to clear the powder residue from the gun barrels and breeches, and restocking the ammo and propellant racks. For the driver, it is maintenance of the tracks and checking the vehicle fluids. For the commander, mission and ordnance reports, and starting to get ready for the next day’s fire missions.

  Such is the daily life for what has become known as the “king of battles,” artillery. And right now, the M 109A6 rules the kin
gdom.

  The Future

  We have spent a lot of words looking at the importance of artillery on the modern battlefield. If this has proven anything, it is that the long reach of artillery can “vaporize” entire enemy units at the flick of a switch. And while other types of fire such as that from helicopters and tanks can reach out and kill a single vehicle with deadly accuracy, artillery can kill many beyond visual range in a single strike. Though this might seem to be enough, there are already initiatives afoot within the Army to make cannons even more deadly. The first of these is a new artillery-control system. While the TACFIRE net has been a capable control system, it suffers from several shortcomings. One is a shortage of interface “hooks” with other maneuver and vehicle-control systems. Another is the dependence of TACFIRE upon large, centrally located computer processors at the battalion artillery command post. The destruction or failure of the TACFIRE processor means the loss of the whole system served by that processor. To get around this, the U.S. Army is starting to deploy a new artillery-control system called the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS). AFATDS is designed to overcome the TACFIRE’s limitations, while adding new capabilities that had not even been imagined when TACFIRE was designed. For starters, AFATDS is composed of numerous, smaller computer processors that work in what is called a “distributed” architecture. This means that a computer processor can be placed anywhere on the AFATDS network and contribute its power to the job of running the network. In addition, the AFATDS consoles and user interfaces have been completely redesigned, so that they are easier to use and can be rapidly reprogrammed to accommodate new tactics and artillery systems. AFATDS has also been designed to work with and “talk” with a wider variety of U.S. Army systems than TACFIRE, so that more people in a given unit can call for and receive artillery support when and where they need it. AFATDS is a long-overdue capability for those who manage the big guns.

  As for the guns themselves, there are several possibilities. The U.S. Army has been doing research and development on an Advanced Field Artillery System (AFAS). This is a new kind of howitzer that uses a liquid propellant (LP) instead of the bagged solid propellants used today. LPs have the advantage of being both more efficient and more capable of being controlled than pre-measured bags of solid propellant. The downside is that storage and management of the LP are more difficult, and this has required some very advanced chemical engineering just to make it work. Some in the Army argue that it is a “high-risk” technology, not yet mature enough to put in the field. So some artillery experts are promoting an alternative to LP, called a “Unicharge.” Unicharge is a new family of NATO propellants that are more efficient and powerful than the normal bagged charges. The use of Unicharge requires a slight redesign of the howitzer (a 1,400-cubic-inch chamber rather than the 1,100-cubic-inch chamber on the M109A6), but it promises the same kind of range and accuracy as the LP weapons currently under development.

  So the question is, which one to develop and field? If money were not a consideration, it is probable that the Paladin would be immediately modified to take the Unicharge 155mm gun, and the LP technology would go back to the laboratories for more work. But money is an issue, and always will be, especially in these times of drawdown and cutback in the armed forces. While the debate over the risks and advantages of LP versus solid propellants is beyond the scope of this discussion, it is sure to be a volatile and vigorous battle within the artillery community.

  On the MLRS side, things are a bit clearer. The XR-M77 and SADARM warheads are ready to be produced; they can be fielded as soon as Congress supplies the money. There is even work beginning on an extended-range variant of ATACMS, to strike up to 186 miles/300 kilometers away. More is to come.

  U.S. Army Aviation Systems

  Early on the morning of January 16th, 1991, an Iraqi technician was walking from one building to another at an air-defense command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I) center in south central Iraq. His name and job are still unknown, but on that night he became, briefly, a TV star. For as he walked to the door of the building ahead of him, four bizarre-looking shapes were hovering close to the ground eight kilometers to the south. Suddenly, tongues of fire erupted from the hovering shapes, arching like fiery arrows into the buildings. One after another, the vans, antennas, generators, and barracks of the command center exploded into flame. Stunned by the blasts, the technician started running, probably trying to reach his duty station. He never made it, for as he reached the door to the building and opened it, a Hellfire missile flew directly through the door ahead of him. As the warhead detonated, destroying that side of the building, the blast consumed the technician, making him one of the first Iraqi casualties of Saddam Hussein’s insane dream to rule Kuwait. Video cameras attached to the thermal gunsights of the helicopters captured the event in ghostly, blurred images the Pentagon released for public distribution.

  The instrument of the technician’s death was neither an Air Force F-117A stealth fighter nor a Navy BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile, but a flight of U.S. Army AH-64A Apache helicopters. These Army Apaches were landing the first blows of Desert Storm. Even before the high-tech F-117s and Tomahawks hit their targets around Iraq, Task Force Normandy was striking at a pair of Iraqi air defense centers (known as Objectives Nebraska and Oklahoma) along the southern border. The task force was composed of two flights of Apaches (four in each flight; they were code-named Team Red and Team White), along with a pair of Air Force MH-53J Pave Low special-operations helicopters (for communications, navigational, and rescue support if required). The task force was the first element of the Coalition forces to enter enemy territory, and it blasted open two holes in the Iraqi air defense barrier. Destroying these targets was vital, since strike aircraft scheduled to hit SCUD launchers in western Iraq and other targets had to fly through zones controlled by the two air-defense centers. Unless they were destroyed in the opening seconds of the air campaign, there was a real chance that Iraqi air defenses might have inflicted heavy losses on the Coalition aircraft, and warned other targets deeper in Iraq to get ready. The destruction of these targets was so critical that General Norman Schwarzkopf, the CENTCOM commander, demanded a 100% guarantee of success.

  The only officer to step up to the challenge of this guarantee was Lieutenant Colonel Richard Cody, an Army Aviation officer of the 101st Air Assault Division. Cody knew that the two air-defense centers had to be destroyed with “to-the-second” timing, and observed to be truly “dead” at the end of the attack. Even the best strike aircraft with the finest targeting systems could not do this; something else was needed. That something was the AH-64A Apache attack helicopter. Lieutenant Colonel Cody felt that the combination of the Apache’s firepower, superior thermal-imaging sight, and ability to loiter and observe the results of its attacks made it the only aircraft in CENTCOM capable of the job.

  The results of Task Force Normandy’s raid that early January morning showed that Cody’s confidence in the Apache and the men of the 101st was not just foolhardy bravado. As he and the other fifteen Army soldiers of the task force were firing their missiles, rockets, and cannon shells towards the Iraqis, they were making a statement to the world that Army Aviation had truly come of age. No longer the bastard child of an ugly divorce between the post-World War II Army and its upstart fledgling, the U.S. Air Force, it was ready to take its place as a combat arm for the battlefield commanders of the 1990s and beyond.

  The hostilities that led to the divorce between the Army and its Air Corps started after World War I, when flying had a special attraction for visionaries and technological extremists. These men dreamed of mighty bomber fleets that could win a war on the first day with a decisive strike on the enemy’s economic and political centers. Army generals on the other hand, by nature a conservative bunch, just wanted a few airplanes with obedient fliers for ground support, which meant strafing enemy trenches, dropping some bombs on command posts and supply dumps, spotting for the artillery, and snapping a
few reconnaissance photos, while preventing enemy planes from doing the same.

  Clashes over the future role of air power culminated in the court-martial of General Billy Mitchell in 1925. This and other traumatic struggles gave the officers of the Army Air Corps a collective sense of persecution and martyrdom. Unable to secure recognition as a separate service (something the British Royal Air Force had achieved in 1919 and the German Luftwaffe would attain in 1933), the Army Air Corps spent the whole of World War 11 working hard to prove its strategic importance, all the while lobbying for its own independent branch. This battle it ultimately won, at the cost of thousands of aircraft and fliers lost in heroic daylight bombing missions of sometimes questionable value. With the coming of the atomic bomb, the Army Air Corps had the only means to deliver it, and the birth of a separate Air Force was inevitable. In 1947, President Harry Truman signed the National Security Act, which created the Department of Defense, and made the Air Force an equal branch beside the Army and Navy. The Air Force packed up its planes and bases and left the Army. All it left behind were a few spotting planes, liaison and VIP aircraft, and some wobbly experimental machines called helicopters (which at the time did not seem to have much of a future). With that meager estate, the surviving members of Army Aviation made their new start.

  When Igor Sikorsky started delivering helicopters at the end of World War II, they were fragile and unreliable. That was to change in the Korean War, which gave them their first chance for action—as air ambulances. Thousands of United Nations soldiers owed their lives to the noisy “whirlybirds,” and a new mission for Army fliers, that of “medevac”-or “dust off”-was born. Throughout the 1950s, advances in engine technology gradually increased the most vital element of rotocraft performance: load-lifting and carrying capacity. During this time, both the Army and the Marine Corps were conducting experiments to find out just what these flying machines could do for them. Meanwhile, both the Air Force and Navy neglected helicopters, concentrating on nuclear-armed bombers, supersonic fighters, and air-to-air guided missiles. In the late 1950s, a breakthrough in technology made the helicopter into a full partner in the world of airpower: the gas-turbine engine. As we have seen earlier, gas turbines (self contained jet engines that deliver torque to a shaft instead of thrust through a tailpipe) can produce enormous torque with only a minimum of volume and weight. This makes them the ideal power plant for helicopters, which are always trading weight for payload and performance. The new turbines were such an improvement over earlier reciprocating-engine power plants that several designs were converted to take the new engines with only minimal modifications.