PPT Slide
Assessing the Knowns. The Field Artillery Roadmap is a comprehensive, analytically supportedstrategy for modernizing and developing the Field Artillery through the first two decades of the 21st Century. It enables us to better understand the future in terms of threat/capability trends; technology; future warfighting concepts; and resources.
Threat/Capabilities. Regardless of a given threat, the basic requirement to win on the future battlefield with minimal casualties remains in effect. While we cannot know the real nature of the "threat" associated with the 2020 time frame, we can assume that by the second decade of the next century, regional and peer competitors possessing niche technologies and modern warfighting capabilities will exist. In short, we must ensure the Field Artillery can prevail over the forces of a given peer or regional competitor. To do this, the FA must be as lethal and effective as it can possible be.
Technology Trends. It appears that through the dynamic combination of advanced warfighting concepts and emerging technologies, especially information technologies, we can potentially transform warfare through a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). From an Artillery perspective, it is imperative that we fully leverage the RMA to achieve future operational capabilities for the purpose of providing accurate and lethal fires for Army 21 and the Army After Next.
Future Concepts. The Ascendency of Fires is predicated on two basic operational capabilities - Dominant Battlespace Awareness, and Precision Strike. Still, the real potential of the future of combined arms hinges on a more basic function, i.e. the ability to fully integrate fires and maneuver. The effective coordination and integration of direct and indirect fires is a complex and difficult function under the best circumstances with good communications, effective staffs, and clear commanders' intent. Many of the problems associated with this integration will carry over into the next century despite advances in automated command and control. For this reason, the FA Roadmap focuses on achieving significant improvements in integrating and fuzing fires and maneuver into a single dynamic, truly unified combat power. In short, unified combat power enables commanders to apply precision, fully integrated fires simultaneously throughout the
battle space with rapid, effective, "hair-trigger" like execution.
Resources. The factors covered under resources are funding, both procurement and research and
SECTION 1 - Establish a Common Grid