The Raven Report: 01 MAY 23
Air Mission Requests and The Shifting Culture
Air Mission Requests and The Shifting Culture
From Counter Insurgency to Large-Scale Combat Operations
For the past generation, we have collectively only known Counter Insurgency (COIN) tactics and controlling the area of operations in a specific environment. With the always impending peer-on-peer threat in a multi-domain style of warfare, we are late to the modern battlefield.
Over the course of multiple rotations, units filter through city-sized FOBs with full contract and logistics support wherever they go, making it all too easy to become comfortable and complacent. As the battlespace morphs into a multi-domain operation, so do we.
By expanding how we train with different MOSs (such as the entirety of the 81st) in real-time training operations, we will start to dominate this new art of war. Change is necessary for the WAARNG to transition into a new way of thinking and a new way of operating.
A perfect start begins with our integration and cross-cooperation in pre-deployment/mobilization training centers and IDT/ATs. Through NTC, XCTC, JRTC, and Ft. Hood, the experience is always vastly different from the actuality of what down range looks like while still fervently focusing on COIN operations.
With LSCO (Large Scale Combat Operations) and multi-domain environments having a focus on centralized planning with decentralized execution, the preparation and training must mirror that. We should both have BDE and DIV assets involved for the benefit of all players for concepts like coordinating air support, fires, and integration of all domain assets.
Implementation of degraded logistics problems such as fuel limitations and mass casualty events will better prepare our troops and leaders to churn their critical and creative thinking, adding to unit SOP’s.
COIN operations have been the culture and baseline for the past generation of warfighters living in the complacency of a battlespace that we ultimately own. The biggest threat to air assets in this new battle space is the growing technology and implementation of anti-air capabilities. With assistance from our ground MOS’s, we will have sincere lessons learned, helping to drive revisions for doctrine as a living and dynamic document in a LSCO setting.
It no longer is a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’ we start the next peer-to-peer engagement, the steep learning curve might result in heavy attrition rates and somber lessons learned. We still have a chance to write this narrative, but only if we go back to the basics and mentality of ‘living outside of our foxhole’ with the implementation of decentralized execution in a large-scale battlefield.
Army Aviation can be a critical support to all ground customers if utilized and understood correctly, expediting the flow of combat and emplacing mass troops on any objective. As we all move forward with modernization and into a LSCO environment, it is prudent for us to work cohesively.
The AMR Process
We are always happy to support AMRs (Air Mission Requests) when we have the available maintenance, personnel, and schedule to do so. We have UH-60s that can accommodate Air Assaults and MEDEVAC OPS, as well as CH-47s for troop transport and heavy lift.
Form 5100 (HERE) breaks down all the required information needed to send up a request to the 1-168th Air Mission Request Office. Once we receive the form, we will start to process and ensure proper communication persists throughout while setting up any appropriate IPRs as necessary.
POC for all AMR-related questions and process is 1LT Taylor Payne (253) 495-4145, taylor.m.payne.mil@army.mil
Book of the Week
A small, but mighty book that should be in the pocket of every platoon leader and platoon sergeant is Freidman’s On Tactics.
From the back:
“Originally setting out to write the very book that he would have wanted to own as a young infantryman, the author penned On Tactics as a remedy for navigating the chaotic and inchoate realm of tactical theory. Challenging centuries-old conventional wisdom regarding the principles of war, tactics, and the roles of strategy, doctrine, experiential learning, and military history, Friedman's work offers a striking synthesis of thinking on tactics as well as strategy.”
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