The Canadian Army Journal

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Mounted Close Fire
Mounted Close Fire will be the combat team integral heavy fire capability. Close fire
will allow combat team commanders to destroy targets at much greater stand-off ranges,
and to destroy targets protected behind cover or beyond terrain features. The full
potential of the close fire capability will be realized through integration with a mobile
battlefield network system (MBNS) for network enabled sensing and targeting. All
platforms will be able to queue more appropriate close fire systems onto detected targets
via a target handoff over the MBNS. An infantry fighting vehicle which identifies several
enemy tanks would electronically designate those targets to the MBNS which would
make friendly tank commanders fully aware and able to engage the unseen enemy with
BLOS munitions. But, the technology for this inter-vehicle hunter/killer capability may
still be a handful of years from maturity.
In the meantime, the close fire concept can still allow for incremental developments
in current capabilities, and structures for these incremental developments will still remain
relevant once a functioning MBNS is fielded. As an example, the introduction of an
MBNS will greatly increase the lethality and reach of an infantry company group but it
will not likely change the mix of weapons required. The ability to destroy infantry, infantry
fighting vehicles, UAV and fortifications will still be required. The ability to engage and
destroy heavy armour in self defence will continue to be required. Finally the ability to
achieve the previous effects must not be impaired by obstacles to fire such as steep
terrain changes or infrastructure. Much of this is already provided in the LAV III but not
the ability to defeat heavy armour or heavy fortifications. Tanks achieve this, but tanks
do not exist in sufficient quantity to form a combat team with every company. Therefore
an alternate missile or cannon system is likely required for company groups. To resolve
the issue of obstacles to fire, a company group could include a low velocity cannon (or
turret mortar systems) capable of engaging at high elevations over obstacles or
engaging short range direct fire where constricted terrain would limit the traverse of
traditional tank cannons.
Developing Close and Far Fire
To some the far fire concept may sound like just a new label on field artillery and
naval gunfire. Those same observers would argue that “close fire” is simply a new label
on organic firepower. These observers may be mostly correct as this new firepower
model breaks little if any new ground. In fact, the concepts of close and far fire can be
implemented with relatively little effort and no significant impact on our employment of
forces today. The change in thinking would primarily affect equipment acquisition and
development of force structures for tomorrow and the future.
Supporting the incremental evolution of the field force is input from the Canadian
Forces Experimentation Centre and the Army Experimentation Centre (DLSE 4). The
Joint Fires Support (JFS) Technology Demonstration Program (TDP), run through
CFEC, will define a concept to enable coordinated fire support�utilizing capability from
all services�that will be responsive to immediate fire requests and allow all services to
designate and prioritize targets and allocate fire requests. 36 While not using the
terminology, the JFS TDP is effectively already mandated to develop the far fire concept
in a joint context. At the same time, DLSE 4 will be completing Army Experiment 9 (AE9)
(Army of Tomorrow) and launching AE10 (Force 2021) and AE11 (Army of the Future).
These simulations will look at force employment concepts from platoon to formation level
and should provide relevant information for both close and far fire. Using Limited
Objective Experiment (LOE) 0201 Combat Support Weapons Mix as a template, DLSE
4 could derive several useful conclusions toward determining an optimum close fire
Canadian Army Journal Vol. 11.1 Spring 2008