Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

The rOad TO fleXiBle resPOnse
UH–1D Iroquois in flight
265
The division’s 11th Air Assault Aviation Group provided the helicopters for the
maneuvers. 36
The aerial rocket artillery battalion was a new organization for the Army. For
the first time, aircraft were designated for use as artillery pieces. Each of the three
UH–1B helicopters in the head quarters battery was armed with the M–6 kit (two M60
7.62-mm. machine guns on each side of the helicopter) and was used for command
and control, liaison, and reconnais sance. The twelve helicopters in each of the three
firing batteries were armed with the XM–3 kit (twenty-four 2.75-inch folding-fin
rocket tubes mounted on each side of the aircraft). The rocket battalion was capable
of providing only relatively fair-weather direct-fire artillery support, but because of
its mobility, range, and speed, it was very responsive. Between missions, it could
be staged out of range of enemy cannon and in areas extremely difficult for enemy
ground units to penetrate. Most significant to the infantry was the role played by
airmobile artillery during air as saults. The Army had been trying to reduce the time
gap between cannon artillery preparation fire and the assaulting infantry men’s arrival
at the objective. In the air assault division, the infantrymen rode UH–1D helicopters
and set down on or near the objective as soon as the rocket-armed UH–1Bs shifted
preparatory fires from the immediate vicinity of the landing zone. 37
Like the aerial rocket artillery battalion, the Little John battalion was to provide
conventional general support, but it was also to furnish the division with a nuclear
36 Ibid.; William A. Becker, “Divarty Fullback,” United States Army Aviation Digest, July 1965, pp.
1–7; David L. Johnson and James H. Fitzgerald, “Battlefield Artillery Airmobility Concepts,” U.S. Army
Aviation Digest, July 1965, pp. 8–11.
37 Becker, “Divarty Fullback,” p. 4.