Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

322 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
artillery could fire a variety of munitions, including illuminating rounds. 37 Clearance
procedures for using MLRS and ATACMS also often proved cumbersome. 38
At the same time the Army was deployed in Iraq, the institution was undergoing
a major reorganization. The traditional twentieth-century concept that field artillery
was never in reserve had resulted in pooling resources at the division level and
above, allowing flexibility in supporting operations as required and enhancing branch
training. Divisions normally had attached a direct-support field artillery battalion to
each of its combat brigades, but the practice became formalized with the modular
transformation of the Army. Although there are benefits in training for combined
operations in the fixed brigade organization, commanders may find less flexibility
designing task organizations for specific operations. 39
In Retrospect
The purpose of field artillery, supporting the maneuver arms in combat, has
not changed since 1775, when Henry Knox organized the first Continental artillery
organizations. From then on, however, field artillery in the U.S. Army has been
transformed from an arm having a relatively minor impact on the battlefield to
one of dominant force. Technology played a major role in changing the clumsy,
dangerous, and none-too-accurate direct-fire guns of the eighteenth century into
the precision weapons of today. Improvements in technology provided weapons
with the means to make more accurate and longer-ranging fire possible—advanced
sighting and recoil mechanisms, communications systems that resulted in successful
fire direction, positioning systems that reduced emplacement times, motorization
and mechanization that provided more rapid means of transport and rate of fire, and
munitions that improved range, precision, and lethality.
Methods of employment have also changed since 1775. During the Revolutionary
War, artillery pieces were attached to infantry brigades for close support; by
the end of the Civil War they were grouped into brigades or battalions assigned to
divisions and corps. Employment of field artillery gradually became centralized,
but at the dawn of the twenty-first century, decentralization is again in favor. With
a more lethal battlefield and sophisticated electronics, artillery pieces were designed
to be mobile with modern positioning, communications, and fire control systems
that allow them to be widely dispersed yet deliver mass fire.
The debate over mobility versus firepower has also been a consistent theme in the
history of field artillery. To displace, emplace, and move quickly, guns needed to be
light, but light guns do not have the firepower and range of heavier weapons. Early
guns, howitzers, and mortars often had to be moved by hand and largely depended on
hired transport, and the weight that could be drawn by animals limited their size and
force. During World War I, motorization was introduced, not necessarily to improve
37 Janosko and Cheatham, “Sound of Thunder,” p. 38; Robert F. Barry II, “Why Organic Fires,”
Field Artillery, March-June 2004, pp. 16–17; Bailey, Field Artillery and Firepower, pp. 441-42.
38 Janosko and Cheatham, “Sound of Thunder,” pp. 36–38; Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On
Point, pp. 250, 417.
39 Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point, pp. 398–99.