What are your thoughts about Army doctrine like FM 3-0 and 7-0: Does everyone in the Army need to read it, or should that just be the responsibility of commanders? Is the new online format used for FM 7-0 the right direction for the Army to take in the future? Other suggestions for or comments about Army doctrine?
One Comment on "Army doctrine: Just for a chosen few?"
Understanding Doctrine is Key
The Army has done a good job over the past six months updating the doctrine. With all of the updates to Army doctrine, it is imperative to go through it and identify the changes and understand how it affects your branch. We continue to operate in a Joint/Combined force. Understanding our doctrine and how it differs/compliments is essential. Joint Pubs are approved by all services and only content agreed upon by all services is kept. This creates some differences in doctrine amongst the Services. It is this area where we need to be experts in our fields, identifying differences and figuring out how to proceed.
Take Close Air Support (CAS) for example. As an Artilleryman, this is a highly requested task. ADRP 1-02 mirrors the definition in JP 1-02. This means that your pilot could be Air Force, Navy, or Marine and they would provide the same resource. Where it differs is in regards to rotary wing assets. Marine rotary wing assets also conduct CAS where Army Aviators perform Close Combat Attack (CCA). The difference is CCA doesn’t require terminal control. This may seem like a small detail, but in order to get the effects required, you need to understand the doctrine and what to ask for.
It is also important to know our operational graphics and how they differ from other services/coalition partners. Unlike ADRP1-02, JP 1-02 doesn’t cover operational graphics, so you may not know what is doctrinally accepted/understood by other services. An example is the Army Observer. A triangle is doctrinally accepted by the Army and is understood to represent the location of a friendly observer. However, if you ask a pilot to identify the icon, he will say it is a target, because that is how it is depicted on their targeting screen. This is just one example of many that shows the importance of understanding our doctrine and knowing how it differs from other services/coalition partners in order to avoid issues and get the desired results.