I have an idea I want to bounce off some of you FOO-types.
As you may (or may not) know, Recce's primary offensive weapon, especially in the defence, is the artillery. Accordingly, we train all our soldiers to be able to call fire missions and correct fire - the idea being that the FOO is both on our net (we're talking to the FOO, not the guns) and not far enough forward to observe and carry out the mission himself.
On exercise by ourselves, somebody in the CP will play FOO, and usually just parrots back the FOO's "dialogue" during the call for fire. On larger exercises, I assume we have a real FOO on the net, and that the FOO is relaying the mission back to the guns (who I assume are dry-firing the mission)
These fire missions tend to be by the numbers - initial call for fire, a couple of corrections, fire for effect, end mission. Bada-bing, bada-boom.
But in Real Life, nothing works as planned, and it'd be cool to throw a few real-life wrinkles into the exercise.
What I'm thinking is that we'd send a few sealed envelopes along with each callsign, marked on the front with a basic target type - maybe "dug in infantry", "infantry in open", "CRP" etc.
When an opportunity for a fire mission comes up, open one of the envelopes that most closely corresponds to your target type. Inside will be a description of what happens during the fire mission. Most of these will be "by the numbers" with some sort of description of what happens during the FFE - for example, the tank in the CRP might be overturned, or maybe the track gets blown off and the crew bails, or maybe it withdraws intact... but basically, it's a normal fire mission.
But a small percentage has a suprise in it. Some ideas I had:
1) During the FFE, an incoming round strays left/right/long and lands in a wooded or otherwise covered area - and there's a big secondary explosion. If fire is shifted to the woods (may need permission from higher!) there are further secondary explosions. Fire may esclate (on the discretion of the FOO and direction from the CP) until all guns in the area are firing on the target. The concept here is the accidental discovery of a high-value target of opportunity (a forward fuel/weapons cache, or perhaps a hidden SAM battery)
2) Durring FFE, a round lands short, either very near, or ON, the OP. Need to check fire on the mission WITHOUT giving away the OP's position ("Golf 24, you just hit my OP!" tells the enemy where the OP is), deal with casulties, and re-establish the mission minus the offending gun. (I'd really like to hear the official way a FOO would handle this, BTW)
Etc. You should get the idea.
So then, FOOs:
1) What do you think of the idea? When you're on our net relaying to the guns, does this sort of thing add any training value?
2) Got any ideas for potential scenarios?
DG
As you may (or may not) know, Recce's primary offensive weapon, especially in the defence, is the artillery. Accordingly, we train all our soldiers to be able to call fire missions and correct fire - the idea being that the FOO is both on our net (we're talking to the FOO, not the guns) and not far enough forward to observe and carry out the mission himself.
On exercise by ourselves, somebody in the CP will play FOO, and usually just parrots back the FOO's "dialogue" during the call for fire. On larger exercises, I assume we have a real FOO on the net, and that the FOO is relaying the mission back to the guns (who I assume are dry-firing the mission)
These fire missions tend to be by the numbers - initial call for fire, a couple of corrections, fire for effect, end mission. Bada-bing, bada-boom.
But in Real Life, nothing works as planned, and it'd be cool to throw a few real-life wrinkles into the exercise.
What I'm thinking is that we'd send a few sealed envelopes along with each callsign, marked on the front with a basic target type - maybe "dug in infantry", "infantry in open", "CRP" etc.
When an opportunity for a fire mission comes up, open one of the envelopes that most closely corresponds to your target type. Inside will be a description of what happens during the fire mission. Most of these will be "by the numbers" with some sort of description of what happens during the FFE - for example, the tank in the CRP might be overturned, or maybe the track gets blown off and the crew bails, or maybe it withdraws intact... but basically, it's a normal fire mission.
But a small percentage has a suprise in it. Some ideas I had:
1) During the FFE, an incoming round strays left/right/long and lands in a wooded or otherwise covered area - and there's a big secondary explosion. If fire is shifted to the woods (may need permission from higher!) there are further secondary explosions. Fire may esclate (on the discretion of the FOO and direction from the CP) until all guns in the area are firing on the target. The concept here is the accidental discovery of a high-value target of opportunity (a forward fuel/weapons cache, or perhaps a hidden SAM battery)
2) Durring FFE, a round lands short, either very near, or ON, the OP. Need to check fire on the mission WITHOUT giving away the OP's position ("Golf 24, you just hit my OP!" tells the enemy where the OP is), deal with casulties, and re-establish the mission minus the offending gun. (I'd really like to hear the official way a FOO would handle this, BTW)
Etc. You should get the idea.
So then, FOOs:
1) What do you think of the idea? When you're on our net relaying to the guns, does this sort of thing add any training value?
2) Got any ideas for potential scenarios?
DG