The Joint Readiness Training Center is pleased to present the sixteenth episode to air on ‘The Crucible - The JRTC Experience.’ Hosted by the Commander of Ops Group (COG), COL Matthew Hardman. Today’s guest is the Brigade Fire Support Officer Observer-Coach-Trainer with Task Force Fires, MAJ Westly “West” LaFitte (Fox 20).

Joint fire support includes joint fires that assist air, land, maritime, cyberspace, and special operations forces to move, maneuver, and control territory, populations, airspace, cyberspace, electromagnetic spectrum (EMS), and key waters. Effective joint fires produce effects beyond the proportion of effort expended in execution. Effective fires are efforts that have both immediate and long term effects on the enemy's capability and will to prosecute the war.

In this episode they discuss joint targeting cycle challenges, insights, and best practices for integrating and synchronizing joint fires. Fires are normally used in concert with maneuver, which helps shape the battlespace, setting conditions for decisive action. At the brigade echelon, this methodology focuses on the employment of fires within the brigade’s deep-fight with the maneuver battalions focused on the brigade’s close-fight. Another effective employment method is their use to support the brigade’s close-fight, which incorporates the use of the maneuver battalions’ mortars into the fires plan. Time is a commodity that must be safeguarded through the establishment of battle rhythms and the adherence to the targeting cycle to ensure shared understanding and synchronization. Brigade and division fires plans should use both kinetic and non-kinetic to codify types of actions while using effects or outcomes to describe desired results.

Part of S07 “Joint Fires Discussions” series.

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“The Crucible – The JRTC Experience” is a product of the Joint Readiness Training Center.